Ghost Station by S.A. Barnes
Pub date: April 9, 2024

Ophelia Bray is a psychologist from one of the wealthiest families on earth. She has a specialized interest in ERS which is a condition that causes a type of violent psychosis in space. One of those events, the most bloody and brutal, has ties to Ophelia, and hence, her motivation to ensure it never happens again.

Going against friends and family, Ophelia goes on an exploratory mission with a small crew to an abandoned planet. Her sense of unease grows as she senses things are off with not only the crew, who resent her presence but with the state of the habitat they left behind. When the pilot, Birch, who knows more about Ophelia than she’d like begins to show symptoms of ERS, things take a turn and a grisly murder occurs but who’s responsible?

Things only get hairier from there and Ophelia and the rest of the crew must pull together despite their differences to fight against an unknown opponent.

While this was more of a slow start for me, I found myself immersed in the imagery. The futuristic way that Barnes writes about it makes it all seem so plausible. There’s a lot of issues at hand, classism and social/economic disparities being among the biggest, and I could feel the rage of someone who’d been wronged by big corp just to earn an extra penny.

That aside, the atmosphere is absolutely eerie and creepy, and the secondary characters were well-written and well-described from Ophelia’s POV.

Tense and thrilling, I’ll be looking forward to Barnes next book!

I loved Dead Silence so I was hoping to love Ghost Station. Both protagonists from Dead Silence and Ghost Station annoy me. I think this one, Ophelia, is worse. She just keeps making terrible decisions and not being rational or understanding to the people around her.

Ghost Station follows Ophelia or Dr. Bray, so is a psychologist brought on a mission to hopefully help prevent a type of PTSD people experience after these missions. There’s also the rest of the crew and most of it set on a planet that has a long dead civilization.

The pacing was off. The first 30-40% dragged and I struggled but then it speeds up but it feels like too much happens in a short amount of time. I didn’t connect to any characters, I didn’t feel the same tension, or eeriness that I did in Dead Silence, and I just wanted it to be over. It was fine.

Here’s the thing: this has a fantastic premise. And parts of it move right along and have your heart pounding. However, it took a fantastically long time for me to get through it. I just never really engaged with the characters, and the pacing overall was soooooo slow. I probably picked up and finished 7 or 8 other books before I finished this one tonight, and I had to keep forcing myself to come back to it. That, to me, is a sign that a book is not for me.

I’m bummed. I really wanted to love it! I can see from reviews thus far that I’m in the minority, and I truly hope the book does well. I want to give this author another try with her highly-rated previous novel, “Dead Silence”.

Trigger warnings: gore, extreme violence, profanity, PTSD, unresolved trauma

I received an eARC from NetGalley and Tor Publishing Group/Tor Nightfire. All opinions are my own.

The horror premise of this novel is solid. However, the slow burn pace of the first half of the novel was a little too slow for me personally, and the ending felt rushed. It was entertaining enough and is a reliable recommendation for sci fi and horror fans alike.

Ghost Station by SA Barnes is an engaging and terrifying fight for survival on an alien planet, pitted against a mysterious menace. Full of well-developed characters, the tension and claustrophobia that comes from having a small group of people in a small space far from home, and the unraveling mystery of what else is on the planet with them. This book is a must-read for fans of space horror, and a great follow up to Barnes’s 2022 space horror book Dead Silence. This was a great story and highly recommended!

Thank you to Tor Nightfire Books and NetGalley for an Advanced Reader Copy in exchange for an honest review.

Thanks first to Tor Nightfire for this complimentary Net Galley copy of this book! I was hooked from page one and read it literally every day til i finished it( I am not great at reading e-books for long sittings). This book gave me the same thrills and chills I got from watching Alien and Event Horizon. The psychological drama teamed up with an alien presence made for an incredibly suspenseful ride. The only slight I had was my lack of confidence in Ophelia. Her character while developed didn't make me confident in her role with the team. I could have used maybe a few more chapters on her actually giving the crew therapy instead of them just bull dozing her. I could go on and on about this book! Definitely go pre-order this book now!

Ghost Station brings the thrill of space adventure to a locked room/abandoned planet mystery all within the most atmospheric old research station one can imagine. Strangers working together, a death mystery and all the psychological horror space can provide. Ghost Station is one place I'm sure never to visit but did quite enjoy from my comfortable set right here on earth!

Ghost Station by S. A. Barnes, an interesting book that had a good premise, I did feel it needed a tie-in to the ending somewhere closer to the middle than it had or a stronger foreshadowing but a good book.

Big thank you NetGalley and to the publisher for the chance to review this book pre-release. At first it took me a moment to get used to the tone & style of dialogue that Ms. Barnes uses (this is my first novel by her), but once I got used to it, Ghost Station blew me away. I love horror, especially space horror, and this book ticked every box for me. I loved the characters, the stakes, and the environment. It was unique, fresh, and absolutely terrifying. A more formal review will be available on my IG/TikTok and Goodreads.

