I have been waiting for S.A. Barnes' Cold Eternity for what feels like an eternity, and it did not disappoint.

Barnes has created an atmosphere that is both intriguing and creepy. The story follows Halley as she tries to run away from her past, but ends up living on a barge in space that hosts the frozen bodies of ancient elite society members. This ends up being part ghost story and existential introspection.

Cold Eternity is the perfect spooky read for anyone who likes horror or science fiction!

*Thank you Netgalley for giving me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I know this author gets a lot of mixed reviews for her sci-fi horror, but I LOVE S. A. Barnes’ work! 😀 I was so happy when I found out about her newest book, Cold Eternity. I couldn’t wait to read it! ❤

WOOOOOO BABY!! Cold Eternity did not disappoint me at all. 😀 I enjoyed this story just as much as the authors other scifi horror. She is so consistent with her work. I know I will always have a good reading experience with one of her books.

Once of my favorite parts about this story is the ultra creepy setting. Yes, it’s true, the empty and abandoned space ships in previous (S. A. Barnes’ ) books were also creepy… But in Cold Eternity, this space ship isn’t fully abandoned. D:

The ship is filled with people placed in cryogenics, an old tech that has no way of reviving the people. They are basically dead… but not exactly. It is very creepy thinking about being the only caretaker on this massive ship of almost dead bodies. Very isolating. Chilling. I would be jumping out of my skin at ever creak and groan the ship made. 😮 The author does a phenomenal job at making the setting crawl under your skin.

At first, I wasn’t wild about the political backstory / plot point. Not that it was a bad part of the story! I’m just not a huge politics sort of person, so it just didn’t appeal to me at first. The more I read, though, the more the politics grew on me.

There area few really nice twists and turns. Some of them were a real nice surprise! Just when you thought you had the main twist figured out, BAM! A twist to the twist! One I definately did not see coming at all.

I don’t want to say too much about the bad guy because I don’t want to spoil anything…. but dude was pretty ICK. D: The descriptions are grossly creative. Definitely a fresh take.

Cold Eternity is a creepy space horror story that makes you want to turn on every light in the house. The atmosphere and setting is one of my fave parts of the story. The politics were a little slow moving at first but quickly grew on me. The plot has some crazy twists! Just when you think you know what will happen, surprise! A twist from out of nowhere! I have enjoyed everything I’ve read from S. A. Barnes so far. Cold Eternity is another solid space horror story from her. Entertaining and creepy down to the last page. 🙂

SHE SHOULD HAVE SAVED ALEYK AAAAH !

The pacing was really good, I saw a real improvement since dead silence !
I feel like it was more SCI-fi than horror tho, I feel like in the future, the author could go darker and more horrory.
With how dead silence ended I had real hope that she’d save Aleyk and the fact that she couldn’t broke me

Thanks to the publisher for inviting me to read this title early!

I've really liked this author's work in the past, and I liked this one fine as well, but I definitely think it was missing some of the things that made me enjoy previous works. Specifically what I found myself missing was the cast of characters that had been present in the last two titles I've read; I think Barnes is very good at writing a balanced cast of characters and that has made books like Dead Silence really enjoyable to read! The premise for this one didn't allow for that sort of cast of characters and I understand that, but I did still miss it.

The claustrophobia in this was very well done and I found the isolation of it all very creepy. I also was so unsettled by the AI aspect and what was done to some of these characters was so chilling to me! It ramped up a lot at the end in a way that worked very well for me and I found it to ultimately be another really solid work from this author.

The plot and the mystery of this story and backstory had me more intrigued than any horror aspect within it. The creepy atmosphere, however, was excellent. Just imagining being on a ship essentially alone with a bunch of bodies that are cryogenically preserved is creepy enough. The eventual monster of the space horror would likely be more terrifying in a movie than on the pages of a book, but the psychological suspense aspect is definitely done well.

