Halley is on the run from an interplanetary political scandal that has put a huge target on her back. She heads for what seems like the perfect place to lay low: a gigantic space barge housing the cryogenically frozen bodies of Earth's most wealthy citizens.
The ship and its cryo program are long defunct, but Halley starts to think she sees figures crawling in the hallways, and there's a constant scraping, slithering, and rattling echoing in the vents.
It's not long before Halley realizes she may have gotten herself trapped in an even more dangerous situation than the one she was running from....
S A Barnes is carving out a space in the fiction world, writing sci fi horror that's heavy on the psychological side. This is the third one and, like Ghost Station, there's a bit of alien influence here - humanity isn't alone in these novels. And, like Dead Silence, politics and corporations are mostly evil - Barnes isn't subtle in these things.
This is a wonderfully creepy idea - a ship full of almost-dead celebrities, waiting for medical science to catch up and heal them. It's a perfect setting for a horror novel. Barnes keeps the science minimal but plausible, relying on dark spaces and the minds of the characters and readers to do a lot of the work. Halley's permanent sleep deprived state - how did she think she was going to manage never getting more than two hours of sleep at a time? (A question I've also asked about Lost in my time) - adds to the foggy unreality feeling.
I did feel that the sort-of romance was tacked on and unnecessary, but I can understand how Halley would grasp any fragment of kindness and care. Like Ghost Station, I'm still not completely sure what Halley's background was as it's given to us in such tiny fragments, but I understood enough of it.
If you're looking for a sci fi read with real horror, this is the one for you.
📖 Salvaged by Madeleine Roux – A sci-fi horror novel about a spaceship “cleaner” sent to recover a derelict vessel, only to find its crew infected by a terrifying alien force. Atmospheric and chilling, with similar psychological tension and creeping horror.
🎬 Pandorum (2009) – A sci-fi thriller about astronauts waking up on a seemingly abandoned spaceship, only to realize they are not alone. Dark, disorienting, and full of eerie suspense, it’s a great match for the unsettling tone of Cold Eternity.
Cold Eternity publishes on the 8th April 2025. I received a free copy and am giving an honest review.
No comments:
Post a Comment