S.A. Barnes has quickly become one of my favorite voices in horror. This is one to read with the lights on! Terrifying and lonely with an all-too-human center, you'll be rooting for the heroine from page one!

S.A. Barnes has done it yet again, this time with Cold Eternity, the newest space horror that will grace bookstores everywhere on April 8th 2025.

I am so thankful to Tornightfire and NetGalley for the opportunity to read an ARC of this book! And of course, I'm very thankful that S.A. Barnes writes these amazing books for us to consume. (And consume is the perfect word choice for this one!)

If you aren’t familiar with their books, I’ll share a quick recap of my experiences. I bought Dead Silence in 2023 and read it that same year. And wow! WOW! I loved it so much! Previously I’d only really read fantasy or scifi and Dead Silence was one of my first ventures into horror and now I have read a lot of horror! So, thank you to Dead Silence for getting me into the genre. 🩷 When Ghost Station was announced I preordered it and read it around pub day in April 2024, it was another banger and just sealed the deal that S.A. Barnes was going to be an auto buy author for me from now on.

Which brings us back to Cold Eternity! I will admit, I think this book has been my least favorite of the three, but it’s still a five star read for me. It just didn’t give me the same hair raising, chill on the back of your neck, that Dead Silence did. BUT it still did a lot of great things and the build up to the end was perfect. Also I may have been rooting for a romance subplot lol (that we did not get but that’s understandable because of the characters and setting).

Would I suggest this book to other readers? Absolutely. Especially if you are just getting into horror. I think it would be a great starting place. Creepy, spooky, a little gory, and a great story.

Just for fun: FMA - Fuck, Marry, Airlock
This was just too perfect lol

P.S. Tornightfire can we get a hardcover printing of Dead Silence please?? I'd love all of my copies to match!

Last year I received this author’s second book for review and waited FOREVER to read it, then finally picked it up at the end of the year when I was in a bit of a book slump. I was so mad at myself for waiting so long. I immediately went to my Libby app to see what else was available by S.A. Barnes. So, when this book came up for review, I quickly hit that request button.

All three of the books I’ve read by this author were fantastic. Cold Eternity opens by introducing a woman who is on the run and needing a safe place to hide until she can save up enough credits to disappear altogether. She answers an anonymous post for a job as a caretaker on a deserted ship named the Elysian Fields. This ship houses the cryogenically frozen bodies of the world’s richest and most famous people. She readily accepts, eager to finally be alone and safe for a period of time.

All of her peace and safety disappear when she starts to see and imagine strange things. But she chalks it up to sleep deprivation until all those weird things start to add up to something completely evil.

This author’s books are creepy as hell. Just imagine being alone, on an abandoned ship, with only the frozen bodies of the richest people in the universe all around you. A wonky AI system that glitches and warns you to RUN. Weird sounds and vibrations at all times of day and night. *shivers* It all lends a sense of atmosphere that will keep readers on the edge of their seats. I HOPE to see this author’s books on the big screen soon.

The atmosphere of this book fits the title perfectly - chilling and relentless. Recommended for fans of sci-fi, horror, complex female leads, creepy darkness and contemplating the value of life.

Read full review here: https://www.blog.melodyemcintyre.com/2025/02/s.html

This is a book that made major improvements from her second book. It had the same space elements that S. A. Barnes is quickly perfecting, and misses the pitfalls of potentially being repetitive. It is great and atmospheric, spooky, and continues to touch on social class in space horror. As with her previous books there is an element of an unreliable narrator, but I think that it was combined with the AI "character" that worked as a really good foil. This book has reignited my love for S. A. Barnes' work!

I believe this is S.A. Barnes’ best work yet. A political outcast takes a job as a security detail in a spooky ship used to house cryogenically frozen bodies (rich people). The ensuing story has bits of The Shining, Five Nights at Freddy’s and, of course, Alien. The main character rules. Had a hard time putting this one down. Just phenomenal sci-fi horror and political commentary.