Barnes is able to build up an interesting political history to the world that I really enjoyed and think would be great if this was developed and explored in a sci-fi space opera with horror elements.

Halley is in hiding, with bruised ribs and a black eye and barely enough credits for a shuttle trip off planet, when she answers a shady ad for an even shadier job: all she has to do is check on the cryogenic tanks on the defunct museum ship, Elysian Fields, and push a mysterious but very important button every three hours. After a few months she'll have enough saved up for a fresh start.

Spending her days performing this routine in a sleep-deprived haze, she begins seeing things that can't possibly be true, prompting her to take a closer look at the station and its silent inhabitants.

I love a horror thriller set in space. The frozen isolation and unnatural physics of a space station, combined with the knowledge that a single wrong step could mean being sucked out into the void, gets right under my skin. Add an unreliable narrator on the lam and a malfunctioning station, complete with flickering lights and scraping that sounds a lot like dragging footsteps? Count me in.

The writing is great and Halley's motivations are believable. The middle loses momentum just a touch, but it gains it back in the final third. This was creepy and action-packed and gory, full of tension from the beginning, and I can totally picture it as a movie with a pounding soundtrack and some gnarly practical effects.

I love the way S.A. Barnes writes sci-fi horror! They are creepy and atmospheric. Full of suspenseful moments and tension that continually ramps up until we get to this epic ending, I COULD NOT put this down and read it in one sitting.

On a ship full of the bodies of those cryogenically frozen, all Halley needs to do is make some rounds to ensure nothing is wrong and press a button every three hours. Doesn't sound too hard. Right?
Well, as soon as she arrives, Halley has a weird feeling about the ship. Little things start to seem strange, and with the constant sleep interruptions, her mind starts playing tricks. Halley isn't sure what's real and what's not. And when a strange voice starts calling her name, what else can she do but investigate?

I love how the horrors slowly revealed themselves, and how the story unfolded. I can't wait to see what S.A. Barnes is going to come out with next!!

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>𝐂𝐎𝐋𝐃 𝐄𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐓𝐘 is a sci-fi/space horror about a girl seeking refuge on a rundown ship housing cryogenically frozen bodies. Glitchy holograms, haunting isolation & a dark take on self-preservation. I really enjoyed the isolative, leering horror, the antagonist was creative and terrifying to conceptualize, and I even enjoyed the little hint of romance! The AI-horror component was current with the times, even the ship and idea of frozen bodies was horrific to imagine in the future with technology and financial privilege. It dragged a tiny bit in the beginning, but otherwise was very creepy and captivating! (3.75★)
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A sci-fi horror written by a librarian? LET"s GOOO. After finishing this one I bought the author's haunted house (space book) I really like their prose and the whole thing felt weirdly intimate. I don't typically go in for Sci-Fi horror because I feel a little intimidated by how "smart" it can expect the reader to be. But this prose was so approachable and the science was never too hard to follow. Really great. Can't wait to explore more from the author.

This is probably my favorite S.A. Barnes novel yet. It’s definitely scarier than her others, and the tension builds in a way that really worked for me. The story follows Halley, who’s on the run and decides to lay low on a creepy old cryo barge floating in space. Naturally, that turns out to be a terrible idea.

The ship feels wrong from the start, and the creeping dread that builds as Halley starts hearing things and seeing movement in the shadows is just so well done. I also really liked how the action picked up later on and how it all came together at the end. If you’ve read Barnes before, this one feels like her stepping things up in the best way.

“𝘐𝘵’𝘴 𝘧𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘐 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸… 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘱 𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘢𝘮𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘢𝘳, 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘢𝘮𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘢𝘳 𝘩𝘢𝘴 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘥𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘴.”

Thank you Tor Nightfire and Macmillan Audio for the advanced readers copies via NetGalley. This one is out now! I listened to S. A. Barnes previous novel, Ghost Station, last spring and while I avoid the horror genre it is understandable to a degree that her books are given that label; there are moments of intense creepiness, sci-fi gore, and psychological suspense.

