I’m certainly not going to hold it against the author of a “monsters on my spaceship” story for wanting to recreate the visceral thrills of the most popular space monster stories of our age. We see a lot here that’s familiar to us from the Alien universe. There’s the sketchy android whom we cannot initially be certain is friend or foe. There’s the one crewman who’s gone nuts and thinks the monsters are a good thing. There’s a fantastically executed scene in which Jack and a heavily armed security detail venture into darkened decks to seal them off and flush the monsters out. We’ve seen it before, but Ness Brown still gives all of it solid entertainment value.

(The above is an excerpt of the complete review, which can be found at the link.)

Jacklyn is the reluctant acting captain of a colony ship that long ago turned back from a desperate attempt to flee Earth and make a new life on Proxima B, a planet they discovered was simply not suitable for human life. Left with no other choice, the colonists are on a long and seemingly doomed trip back to a homework that may be just as inhospitable - if they can reach it at all. Everything feels hopeless, the food rations are tight, regular damage to the ships have broken them down bit by bit, the captain hasn't left his cabin or responded to any of Jacklyn's attempts to reach him, and riots demanding that supplies be less regulated aren't helping things. But things could always be worse. Much, much, worse.

This was definitely a fast paced and engaging sci-fi novella! I would genuinely love to see what else Ness Brown writes from here on out.

Whenever somebody asks me why I don't mess with space, I will be adding this book to my list of references! Like can you imagine being stuck in a metal death trap with the stuff of nightmares and is not like you can open the door because you will literally die??!!! Could neva be me!

A very heart pounding read, from Chapter 1 the tension and 'everything is not quite what it seemness' of the book was set up and I think Brown does well at building and eventually paying off that buildup. SO much happens in 162 pages like we had sentient robots that man was assaulting that robot right like I didn't make that up?? , space madness, revolts, aliens hunting people ... yea good times. Definitely recommend if you are looking for something quick and spooky to read!

The quick summary of this book is: Alien (as in the movie Alien) on a generation ship with extra family issues.

The writing of the book is mechanically good but the plot felt skimpy and derivative, almost like a screenplay. I would read another book by this author if she writes something less like fanfic.

This is a quick, fun book that I very much enjoyed reading. Especially since I find space to be terrifying.

However, I feel like this could have been book 2 in a series because of the way it kind of just jumped right in. I felt like I was missing detail that would have made the experience better. As another reviewer said, I would have liked more detail about the crisis that made them launch multiple ships without better/enough resources.

I would have liked a little more horror and a little more buildup to the horror. But overall, this was a good book. I enjoyed the characters and I thought that the author did a great job writing them. I was thoroughly creeped out by Otto- props to the author for that. I did enjoy the story, I just wish it had been a little longer.

I hope we might get more of this story. Either way, I will definitely be reading this author again.

Thank you to Ness Brown, Tor and NetGalley for an eARC of this book for an honest review.

I requested this for consideration for Book Riot's All the Books podcast for its release date. After sampling several books out this week, I decided to go with a different book for my review.

This book gave me the distinct feeling of being dropped off into a space horror video game like Prey or Dead Space.

This is a wild ride! Trapped on a space ship and sapphic. This was a spooky read and I really enjoyed it.

3 and a half stars.
Starting with the very first chapter I was ready to DNF this book. I'm glad I kept going because wow what a ride.! The MC was still so annoying to me and the author didnt explain everything and I get that there was only so much time with it being a novella and all but then why give us so much useless information in that first chapter? Hopefully this was corrected in the finished version but I won't be finding out.
All in all once it got to the half way mark this book got Good.! Great thrills and a great twist near the end. I started to like the heroine/MC a little bit more and if the book had been longer maybe I would've forgotten and forgave how annoying she was in those first few chapters. But *shrugs*.

This fast paced scifi horror novel does more than just keep you on the edge of your seat—it also highlights how much space (pun intended) in publishing there is for more scifi horror. The book is a quick and exciting read that will give you goosebumps the same way Alien or The Thing does. Can’t wait to check out more by Ness Brown in the future!

I was craving a space opera, so I was really looking forward to this one. This was a fun, fast paced, thrilling novella. This novel made me uncomfortable with the thought of just floating in deep space without any signs of other human life. It created a very claustrophobic feel.

The build up of suspense and atmosphere was well done, and the internal and external threats that the crew faced added to the tension. I enjoyed the mystery and intrigue of what kind of entity is wreaking havoc on this ship. The ending was very climactic and had me on the edge of my seat.

That being said, I don't know if this will have much staying power with me. The audiobook was fantastic, and the narrator did a wonderful job. I appreciated that the author used her astrophysics background to add to the science in the novella. If you want something that is pacey and suspenseful, I recommend this one!

