Oh my gosh, this book was so fun and intriguing! Who doesn’t love a good space book, but then add in elements of horror and psychological thriller, and you have a beautiful masterpiece.

This was my first book by SA Barnes but I will definitely be picking up Dead Silence next 🙌

Thanks Netgalley for the ARC

This cover is stunning. It is everything. I would buy a million copies of the book just for this cover. (Not really, I’m not that rich…)

The prose reads easily. It’s third person present, which is a really hard tense for me. That said, I enjoyed chapter 1, and plan to come back to this one later in the week.

Thank you to NetGalley and Tor for the ARC.

I really enjoyed this book. It was creepy, and you never knew what was a misdirection and what was the "monster". I wanted to learn more about the ancient civilization, but felt the threat that the team faced was slightly undercooked, especially at the end of the book. The characters were a bit one note, except for Ophelia,

The tension grows as character details emerge, the author skillfully weaves together a compelling story with feelings of suspense, unease and curiosity in a slow satisfying build. The space and technology stage a fascinating backdrop for the revelations on the abandoned planet and human introspection.
Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to read this advanced readers copy.

My rating: 4 of 5 stars--

Another exciting, suspenseful space horror read from S. A. Barnes. Dr. Ophelia Bray has a mysterious past and ties to one of the richest families on Earth. And she has *very* complicated feelings about it all. To make amends for her fore bearers, she has devoted her life to helping people struggling with mental illness, especially those who have returned from space voyages with symptoms of psychosis. Ophelia is sent to accompany a team exploring an abandoned planet formerly owned by her family's corporation. The team recently lost a crew member in mysterious circumstances, and Ophelia is determined to help them manage their grief and hold symptoms of psychosis at bay. However, when strange things begin to happen on planet, Ophelia must face her own past trauma.

Ghost Station was an undeniably fun and thrilling read, but I will say that it had a few too many similarities to Ghost Station, Barnes's last book (e.g. characters not being able to trust their own mind and perception, paranoia in a survival situation, being out of control and stranded, class consciousness in a future capitalist space age).

I especially enjoyed the slow unraveling of Ophelia's dark history, and I wished for more epilogue after her return to Earth.

Many thanks to Tor and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Primarily this is a psychological thriller. But the book is also an exploration of trauma, self-doubt, family secrets, and corporate greed. Set on an extinct alien planet, a simple survey expedition turns into a nightmare. The reader and protagonist spend most of the book trying to figure out what’s real or what is a psychological symptom; either way the dangers outside and inside are just as present. I enjoyed this book, if you like space drama and psychological thrillers you might like it too.

Please note, I received an ARC copy of this book for review from NetGalley, but that never influences my honest reviews of books or authors.

I sometimes DNF books like this because they can't keep me entertained but S.A. Barnes had no trouble keeping me involved in this one!

I loved this even more the dead silence. The space horror genre really interests me and I love S.A. Barnes writing. I hope she writes more in this genre in the future.

What an incredibly exhilarating story from start to finish! After reading Dead Silence in 2022 I knew I found an author who mastered space horror and S. A Barnes proved me right once again with Ghost Station. Ghost Station is a story about a crew on a job to an old planet to collect samples but then everything goes really really wrong. It was a slow burn of a story but never boring, it played out like a movie and the characters were well developed and the setting chillingly claustrophobic. Go into this as blind as possible it makes it more fun! But if you love aliens then you’ll really enjoy this one!

“Ghost Station” by S.A. Barnes is a “spacefaring” tale of horror and adventure. It’s also something of a psychological thriller. While I enjoyed much of it, I also found some of it derivative, or not as original as it might have been.

The year is 2199. Dr. Ophelia Bray is a psychologist who has been assigned by her employer, the Montrose Corporation, to travel with and monitor a team of five tasked with exploring a distant planet previously inhabited by an extinct alien race. Specifically, it is her job to prevent any of the crew from falling prey to a form of space psychosis. Ophelia is also the daughter of the rich and powerful family that owns the Pinnacle Corporation, Montrose’s competitor. She is neither liked nor trusted by the crew, especially its commander. And she harbors a secret that, if discovered, would ruin her career, the most important aspect of her life.