S.A. Barnes was my gateway to the terrifying world of sci-fi horror, so I stalked NetGalley until this showed up and read it immediately (and then neglected to write a review for MONTHS. whoops.) I wasn't a huge fan of her last book, Ghost Station, but Dead Silence is one of my fave books of all time, and Cold Eternity gave me lots of creepy-AF Dead Silence-y vibes, but in its own unique and horrifying way. Read this!

Cold Eternity is another great space horror novel by S.A. Barnes. You should definitely read her other two space horror books too. The story is creepy and intriguing. It has many twists and turns. The character are also interesting. It's a real page-turner you won't want to put down once you start reading it. I highly recommend this book to all horror fans!

SA Barnes' best book yet! Full of plot twists and dark atmosphere, COLD ETERNITY digs into the questions of today in a future of political corruption.

Creep-factor-wise, this was Barnes' best book by far. Not many authors can pull of jump scares in books, but she sure as hell does.
Story-wise I think I'd put this number two only sliiiiightly behind Dead Silence. Overall? Adored it.

What a ride! Barnes did it again. A spooky space story set on a decaying cryogenics ship with deadly mysteries. A space horror from Barnes never disappoints and the creepy atmosphere and isolation of this one was on point. Can't recommend this to horror fans enough.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an eARC of this book!

I am a sucker for S.A. Barnes’ sci-fi novels. They’re light sci-fi, suspenseful, and with a little bit of gore but not so much your stomach turns.

“Cold Eternity” I found to be a more entertaining read than “Ghost Station,” though I found the political scandal aspects dull and far too reminiscent of what’s currently going on in American politics. Cutting that out completely and just having no clue why Halley is on the run would have actually been more interesting, and also might have forced an ending change; the ending as-is was a little too neatly wrapped in a bow. It felt like a letdown after the stakes that had come before it.

Overall, though, I found this novel engaging and intriguing enough to read all the way through and I think people who like lighter sci-fi with a bit of suspense and horror thrown in will enjoy this one.

I think this might be S. A. Barnes' best yet. The setting on the defunct almost-abandoned cryogenics ship, Halley's character and her motivations and her growth throughout the horrors of the story, the body horror, the physical fear, the existential dread, the narrative commentary that is timely and weighty but not badgering, the whole thing, and the ending, it was all perfect. I loved it.

Cold Eternity by S.A. Barnes is a tale of isolation and unanswered questions, centered around three-hour increments of time.

Let’s dive in!

My Thoughts on Cold Eternity by S.A. Barnes –
Desperate to find a safe place to hide out for a bit, Halley is excited when she gets a callback about a job where isolation is the key feature. During the interview, she learns details that had been left out of the posting that make her nervous, but without another option, she still accepts the job.

Over time, she learns the sounds she had been growing accustomed to weren’t just the sounds of the ship settling…

I love that the author slowly gives us insight into what landed this character in this position! And my gosh, what a doozy of a story it is! With so many political elements, there were some that were spot on to what is going on today that made me sick to my stomach.

Having a kid showed me how quickly the hours can fly by. So the focus on pushing the button every three hours had me so anxious. As a reader, it’s impossible to tell how much time has passed unless the character specifically thinks about it, and that makes the tension so intense!

Oh my god, the nighttime bed scene!!! Pure nightmare fuel. This is why I don’t sleep with any body part hanging out of the covers!

My Favorite Passages from Cold Eternity –
I stride toward the pub, trying to find the fine line between moving with confident purpose and, well, running. The second I move, I can feel eyes on me, attention stripping away my illusion of invisibility.

It was one of those moments when you don’t realize how worried you actually were until you can finally see your way out from under whatever it is that’s sitting on your chest like a six-hundred-ton baroque cruiser.

Under my ribs, there’s a burgeoning scream locked away so tight that it feels like the bones might peel away from the force of trying to contain it.

Suddenly I feel all too aware of the dark and shadowy corners of the room. And the giant void under my bed. At least, I hope it’s a void. It is the only possible place something could hide.
There’s nothing in here.
I’m almost sure of it.