A reclamation and exploration team goes on a mission to a long uninhabited planet once the home of an ancient civilization. Darkness, cold, and a desolate landscape set the perfect stage for this eerie, claustrophobic sci-fi horror tale.


I loved the alien setting and dark, foreboding atmosphere of this story. An abandoned station combined with wintry, isolating storms, and the mystery regarding the planet's former inhabitants made for such a dread filled reading experience. 


I enjoyed the main story where space exploration has become common, but there are still plenty of areas holding unanswered questions and dangerous answers. I really loved the alien civilization aspect of the story and would have loved more about that story thread. This is one of a few elements that I felt were left hanging and gave the ending a rushed, incomplete feel.


For me, the biggest weakness of the book, and what kept me from rating Ghost Station higher, was the characters. I struggled to connect with any of the team members and often found their behavior juvenile and hard to understand. It gave the story a young adult feel, which threw me off, given that the characters are adults.


Overall, this was a pretty entertaining reading experience, especially the second half. I didn't enjoy it quite as much as the author's prior book, but it would still be a fun read for those who enjoy sci-fi horror with a movie feel to it.


Thank you to Netgalley and Tor Publishing Group, Tor Nightfire for providing me a copy to read and review.

Thank you NetGalley and Tor Publishing Group!

I absolutely loved Dead Silence, so I was thrilled to get an advanced copy of this book! Science fiction/space books-even of the horror variety-can have a tendency to get bogged down in technical terms and end up a little dry, in my opinion. S.A.Barnes has the ability to bring home the human side in her stories, so you still get all the cool space feel, while still caring so much about her characters.
She also has the skill to absolutely terrify her reader, sitting safely on Earth, while being horrified with what’s happening to the characters in the darkness of space! High recommendation for this one!

Another thriller from SA Barnes, this time on an alien planet. Full of suspense (and a bit of Succession vibes), this story keeps you reading.

S.A. Barnes shines at making outer space claustrophobic. In Ghost Station, Ophelia is a therapist recovering from past trauma; she's assigned to a group dealing with their own trauma after losing a team member. When they set down to establish residency on a planet, Ophelia is convinced the team is hiding something from her: are they suffering from ERS, the space-based condition that causes sufferers to go insane? Or does the planet have secrets of its own? Barnes gives us a main character who we're not entirely sure of, and a hostile crew that has secrets they're not willing to share. Her worldbuilding gives us just enough backstory of a corrupt family business and its fallout, concentrating more on the stark, sinister atmosphere of a lonely crew. An excellent science fiction/horror novel.

Ghost Station is a solid sci-fi horror novel. It has good pacing and character development. The horror elements are subtle and more so create a tension of what could be in the dark vs what actually is. I took away one star because of the ending. It felt rushed and a bit lacking. I didn’t feel satisfied when I got to the last page. It definitely could have been longer with more explanation of what actually happened with Pinnacle and more info on the extraterrestrial life forms.

Very middle of the road just like the author's first novel. Doing the same kind of idea all over again is going to get boring if all you do is sci-fi horror for every single novel published.

I was SO EXCITED when I saw that S.A. Barnes had a new book coming out and I didn't think I could wait until April to read it. Thank you NetGalley and Tor for letting me read this ARC!
I really loved her first novel, which was pretty much a claustrophobic space horror novel. I could tell this one was totally different from the beginning, but I ended up getting a big taste of space horror before it was done.
In this story, we have someone hiding her past who is on a mission with a group of people who aren't being very welcoming. There are secrets and surprises and I had no idea how it was going to end! The tension lasted throughout the entire book.
There were some annoying characters but a couple I really liked, too. I highly recommend this for anyone who likes space horror,aliens, and space mysteries.

The premise was great but the pacing was all over the place. The first 30% of the book is just wallowing in Ophelia’s head like a moody teenager, then a truck load of action before it just ends. It felt very “it was all a dream” the way she’s just awake and has a boyfriend apparently.

Every bit as tremendously exciting and adventurous [in Space!] as DEAD SILENCE, S. A. Barnes' prior SF/Horror (can you tell I adored it?), GHOST STATION is both exactly what the title promises, and an engrossing tale of exploration, adventure, high tension, violence, murder, and....Something Beyond...

An exploratory crew on a mission to check out several "uninhabited," unexplored planets--a cohesive crew accustomed to working together--is assigned a counselor with tremendous personal baggage. She wants to be helpful; the crew resents her. But on the first planet they visit, whose "planetary rights" have transferred from one cutthroat MegaCorporation to another, the crew discovers inexplicable mysteries, and then extreme implacable Horror.

I read 75% of this book in one sitting, the thriller elements were absolutely on point and I couldn’t put it down. That being said. I do wish more time was spent on the sci-fi elements, I was so intrigued by all of the extraterrestrial nuggets and wanted more from them.

Feels distinct from Dead Silence while still having a note of familiarity.

3.5 stars

Ebook/Science Fiction: What if fictional phycologist Alex Delaware was a woman, went into deep space to evaluate the crew, and there was no Milo. This book moves along, gets slow, and picks up several times. Parts of it are hard science, and other parts are faux fiction.