So, there’s lots of opportunity for conflict, both with her crewmates and within herself. Those conflicts begin immediately upon her awakening from “cold sleep” as the spacecraft approaches the planet, and continue on the eerie, ice-and-snow-bound surface and inside the large but creepy, deserted habitation built by Pinnacle before abandoning the planet. Are there ghosts there? Do monstrous aliens lurk within the ancient structures towering over the landing sight? Will the crew fall prey to this new form of psychosis that’s barely understood?

On the plus side, author S.A. Barnes excels at world-building. The future she imagines is well-realized and very specific. She is particularly adept at identifying some of the problems that may be caused by the technological developments we’re just beginning to see. And in her vision of the future, corporate greed and corruption, and the concerns of workers, are still very much with us.

Her characters are well-drawn and interesting, although not necessarily likable all the time. There are no real heroes or villains amongst the crew—only characters who are human and believable and who develop and grow relationships.

On the minus side, some of the plotting, as well as some of the devices Ms. Barnes chose to employ, lack originality. More than once, I found myself asking: Where have I seen this before? “The X-Files?” “Alien?” “Prometheus?” “Star Trek?”

Also, the storytelling was, at times, digressive. Ms. Barnes wrote large amounts of “backstory” to flesh out Ophelia’s character and add emotional conflict. However, Ophelia’s excessive—indeed obsessive—internal ruminations over those events, at times, caused the story to lose tension and drag.

But, back on the plus side, the last third of the novel is filled with suspense and delivers an ending that is both satisfying and possibly indicative of a sequel. Were such a sequel to be published, I would probably buy it.

All in all, 3.5 stars rounded up to 4.

My thanks to NetGalley, author S.A. Barnes, and publisher Tor Publishing Group for providing me with a complimentary ARC. The foregoing is my independent opinion.

Ghost Station is a book almost reminiscent of late 90s/early 00s movies. The fast paced plot brings us straight into an eerie worked leaving me wanting more from the start. While the world building feels a little simple, it gives a certain atmosphere to the tale that really made it feel as if I were wasting a movie.

While the narrative benefited from the fast pace, it also ultimately failed the end. Though again that part made me think of watching an old movie. Everything wraps up too nicely.

Our main character is the most interesting as we dive into her past to better understand the decisions she makes while also building horror into every inch of the narrative.

I can't wait for this book to come out to talk to more people. It's a fun an engaging read that I'll be recommending nonstop.

I wasn't 100% sure about reading this book because sci fi stories set in space are kind of hit or miss with me, but I"m really glad I decided to give it a try, because this one was definitely a hit. I've heard it described as "claustrophobic" and I got that impression, too. You can feel the walls of the station closing in on you when crew members start acting odd, and then one of them turns up murdered. Who did it, why did they do it, and who will be next? You find yourself asking those questions right along with the remaining crew members, and then are unable to put the book down until you get your answers!

This is a well written book full of great characters, a setting that is described perfectly, and enough action to keep things tense and keep you on the edge of your seat throughout.

All in all, I enjoyed this book very much and am giving it an enthusiastic 5/5 stars.

*** I want to thank NetGalley, Tor Publishing Group, and S.A. Barnes for the opportunity to read and review an ARC of this book.

I really enjoyed this arc! It is a slow burn. I found it more drama and sci-fi forward with horror as an eerie accompaniment---though, there is one visual I found quite haunting and I have thought about every day unbidden. It has interesting characters and accomplishes rich world building very efficiently.

This book pairs well with the quiet stillness after a snowstorm, Sigourney Weaver, a hot toddy with lots of cloves, and extra blankets.

Read of if you like movies like Alien, Aliens, and the Thing.