The resident’s room beyond is in shadow, but the smell is oppressive here, like physical force pushing me to retreat.

My heartbeat accelerates until I can feel it in my fingertips. No, no, no. This is wrong! Something is wrong. Go, now!
But, as always, I’m constitutionally incapable of fucking letting it go.

My Final Thoughts on Cold Eternity –
S.A. Barnes absolutely kills the space horror genre. This is my third read from them and it’s the third time I thought for sure I had the plot figured out but was incredibly incorrect. This was a dark and terrifying blast of a read!

Preorder your copy today! Cold Eternity launches from Tor Nightfire on April 8th, 2025!

I have read Ghost Station by S. A. Barnes and this one lived up to the hype and expectations I had from reading their previous work. Halley is trying to hide out from a scandal on a space barge that is holding cryogenically frozen bodies of Earth’s most wealthy citizens. But it seems that, while everyone in the barge should be frozen, there are other beings on the barge. First, I love the trapped feeling of being in space in a container and having nowhere to go. Also, this book was very atmospheric being in space and wondering what is happening. It was scary, and I love the way Barnes keeps throwing "problems" in the mix. This is definitely a must read for anyone whole loves space horror.

I love starting off the year right with a 5-star book.  S.A. Barnes’ new space horror novel, Cold Eternity, is her creepiest and best novel yet.

The protagonist is a somewhat naive government official on the run, trying to build a new life for herself while hiding from her former employers. She takes a secret job on an old ship to earn money…and has been warned that previous caretakers have lost their minds and seen spooky things.  Very The Shining in space.

I love how each of Barnes’ books has a basic “Flawed female protagonist takes a kind of suspicious job in a remote area of space, and shit gets weird” premise…but the shit getting weird is so different and unexpected each time.

Cold Eternity embraces Alien-style anti-corruption and anti-capitalist themes, which I always love in a sci-fi horror.  It also brings in some weird mythological aspects that I loved. It’s Barnes’ most complex novel, with her most interesting protagonist.

I’m also scared of any sound in my walls now, so thanks for that.

Thank you to Netgalley and Tor Nightfire for my review copy.

Nobody writes an unreliable narrator like Stacy Barnes! Cold Eternity takes a little more specualitve\supernature twist than her previous books, and I am here for it. If Dead Silence made me afraid to look under my bed, Cold Eternity made me terriefied of stairwells. Barnes writes very thoughful space horror- it's not just here to scare us, each book also has a very present message about greed, economic status, and how (even where there are other forces at play), oftentimes the real horror is humans. This would be the perfect pick for a horror book club.

Atmospheric, creepy, eerie, chilling, and horrific! S.A. Barnes is queen of space-fantasy-spaceship books! I can always count on her to bring the thrills, the chills, and to provide the hairs standing up on the back of my neck feeling that I love. This book is oozing with unease and dread. Cold Eternity gave me the heebie jeebies. Can you imagine being on a spaceship, cut off from others, having to hit a button every three hours, and hearing strange small noises? S.A. Barnes brilliantly nailed the eeriness and loneliness of space, coupled with sleep deprivation, tension, and dread.

Halley has accepted a job on the Elysian Fields, a spaceship carrying the cryogenically frozen bodies of Earth's wealthiest and elite citizens. There she will do rounds and push a button every 3 hours in exchange for room and board and a small salary. She is happy to have the job as she is running from a political scandal.

Things take a turn when she thinks she saw something. But she is sleep deprived, and who hasn't seen something out of the corner of their eye to only have it be something else. Karl, the mechanic and man who hired her, says it was nothing, just a computer glitch...

This book played out like a movie in my mind. I loved the atmosphere, the trapped feeling, the unease, and the dread. I also loved the creepiness of Halley being on board a ship full of cryogenically frozen bodies. Creepy! The eerie vibe mixed with the mounting dread and tension had me feeling tense and on the edge of my seat. I had no idea where this book was heading or what was going to happen as Halley walked around making her rounds.