Quick review for a quick read. I'm backtracking a little bit because I originally read this Tor Nightfire novella back in June of 2023. I adored this short, sci-fi horror thriller from the perspective of a Black woman trying to navigate her ship back to Earth with limited resources, a irritated crew, and a mysterious threat looming over them.

Jacklyn Albright has plenty of secrets as she's the - rather recently - minted captain of the Calypso, a spaceship running low on supplies and little hope of being able to reach Earth, a planet long abandoned. But it's too late to turn back to the failed space colony they all left behind. This novella centers quite a bit on the relationships Jack has with the members of the crew - a pesky but well-meaning robot included. I liked getting to know Jack and realizing that she's a flawed character trying to do her best in some precarious circumstances. This hit exactly the right notes for me between a space set horror/thriller and character exploration that kept me on my toes. I rooted for Jack as she recognizes that the crew going mutinous isn't the only thing that she has to worry about in the thick of things. Question is - who are the dangerous stowaways picking off members of her crew and how did they come to be on the ship? The novella answers these questions - and in a way that actually surprised me once the revelations struck. I really liked the ending. It may hit some familiar beats for those who are familiar with this type of story, but I was having so much investment in seeing where it went that I didn't mind that at all. And I appreciated that this had a sapphic romance at the core of it as well.

I absolutely think this worked as an individual, self-contained story, and I would for sure read more from this world if Ness Brown continued to explore it in further stories. This was my first read from the author and I would gladly read more from them in the future.

Overall score: 4.5/5 stars.

Note: I received this as an ARC from NetGalley, from the publisher, but I also checked out a copy from my local library to compare with the galley.

The Scourge Between Stars was an excellent book for fans of the Alien movie series or Event Horizon. The main character was compelling and you cared for her. I wish there had been more alien action but hopefully there will be sequels to fill in some gaps. It was overall an enjoyable read.

First things first: I desperately NEED a movie based on this novella. Full stop. Hire Jordan Peele, cast an up and coming bunch of actors, and give it the budget it deserves. Ness Brown’s writing in this novella is soooooo creepy — I was able to envision everything! There’s lots of tension and jump scares, surprising answers to questions brought up in the beginning of the story, and perfect pacing. The descriptive writing plunges you into the story and grips you until the very end. I literally found myself saying aloud several times “nope nope nope” because I was getting CHILLS whilst reading. I loved the scientific horror in this compact and powerful punch of a story, and I’m looking forward to more of Ness Brown’s writing.

I enjoyed this novella. The suspense wasn't as much as I was expecting, but it is still an engaging story. I would recommend the audiobook. While it is no great dramatic production, which might have dampened the suspense, I did enjoy how it sounded like a sci-fi. I would be interested in reading more from this author.

Jacklyn is the acting captain of a colony ship desperately trying to return back home. Passengers are starving, tensions are high, and riots are breaking out on board, and, to top it all off, something in the walls and it's beginning to kill off the crew. Now she must race to find the intruder before it finishes them off first.

The Scourge Between Stars by Ness Brown is a fast-paced, page-turner of a space horror novella for fans of the Alien franchise.

Honestly, there’s a lot going on in this little novella. We’ve got civil unrest, unresolved parental issues, and an alien infestation. Oh, my! In fact, I felt the story should have been expanded into a full-on novel because the ends felt rushed and leaves a lot of unanswered questions. For instance, around the 80 percent mark, Jacklyn’s father drops out of nowhere that her mother had led a cult aboard the ship, and I was like, what!? We didn’t get any set up for that, and that would have been an interesting idea to have incorporated and explored earlier.

All in all, this is a flawed but exfiltrating read that would have benefited from being fleshed out into a longer story.

While this took a bit to really catch my attention, once it did, I was all in!

This was a suspenseful and exciting SF story very reminiscent of Alien (and I say that with pleasure).

I loved our main character and liked the fact that so much was at stake for her and the inhabitants of her ship.

I was a teensy bit nonplussed by the solution to everything - I didn't hate it, but it wasn't quite as satisfying an ending as I would have liked.

But I thoroughly enjoyed the book and would love to read the author again in the future!

I’m told this owes a lot to Alien and similar stories, but I’m not familiar (I know, I live under a rock), so I’m less qualified to comment on the originality than some other reviewers. For me it was fairly new — not entirely, because I’ve read plenty of sci-fi, and watched some sci-fi TV shows… and even without that, not too narratively surprising.

The thing that was genuinely creepy (for me) was mostly the human aspect — the people who treat other people callously, who decide “me and mine first, and to hell with others”, or “I have the right”. That creepiness definitely adds something here, even though it’s the creepiness of people.

The elements of it are all enjoyable enough, though I feel like maybe it would’ve been a bit better as a novel, with more room to build things up before the deaths start rolling in. Especially since there are essentially two attacks on the ship from different origin (within and without), and one of them is dealt with so glancingly I almost forgot about it in writing this review.