Don't read if you want a fast-paced slasher or a rip-roaring bloodfest---though, spoiler, there is blood...and darker things!

Ghost Station did the “the main character has experienced something big you don’t know about yet” really well. This book hit the ground running. I was immediately sucked in and wanted to keep reading to find out how things would go between everyone and what was going on in the history.

Stayed strong throughout with mystery and intrigue and exposition along with character introspection. Ending was exquisitely executed and satisfying without being overdone.

Thank you to NetGalley and Nightfire/Macmillan for the opportunity to review this ARC in exchange for my honest opinion

I'm just a girl, desperately seeking more space horror.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Ever since her last book, Dead Silence, I have been craving more space horror. And I am happy to say Ghost Station gave me just what I was looking for.

Ghost Station follows psychologist Dr. Ophelia Bray as she embarks on a mission to an isolated planet; joining the crew in order to study and prevent ERS - a condition that causes psychological distress during space exploration. But her help is not welcome or wanted amongst this group. That is, until the untimely death of one of their own has everyone wondering if the symptoms they are experiencing is ERS or something else entirely.

Dead Silence is one of my favorite books so this one had a lot to live up to. Unsurprisingly, I loved it, and while there are similarities with her first book, Ghost Station is definitively a different story. I can only hope this becomes a yearly occurrence from this author because I can not wait to read whatever she has planned next.

I went into this book with a lot of hope to read a spooky SF novel. I wasn’t disappointed in that regard. This book did set a good atmosphere/mood for a spooky read. I had a couple of tense moments during my read. Kudos for that.
Unfortunately, there were two things I didn’t like.
One was the slow burn of getting anywhere with the story. I felt it took too long for the story to actually begin. I almost lost interest.
The second thing was the main character. I had a hard time liking her. She always seemed very abrasive to me.
I might be interested in the next book by this author, but I know I’ll never reread this one.

A psychologist who was involved in a tragedy on a space station as a child is assigned to a crew who lost a member in mysterious circumstances as they undertake a new mission to an abandoned outpost.

I was looking forward to this because I really enjoyed the author's first book, Dead Silence, but I did not find this one to be nearly as creepy or compelling. The protagonist's backstory as the survivor of a massacre was more intense than the main plot and might have made a better novel.

As it was, the story was disjointed, with things happening offstage or never fully explored. The strange looming towers were promising, but the reader is left out of the exploratory team's first visit there, and the final visit was muddled and honestly a bit silly, with the visual of essentially throwing pebbles at them. Competing companies, a patient's suicide, a stack of alien corpses, and black market artifacts become part of the background noise, and the ending was a cop out.

Ghost Station is an intense, space thriller that left me chilled to the bone! The story follows Dr. Ophelia Bray, a psychologist dedicated to studying and preventing ERS, a space-based condition known for a notorious case that resulted in the gruesome murders of twenty-nine people. The writing was superb and drew me in right away to this creepy atmosphere with "Alien-like" vibes. I could feel the fear and isolation that the characters were experiencing. It felt like I was right there with them, stuck on a deserted planet. An advance reader copy was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for my honest review.

S.A. Barnes writes an eerie space horror novel set on an ancient planet that exhibits evidence of a lost civilization. The crew tasked to explore the frozen remains of a lost city includes a psychologist whose mission is to help prevent or treat a mental illness brought on the loneliness of these small exploration crews, the lingering physical effects of the “cold sleep” they endure to travel interstellar distances and the accompanying often violent resulting behavior. Trust between her and the crew is limited as she slowly realizes they have hidden agendas as she battles her own personal demons and memories.

This novel is an interesting twist on the usual science fiction genre as it combines slowly growing horror and mystery in a sci-fi environment. Although I found it slow to develop it was interesting read and well paced.

As a big fan of horror books, this was a disappointment. Nothing was very scary, spooky or horrific and it really dragged. The blurb seemed so exciting, but alas, it wasn't.