This book is a little bit of a slow burn but I did not mind it one bit as I knew that Barnes was building tension and dread while enabling readers to get to know more about Halley and the Elysian Fields ship. This book becomes more and more terrifying as the book progresses.

If you have not read a book by S.A. Barnes before this is a great book to start with. My favorite book of hers is Dead Silence.

Chilling well thought out, horrific, and atmospheric!

This was SUCH a wild ride! I loved the concept of living forever and how that intertwined with an alien. The kids having a continued 'conscious' even though their bodies have been dead for YEARS was such a unique twist. Everything about this book was so interesting and insane, and I loved every moment of it!

So many levels of horror for this one. Awesome.
The main character is a young woman with her own baggage and righteous values. She needs to hide but picks the worst job possible. She has to activate a button every 3 hours nonstop stop, which leaves her sleep deprived and susceptible to all sorts of mental disturbings, but what she is seeing and experiencing is far from being in her head. There are many layers of tension and story: the people in cryo, her past, her relationship with her narcissistic parents, her need to survive, the creepy AI and her need to inderstand what is really happening in that "museum" unveiling a terrible secret.
The book kept me on edge until the end with vivid horrifying imagery of a terrible thing that is living in the same ship as her. 

It's also one that can be reread, once we know what she is facing the thrill of her survival can be experienced more than once (not like some thrillers we can only experience once).


Thank you netgalley and pub for approving this one on my birthday. Best gift ever.

such a good book!!!! It is so creepy and scary . the horror is felt while reading, it is scary to be so alone like the main character, and it actually horrifying that something like this could actually happen in real life i the semi-near future. It is so crazy


Thank you to NetGalley, to the author, and to the publisher for this complementary ARC in exchange for my honest review!!!

Title: Cold Eternity (9781250884954)
Genre: Space Horror 👻
Author: S.A. Barnes
Publisher: Tor Nightfire
Anticipated Pub Date: April 8, 2025
Steve’s Rating: 4.5 ⭐ out of 5 ⭐


I am so glad Tor Nightfire (apparently) made a three-book deal with S.A. Barnes, a fellow educator-author who’s become one of my favorite writers working today. Her latest, Cold Eternity, takes what worked really well with Dead Silence (2022) and Ghost Station (2024) and absolutely rips (that’s a good thing) a new story with new characters, all of which build on those successes.


I loved that those earlier stories offered characters’ choices that made sense given who their actions showed them to be. I shivered at the sense of growing dread Barnes built through increasing and eventually explosive bouts of tension finessed into the plots of those books, and I felt compelled, as I wrote in my review of Ghost Station, to keep reading until I was through the whole story.


At the start of Barnes’ latest, our protagonist Halley is on the run from the consequences of well-intentioned but naive choices made from a position of privilege, and she’s slumming it, looking for under-the-table work that’ll keep her fed without letting folks know who she is. Halley takes on a spaceship caretaker’s role on a massive, supposedly dead ship… tasked with making what amount to janitorial rounds and pressing a check-in button every three hours, our main character is reduced as the story proceeds and she realizes she’s not alone. What ensues is more than a little creepy, even for a seasoned horror reader.


Barnes’ narrative voice is strongest when our character is alone, facing insurmountable odds, and gathering from her core what she needs to survive. The settings are again standouts in this novel, as they were in Barnes’ first two. The political intrigue at times feels a bit forced, but this is a slight knock against an otherwise stellar (no pun this time) work of great skill and artistry.


I recommend you read this book. If you’re not sure about space horror, give it a whirl. If you already know S.A. Barnes’ work, you didn’t need to read this review because you already knew you wanted more from this author. It’s coming, April 2025, from Tor Nightfire.