Science fiction and horror go together like peanut butter and jelly. It’s a delicious concoction that begs to be devoured whenever it makes its way to my plate. And much like the sandwich, there is no perfect ratio of jelly to peanut butter, each sandwich offering its highs and lows, but always delectably finishable. But every now and then, you manage to perfect the unrepeatable ratio and create heaven for your tastebuds. The Scourge Between The Stars, a debut novella by Ness Brown, is one of those sandwiches with the right ratios, smashing together well recognized tropes of the combined genres, while adding her own spin to the tried and true formula.

Jacklyn Albright is doing her damned best as the acting captain of the generation ship Calypso as it carries the population of a now dead colony back to Earth. Decades ago it was apparent the colony experiment was failing and Jack’s forbears believed it was best to return home. Amid a series of resource shortages, ship wide strikes, and constant bombardment from the not so empty void of space, a new threat has emerged on the ship. Where it came from is anyone’s guess, but Jack knows she has to face it head on. With her captain, her father, holed up in his cabin, Jack assembles teams to hunt down the possibly alien menace before it kills too many of the already overburdened passengers as they make their way home to earth.

It is apparent that Brown has been influenced a lot by the history of science fiction and horror’s inevitable dance. The film Alien weighs heavily, but it doesn’t hinder Brown’s agility in avoiding the claws planning to scrawl “derivative” into Scourge’s hide. Most of this is handled through Brown’s setting of the stakes. A large portion of the novella is contouring just how ragged the Calypso and its crew are. Environmental degradation within the various sections of the ship, rationing to stretch their limited supplies and the constant claustrophobia of being in space for too damn long plague the ship. It’s all cleverly laid out, highlighting Jack’s ingenuity in filling in for her absent father, taking on responsibility while trusting her crew. The dilemmas are shown in full, so the horror is related to the already poor condition getting even worse. It also showcases how Jack handles and adapts to a crisis before an even worse crisis occurs, so it gives the dance a lot of improvisational opportunities.

Beyond the dreadful knowledge that these folks are going to die a long, cold, and miserable death in space, the alien threat that rears its ugly head is fun and spooky in equal measure. Brown doesn’t seem intent on trying to make the scariest monster and showcase it, she instead opts for a monster that has found its niche within the ship. Jack and her crew have a hard time fighting it, and though they find some clever ways to dispose of the creatures, it always feels like a hopeless battle. Since this is a novella, the pacing is ramped up to the extreme and nothing ever overstays its welcome, tightening the tension. The atmosphere is laden with “even if we stop this, we still don’t have enough to make it home.” Brown balances the tension between the immediate horror of death by aliens with the nihilistic entropic death that teeters on the brink well. It was fun to root for the characters in the moment before being slapped with the cold reality that it probably doesn’t matter anyway.

Something I particularly appreciated about Scourge Between the Stars is Brown’s sharp eye for dissecting a well worn trope in science fiction, the android helper. In particular, the relationship between Jack, the android, and the android’s maker is rife with this commentary. It is mostly geared towards how folks project gender onto objects and beings, even as those beings are still figuring out their purpose and identity. At times it felt a little out of place, but it also sharpened Jack’s character especially since her own misgivings about artificial intelligence and resource allocation are called into question. On top of that, the bits about the void of space and what possibly might fill it are intriguing and I wish I could see more novels approach it with the wary tenacity Brown brings in Scourge.

The Scourge Between Stars is a thrilling, if familiar, ride with some great embellishment from Ness Brown. The main character is resourceful while maintaining a level of vulnerability. The state of the ship provides ample background for the aliens and humans to play in that will make the reader question, “would I rather die quickly and horrifyingly or existentially painfully and slowly?” If you’re looking for that near perfect science fiction and horror sandwich, look no further than The Scourge Between Stars.

Rating: The Scourge Between Stars 8.5/10
-Alex

An ARC of this book was provided to me by the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The thoughts on this book are my own.

<I>First, a thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me to read this book.</I>

I had such high hopes for this novella.

<I>Alien</I> is one of my all-time favorite sci-fi/horror movies, and I thought wow! Same idea, but in a book? A woman main character who is also a POC? More representation in sci-fi? Sign me up!

But in execution, I think this novella was lacking. Jack came off as an asshole for no reason who had no other character traits, the secondary plot line seemed a bit unnecessary and a little eye-rolly, and I didn’t really understand why Watson seemed to immediately be on the Jack train (did Watson not have any contact with humans other than their creator and Jack or what?).

Like, it was okay…? I guess?

It’s short so I can’t say it was a waste to read, but it’s not like I enjoyed it?

I feel like Brown could continue their space/sci-fi writing and really hone in a bit here, but this was a bit too clunky for my tastes.