I am so thankful to Macmillan Audio, Tor Nightfire, Netgalley, and S.A. Barnes for granting me advanced audiobook access to this twisty sci-fi/dystopic thriller before it's projected to hit shelves on April 9, 2024.

Wow. Wow. WOW. I give this book ALL of the stars. When I say “I only like SOME sci fi”, THIS book is exactly what I mean. This is a pretty long audiobook, and I was hooked on every. Single. Word. I could not get enough. This entire concept is so interesting to me, and the character development is unparalleled. I sometimes get stuck on how “unrealistic” sci fi can be, and it prevents me from enjoying the story, but everything in this book is completely within the realm of possibility to me(although I’m not a scientist so what do I know! 🤪). There is so much back story and context in this book, which can be so daunting and feel borderline irrelevant in some books, but it is so well done in this story. The narrator did a fantastic job as well, and her performance hands down contributed to the enjoyment and entertainment of this book. I absolutely loved this!

Thank you so much to Netgalley and Macmillan Audio for the opportunity to listen to this advance copy of this fantastic book!

I requested Ghost Station because I absolutely loved Dead Silence by the same author: I was so excited to have another space horror.
However, this one seemed to drag a bit. I don’t really think I appreciated the flashbacks. They seemed to add more fluff to the story but not actually any terror. We find out about Ophelia’s background from Birch before it’s officially revealed, which makes the reveal, well, nothing. I think if you want to have that kind of relationship, it should be more of a surprise.
Also, I didn’t like the name change from Severin to Ethan. I understand that their relationship changed, but in general, I don’t enjoy name changes in books. Just keep the continuity.
By the time we got to the last 80% I was so ready for the horror to begin, but I was also zoned out. I just didn’t care any more.

I think making this a bit shorter and focusing more on WHAT is causing all the issues would make for a better story.

The narrator was amazing though. I loved the whispering “little bird” and tone changes. It helped add to the story.

A crew must try to survive on an ancient, abandoned planet in the latest space horror novel from S.A. Barnes, acclaimed author of Dead Silence.

After reading and loving Dead Silence, I knew I was gong to have to give this one a shot. While categorized as Space Horror just like the previous book, I found this one to be more of a thriller set in space. The plot was engaging and interesting, I just didn't think there was enough horror in it. Reading it as a thriller can be very rewarding, just don't go in expecting to be scared. A solid, fun and quick four star read:)

While I’m thankful for the opportunity to read this, it just never got going for me. I felt like it dragged on and I was forcing myself to finish it. I loved dead silence so this just left me wanting more.
Ophelia was annoying, the story was boring, and I never felt any sense of “horror”. It felt like a rough draft, and very very repetitive and like it went no where.

After reading Dead Silence two years ago, I was excited to find out that the same author was coming out with a new book this year. I really enjoyed my time with Dead Silence, but Ghost Station was honestly hard to get through. I love space horror, but this book (in my opinion) isn't really close to horror at all. I'd consider this more of a 'thriller that just happens to be on a different planet', since, besides some seemingly forced body horror, there wasn't anything too terrifying about this. (I am a big horror reader though, so this might be scarier for someone who doesn't read in that genre a lot).

One of my biggest issues with this book is that it took such a long time to actually get me interested in the story. I received an ALC copy of this book, and during the first 50-60% of listening to this, I was trying to convince myself to not DNF it. It takes a while to get anywhere, with the first half mostly going in circles about the main character's past and how much she has gone through in her privileged life, which she considers to not be privileged? (I could honestly write a whole other review just talking about that.) I've read many books with unlikeable characters, but I don't know if that was even the author's intention with the character or if she kind of just ended up like that. Ophelia, the main character, also has this instant attraction to the captain and feels the need to be approved by him. Maybe this isn't a huge deal for people, but the captain was really rude to her at the beginning and I just felt like the 'romance' was unnecessary.

And finally, the ending. I looked at some Goodreads reviews while listening to the book and it spoiled the ending for me, which I've never been more thankful for. If I didn't know what to expect and then got that ending, I might've rated this close to a 1.5 stars. All the setup for it to not really even be explained at all was a bit frustrating to be honest.

As you may be able to tell, I wasn't a fan of this book. I really wanted to like it, and the synopsis sounded super interesting, but the execution didn't work for me. In my mind, this is a 2.25-star read. Most of the stars though are because I'm a sucker for reading any space-themed 'horror' or 'thriller' book.

Honestly, if you're looking/expecting a book about horrific things happening in space, maybe look elsewhere.

Thank you to Tor for providing me with this advanced copy!

Many thanks to Macmillan Audio, author SA Barnes, and NetGalley for providing me the ALC in exchange for my honest review! The audiobook will be released on April 09, 2024.