Another slam dunk in the space horror genre from SA Barnes. Halley is on the run from her parents and former employer so she takes a job on Elysian Fields a space barge which is the perfect place to lay low being a floating crypt. Her boss who can never seem to be found on board keeps her mainly alone. She begins hearing and seeing things that cannot possibly be and finding talisman around her room. Is she going insane from the isolation or is something way more sinister at hand in this ship. Wonderfully told it’s terrifying and pulse pounding at every turn. Alien meets AI meets the Shining I cannot wait for the next one. Big thanks to Tor Nightfire for the arc in exchange for a review. I loved every weird moment. 5⭐️

Holy creepy vibes, my book peeps!! 🙌

Imagine yourself alone (well, essentially) on a spaceship, level upon level filled with cryogenically frozen people and a theater housing AI holograms!! Oh, and let’s not forget that you’re also stuck with something else that lurks in the dark and is very hungry… 😳🫣

Heebie jeebies galore with this one!! Just another reason why S.A. Barnes is an auto-buy author for me!! Highly recommend!! 👏

Thank you to NetGalley, Tor Nightfire, and S.A. Barnes for the opportunity to read the eARC in exchange for my honest review!! ❤️

So you're hiding from your old boss, some thugs, and, of course, your parents, on a floating cemetery ship filled with rich corpsicles who thought cryogenics would eventually allow them to be cured. You're alone. There are weird noises. You have to keep a schedule that only allows 3 hours of sleep at a time. You're getting paid peanuts, your boss is into some sketchy business, and all you have are bad choices.

Now imagine that there's something impossible skittering and creeping its way around the ship. Your boss is gaslighting you. And a hologram in the shut-down theater somehow knows your *real name*.

Another brilliant spooky space novel by S. A. Barnes! Riffs on Family dysfunction, political corruption, bitter disappointment with yourself, and *oh hell no, what was THAT?* in the emptiness of space. :happy shivers:

This book was perfectly atmospheric and spooky! SA really knows how to make you feel like you are right there along side these characters. I was on the edge of my seat for the entire book waiting to see what would happen next. This was one of my favorite FMCs she’s written and seeing her motivation and her story progress was so much fun. Such a good one!!!

I am a huge fan of both sci-fi/horror and SA Barnes. I have loved both her previous sci-fi/horror novels so much, and this one lives up to every expectation. This book is unsettling from the jump and I adore how grungy and off-putting the station we start off on sounds. And how much the dead ship has fallen into disrepair. The dead ship is so deeply creepy, even before the first things are seen, and Karl just sets all my hairs on end. As with her other books, this story will linger with me for a while, as Barnes is a master at creating flawed, relatable characters who worm their way under your skin, who you can't help but root for, who you feel for greatly. And as much as I love the (mostly) shiny sci-fi of Star Trek, Barnes's rough and crumbling capitalistic sci-fi worlds hit much harder as it becomes clear that is the future we're more likely to get. I loved this book so much and Barnes is one of my favourite authors, no question.

She's done it again!! S.A. Barnes is my favorite new author and a favorite at the library I work at. This was such a great mystery, jaw dropping really. I absolutely loved this book!!

Cold Eternity follows Halley, a young woman on the run from an interplanetary planetary scandal. She has a huge target on her back and is desperate to avoid two groups gunning for her location. After an attack in the middle of the night, she finds the perfect job opportunity on an old spaceship built for cryogenically frozen humans with only one other person on the staff. The program is defunct and is used as storage for all the frozen bodies of wealthy humans. Completely isolated and far from reach, Halley soon realizes the job is not perfect. With long hours of little sleep, she starts seeing things crawling in the hallways and creeping, slithering sounds in the vents that keep getting closer to her room …

S.A. Barnes has done it again! She is the queen of sci-fi horror, and I will always devour her books. They’re truly incredible and amazing, incredible additions to this niche, fabulous genre. Cold Eternity was immaculate. I LOVED the twist—I screamed it was so great—and this one was particularly my brand of super scary and horrifying. It was so interesting to see if Halley was losing it or if there was truly something more going on. The bodies were just so creepy and haunting. The fact that it was only two people on the very isolated ship—the vastness of space is so terrifying to me—with weird stuff going made it sooooo creepy! The book kept me on the edge of my seat, and I loved every minute. There was such an interesting take on AI, and I loved how everything ended.