Like the former I opted for the audio copy and flew through it rather quickly. Once again we find a strong-willed woman trying to hide from one scandal only to find herself wrapped in another messy situation. It never comes across as trite, rather I found myself intrigued to know more about our main character and see how things would unfold. There are questions of reality, sanity, identity, technology, morality, and mortality.

Despite its label it isn’t horror like you would assume when you hear that term as much as it is suspenseful, intense, with some wicked eerie and disturbing moments, though I felt some of the “horror” descriptions at times were a bit excessive and it came across as trying a bit too hard. Overall I liked it fine but I enjoyed Ghost Station a lot more. I was kept engaged and interested throughout and enjoyed the narrator (different than the one for Ghost Station but both are really good). It did take a turn I wasn’t expecting and gets a bit gruesome but other than that it was okay. Content includes some profanity, sci-fi violence, and a few grotesque descriptions of bodies. I have yet to read her first, Dead Silence, so I might give that one a go at some point. For any sci-fi loving fans out there I’d suggest picking this author up if you haven’t yet.

Like the previous two books, I enjoyed Cold Eternity! We discover Halley's background very slowly through the book, and although I understand the choice, it made it a little difficult for me to get into the story. Compared to her other two books, this one has a limited cast and features a little more fantasy/supernatural/etc. elements which are not super well explained. What I enjoyed from Dead Silence was that everything kinda had an explanation but if you liked the ending of Ghost Station more than Dead Silence, you might enjoy this one as well. Overall, another fascinating space horror but I have to admit I prefer the larger cast of characters in previous books.

SA Barnes doubles down on her claim to be queen of ‘Space Horror’

Since S.A. Barnes published Dead Silence back in 2022 she has fast become one of the leading lights in the sub-genre of ‘Space Horror’, with Cold Eternity being her third standalone offering, hot on the heels of Ghost Station (2024). Although Barnes might be relatively new to the horror world, she has written as Stacey Kade since 2010, with a wide range of adult and YA titles, often mixing up the genres.

I reviewed Dead Silence back in 2022 which was a solid 4/5* but I found her latest offering Cold Eternity to be too similar, with the reader heading to yet another almost empty space station, where things get strange pretty quickly. Many of the descriptions and atmosphere from her debut are shipped wholesale into this third novel making things too samey to be truly effective. This is not to say the setting is a let-down, far from it, the descriptions of the crumbling spaceship and its even stranger inhabitants are one of the strongest aspects of the story.

Cold Eternity opens by introducing a young woman who is on the run (from what and who is revealed slowly) and needing a safe place to hide until she can save up enough space travel credits to start a new life with another identity. She answers an anonymous post for a job as a caretaker on a deserted ship named the Elysian Fields, which she coincidently visited as a tourist when a child. This ship houses the cryogenically frozen bodies of the world’s richest and most famous people from a century earlier, using a technology which has since been abandoned with the bodies forever frozen, but slowly decaying. She readily accepts the incredibly low paid job, eager to finally be alone and safe for a period of time whilst she figures out what to do next.

Almost all of Cold Eternity is set on the Elysian Fields spaceship, which back-in-the-day was owned by an eccentric billionaire Zale Winfeld who saw the then cutting edge cryogenics technology as a potential way of cheating death. A century later the experiment is seen as a failure and main character Halley has the role of basic tech maintenance, with all the decaying once beautiful exhibits for company. With glitchy barely functioning AI maintaining the stars of yesterday, many remain uncannily realistic and are more than enough to keep Halley on edge.

Halley’s remaining peace of mind quickly evaporates when she begins to see strange visions and hear unsettling noises. She puts it down to sleep deprivation and paranoia over her personal situation until all those weird things start to add up to something significantly darker. Ultimately, Cold Eternity could have done with more characters than Halley, who did not have much depth, and her obviously dodgy employer who pops up here and there, side-batting all her concerns.

