If Otto was right, then Watson had just discovered their first confirmation of something else out there in the space between the stars, perhaps the very thing that took the Calypso between its teeth at random and shook. Their systems hadn't been powerful enough to detect anything during engagements, until now. If they could finally sense them, they could survive them." While Brown does a nice job of building the world and the ship, this is one of those that I'd say falls under 'sci-fi' light as it doesn't get too far into the mechanics and details of the technology. There's enough to give us the parameters for the set-up. That's okay; I didn't need Aurora level technical details, but some might want more. I, for instance, found myself wondering more about the crisis that launched multiple giant colony ships without better resources. He’d explained it to her before—the decades that the fleet had spent on Proxima b, exposed even at the terminator to the host star’s radiation tantrums, had corroded a number of systems and machines.

I trust you understand the magnitude of this moment,” Otto said, closing Watson’s mouth and cutting off the transmission. I received this book for free from the Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. The Scourge Between Stars by Ness Brown NESS BROWN is a speculative fiction author by day and astrophysicist by night. They are a proud New Mexican living in New York City (and missing green chile) with their husband and two cats, Faust and Mephi. They are currently studying graduate astrophysics after several years of teaching astronomy and encouraging students to wonder about worlds beyond our own. The Scourge Between Stars is their debut. The captain had stopped answering his comms and leaving his quarters last week. As the first mate, she could only cover for him for so long. She stared at the closed door, wondering for the nth time if she should rip out the panel next to it, scramble the wires controlling the mechanism, and force her way in.A perfect blend of science fiction and horror…Short, fast, engaging, wildly entertaining, and unexpectedly gory, it almost demands to be devoured in one sitting.” — Locus For readers worried about it being too dark and gruesome, you get just enough detail to know what's going down but the body horror isn't too graphic. If Ness Brown ever writes a sequel or an additional book in this universe, I will definitely be buying it. I cannot say enough positive things about The Scourge Between Stars! I had such a good time reading it. 🙂 I seriously hope this is like a prequel novella or something to a larger series. I would love more with these characters and within this SF-world.

I will definitely recommend this novella to my friends, and I can't wait to see what else Ness Brown has in store for the future. Are you afraid of generation ships? And outer space? And dying airless, stranded in nothing? Then keep your eyes out for The Scourge Between Stars, which crosses The Expanse with Pandorum by way of Event Horizon and emerges darkly victorious.” — Gemma Files The signal-to-noise ratio was abysmally low. This was nothing like the scrubbed-up audio she had heard in Data. Punches in the static vaguely reminded her of words, but she couldn’t make out anything coherent. Just as she leaned closer to the garbled sound, the transmission cut out. Each of the ships in the fleet is named after goddesses and I liked the references. The characters also had distinct personalities and were fleshed out nicely, even for ones with limited appearances. The real spotlight however is in the story and intense atmosphere throughout the book. It perfectly captured the claustrophobia of being trapped in a hostile environment with nowhere to go.

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This novella has everything I want in a sci-fi horror: lots of action, excellent character arcs, and a solid resolution.” — Buzzfeed She had seen corpses before--that was the reality of war, even if they were just the ones caught in a cosmic crossfire beyond their perception--but never with viscera hanging out like the wires of an opened console." She didn’t laugh. “What’s so secretive that you couldn’t tell everyone earlier?” They could have used some good news at the briefing, which was otherwise spent discussing how close the Calypso was to collapse. It had been cheaper to take to the heavens than try to undo the environmental sins of twenty-first century capitalism.” Now... I am not a stem girlie, but surprisingly, Ness Brown did a fantastic job utilizing engineer and scientific language without overwhelming me. I wouldn't have initially expected this story to be a debut because it has a strong overarching plot with great spaceship world building. You can tell that Ness is a scientist purely from her writing style because she's very direct. The writing doesn't have any lyrical prose because she's describing the scenes as concisely as possible and then jumping into what's next for the characters. This type of writing style, in my opinion, is less common because people like to create lush descriptions of the scenes, so Ness was refreshing in that she doesn't mess around with her writing. Moreover, this writing style led the story to be fast paced with constant action around nearly every corner and sometimes... even within the walls.

A perfect scare to swallow up in one sitting. Filled with blood galore while holding tender humanity at its center, this is my favorite type of horror.”— Chloe Gong , #1 New York Times bestselling author of These Violent Delights I thought the scenes involving the alien monster were so well done. Brown creates tension right from the beginning, starting with Watson’s creepy messages that don’t make much sense at first, but become chilling in hindsight. There’s definitely some Alien in these sections—the dark corridors of the ship, a terrifying scratching noise coming from behind the bulkhead walls, and of course, the sudden appearance of what’s been hiding from the crew and some very tense chase scenes. Brown uses tried and true space tropes to tell their story, and they worked. A perfect scare to swallow up in one sitting.” —Chloe Gong, #1 New York Times bestselling author of These Violent Delights Something about it made her gooseflesh turn into an outright chill. With astrophysical and instrumental sources ruled out, there were only a few things it could be.The Scourge Between Starshad so much potential, but unfortunately it ended up being way too ambitious for its length. Still, Ness Brown’s writing is really good, and despite my reservations about this book, I’d love to see what they come up with next.