Halley is a great main character. She’s got a lot going on and it was so nice to see her growth throughout the novel. She’s so caring and wants the world to be better and it was so admirable that she truly cared for the cryogenically frozen people and Aleyck. I loved their relationship and was so glad that they each got a happy ending in a way.

This book was just perfect for sci-fi horror fans and S.A. Barnes knocked it out of the park like usual. I am desperate to read everything single thing she writes—she's one of my favourite authors and this just made her even more so.

I’d highly recommend this book to anyone looking for a phenomenally scary sci-fi with a great take on humanity, greed, AI/technology, and the terrifying possibilities with the vastness of space and being super isolated.

A huge thank you to Tor and Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!

I love this author's brand of scifi/horror. Very entertaining and very good at creeping you out. The pacing is good and I liked the slow reveal on why the main character found herself in such an unfortunate situation. I'm definitely keeping an eye out for future books from this author.

Cold Eternity by S.A. Barnes is a dark, thrilling horror novel. Our heroine, "Halley", is well-formed with strong opinions and a capable attitude that makes her someone we want to root for. The mystery behind the story is compelling and the creature is deliciously grotesque. I've enjoyed all of Barnes' novels thus far, and this one is just as fulfilling!

S.A. Barnes is one of those authors who's an automatic read for me. I loved Dead Silence but not so much Ghost Station. I was worried I wouldn't like Cold Eternity, but I think I might like it even better than Dead Silence...

10/10, no notes. Can't wait to see what S.A. Barnes writes next!!

(I also received and reviewed the audiobook version of Cold Eternity)

I just…god, these books are all so good. Barnes KNOWS what she’s doing, and she does it so so well. Cold Eternity feels more isolated and sadder maybe than I expected; the protagonist is alone for a lot of this novel, and the core connection/relationship in this one actually WRECKED ME. It’s insanely tough to write a book with so few characters, where so much is happening inside the mind/experience of just one person bopping around on their own, and Barnes truly knocked it out of the park. Never once did I feel like it slowed down to a degree it didn’t NEED to.

I also really appreciated the exploration of what it means to do good in a system too large to effectively change on your own, and a lot of the larger worldbuilding and themes felt insanely relevant to the here and now.

I thought the plot and pacing were both very solid, the tension and spooky levels were HIGH, despite it being such an introspective book, and I loved Halley and the other sympathetic character. I’ll be thinking about the tragedy of that plot line for a LONG time, I think.

Of course this book is going on my list of recommendations for sci-fi horror. Barnes and Starling are my top recommendations these days and I don’t see that changing any time soon.

4.5 stars.

COLD ETERNITY, the latest Space/Horror novel from author S.A. Barnes, is my favorite one yet!
"Halley" is lying low until an interplanetary political scandal cools off. This isn't as easy as it sounds, as everything is electronically monitored in this future. She is able to find what seems like the perfect location--the Elysian Fields; a ship carrying the cryogenically frozen bodies of the wealthiest people, wishing to defy death by "returning" when technology was sufficiently advanced to cure whatever ailed them. After about two centuries, most other ships that tried to capitalize on this venture went out of business, but somehow, the original started up by Zale Winfield was still out there.

Through a very sketchy "interview", Halley is brought aboard the ship--surrounded by frozen capsules of people who will likely never be resuscitated--and is tasked with making meaningless "rounds", pressing a "check in" button every few hours. The perfect place for someone who doesn't want to be found to hide out.

Except that she begins seeing things she can't explain...things that defy logic.

We learn about Halley's past throughout the novel--piece by piece as part of the whole, instead of one giant info dump. Even events from her childhood that had an effect on her situation, to an extent. I feel this was very well integrated, and helps the reader get to understand her motivations and beliefs. The story had some fantastic scenes that I did not see coming, and once begun, the pacing picked up dramatically.

Overall, I honestly loved the ideas in this story, the world building, and the other sub-genres of horror that were included. My only reason for the half-star deduction in my rating was the ending--everything was wrapped up too quickly, and with all of the issues taking place, I felt that more time should have been spent there.

Recommended.

*I received an ARC from NetGalley and the publishers. All opinions are uniquely my own.*