2.5 STARS

Ghost Station initially reads as if you’re spending time on Mirror Verse Enterprise as an alternate Deanna Troi who’s less happy with more baggage. Our protagonist Ophelia awakens from “cold sleep” aboard a spaceship. As the crew conducts an exoplanetary exploration mission, Ophelia navigates tenuous relationships with crew members in her capacity as ship’s counselor. She herself has an interesting pedigree and professional history she’d like to keep quiet. Then weird things start cropping up…

My Issues With Ghost Station:
a) The pacing is slow to take off. The storytelling is very detail-oriented. The author is downloading info into readers and getting us acclimated for the first third of the book. The pacing and activity of the plot pick up in the second half, but by then, it was too little too late for me to care.
b) I was neither horrified nor particularly thrilled. The plot also didn’t do much to make me enjoy the sci-fi space opera aspect.
c) I felt wholly detached from the characters. Ophelia’s conversations with the other characters are professional interactions that do veer into hostile exchanges. The personal tidbits and emotions that peek through do not feel like organic character building moments but vehicles for furthering the plot. Maybe this can be waved away by the fact that the narrative purposefully detaches Ophelia from others as an outsider? She is stuck in her live-in job. However, even Ophelia herself gave me little personality other than her worries and thoughts in regard to her job competency and greater plot.

Overall, Ghost Station didn’t work for me, but it was solidly written. The narration by Zura Johnson was fine if a little one-note.

Dr Ophelia Bray is trying to make up for the past, both her own and her family's. Part of this effort is done by joining a team going to survey a planet that was known to have life. Many space travelers have suffered from their prolonged experience in space and Dr Bray is there to try and help the team minimize these effects. She is not welcomed with open arms and when one of the crew brings up her past, it makes it even harder to trust her. But the longer they are on the planet, the more it becomes apparent that something is wrong and they may not be able to escape it.

Something I found interesting with both Ghost Station and Dead Silence do the portrayal of capitalism. I know sometimes it's nice to have an escape from reality, but I found it really intriguing to consider. In Ghost Station especially, capitalism is the source of a lot of the problems the team suffers, both before and during the story. Overall this was a fine book. It was suitably thriller-y and horror-y, the mysteries made me want answers. But we didn't get all of the answers in the end which is always something that bothers me, I am not a fan of loose ends.

And finally, this isn't really a spoiler, but if you have trypophobia (an irrational or disproportionate feeling of discomfort or revulsion at the sight of clustered holes or bumps) I maybe wouldn't recommend this for you. The lead up to the reveal had enough instances of it that I almost stopped reading, but wound up just skipped ahead past descriptions.

Thank you to NetGalley for making this available in exchange for an honest review!

This was one of my most anticipated releases. I absolutely loved Dead Silence so I couldn’t wait to read more from this author. This was just okay for me. I never got fully invested in it. The first 40% was super slow and I did consider DNFing. Things did pick up though & the suspense kicked in. I was hoping for it to be a little scarier but it’s fine. I do recommend the audiobook! It’s narrated by Zura Johnson who I think did a great job.

A greedy, rich, murderous family, a chance to redeem herself, a trip in spacy to another planet. Ophelia, a psychologist is on a mission with a team who doesn't trust her. When they arrive on the planet, weird things start to happen. She is trapped on this ancient planet that clearly has some type of life as there are buildings rising from the snow. When a teammate dies a gruesome death, the crew must work together and overcome their pasts. I definitely enjoyed this book! Space, aliens, greedy corporations, and people who do not trust you based on your family.

Dead Silence is one of my favorite books, so I was dying to read another space horror from SA Barnes. Ghost Station started off as more of a slow-burn suspense, but the creeping, slowly escalating sense of unease and dread was excellently done. Combined with tension from the friction Ophelia experiences with the team as she tries to get them to trust her, as well as Ophelia's own mysterious past, I was on the edge of my seat. As with Dead Silence, there's an anti-capitalist undercurrent throughout the story that I enjoyed, and there was also a deeply compelling section on guilt and moving the goalposts for oneself that I really appreciated.

However, around the 75% mark, the story took a direction that I wasn't fully on board with, so that made the rest of the book fall a bit flat for me. Maybe it's just because I can't stop comparing it to Dead Silence, which I thought had a much more powerful message at the end, but I wasn't quite satisfied with how the book wrapped up.

Audiobook rating: 5/5 stars. The narrator, Zura Johnson, had a voice perfectly suited for a therapist character and made the scenes full of tension and dread really come to life.

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan audio for this ALC!

I read Dead Silence by Barnes a few weeks back and I liked it, but didn’t love it.

I felt the same way with Ghost Station. I was slightly confused through the first half, but by the second half I was fully invested! Unfortunately I was let down by the ending. That being said, I found this story to be very interesting and I liked the narrator!

I’m not a huge sci-fi reader but I think fans of it will like this one.

I found this one to be significantly more enjoyable (though also significantly less scary / less “special”) than Barnes’s previous work DEAD SILENCE - I mean, let’s be real, nothing tops an ocean of frozen human corpses just floating near the ceiling of an abandoned shopping mall. I think again that Barnes spent way too long trying to make the MC “unreliable” and not letting the true terror of the situation speak for itself - however, I did really like the way the characters interacted with each other and the dynamic that Ophelia creates coming into the mix after a tragedy.

There are a lot of moments where the attention to detail that was present in Dead Silence could really have elevated Ghost Station if we weren’t being dragged along with Ophelia’s distractions: namely whenever we’re exploring a space or in a high-tension confrontation in what is essentially a pitch-black maze. Really settling into the details would have done so much for me personally to elevate the horror.