Once the paranoia sets in Cold Eternity is a one trick pony with it being relatively easy to see which direction the story is heading into, as the clues are relatively easily telegraphed. Barnes does a fine job of making the ship feel like a crypt, with dodgy AIs, unreliable holograms and the unanswered questions surrounding what is lurking in the darkness. The slow reveal of how Halley has found herself in this situation is cleverly handled and I enjoyed how Barnes deftly painted a bigger picture of how space travel was a pricy business and very easy to get stuck on some remote planet will little opportunity of raising the cash to escape.

It is very tough to write a book with so few characters and Cold Eternity might have benefited with a larger crew rather than just one person. Halley is continually sleep deprived due to having to press safety buttons every three hours and Barnes does a neat job of dropping the reader into the head of a character who is buckling under the pressure. And hold onto your hat for a wild ending, which abandons the subtleties of what preceded it.

3.5/5

Cold Eternity is another space horror novel and after reading the previous two books this author has written, I really wasn't sure what to expect as I had mixed feelings about both those books. And yet again, the same thing has happened with this one as I enjoyed the setting a lot, liked the creepy feeling that was being set up, then felt the let down at the conclusion of the book. Personally, it just didn't quite deliver the goods.

I didn't mind the main character, Halley, who is on the run for something in her political past. We learn quite early that Halley is not her real name and that quite a few people are after her; either they want her dead or they want the information she carries. The desperation she felt as she hunted for a job to protect herself was well-written, and I liked the way she still tried to protect herself from predators despite her qualms. When she arrived at the job, it was eerie as anything, but she managed to keep her cool and do her job. Personally, I think anyone in her position would ignore the clues that were abundant around her because she was so desperate to earn money and get away. When you are desperate, you will do anything, and ignore anything, to get what you need to escape. I didn't actually mind that aspect of her personality as I understood her desperation. And it's not like she didn't see what was in front of her, she just chose to ignore what was there because it helped her to survive and cope.

The plot itself was actually quite interesting the first half of the book, and I found it eerie and downright creepy. I couldn't figure out why Halley just accepted meeting the mechanic the way she did, but I guess there are some things you are just supposed to ignore as you read. *Sarcasm The ship itself it pretty much a graveyard, with bodies frozen in a cryogenic state aboard. And it was downright creepy. And to be fair, I love eerie ghost ships and stories that revolve around this premise so the creepiness was right up my alley. And you would think the second half of the book would up the creepiness factor, but yet again, the author ruined it by going the paranormal route instead of the horror route. Up to this point, the horror element was actually quite good and I was thinking the author had upped the game and would bypass the previous books, then bam, the paranormal stuff, which totally ruined the horror element for me.

Cold Eternity was actually quite good until about two-thirds of the way into the book, with good atmospheric horror elements and a creepiness that can only come when aboard an empty ship full of cryogenic people that no one knows what to do with. The character development was fine, and although Halley did some things that made me roll my eyes at times, it was more out of desperation than because her character was silly as she was desperate to get away from people who were hunting her. However, I wasn't keen on the last third of the book as an element was introduced that spoiled the overall creepy effect and left me feeling a bit disappointed in the ending. That being said, it was still an engaging read and worth your while if you like sci-fi horror.

S.A. Barnes certainly seems to solidify her reputation with "Cold Eternity," plunging the reader right back into the kind of chilling, isolated deep-space scenario she navigates so well. I was immediately drawn into the protagonist Halley's desperate situation – a fugitive hiding out as a caretaker on a decaying cryo-ship, essentially a museum housing hundreds of frozen bodies awaiting some future promise of immortality. Barnes excels at creating that palpable sense of isolation and mounting dread; the aging, possibly haunted, ship itself almost feels like a character, vast and unsettling.

I found the way the tension ratchets up, fueled by strange occurrences, potential sabotage or sinister motives from the other caretaker, and Halley's own eroding sense of reality under pressure, was incredibly effective. The novel skillfully blends its intriguing sci-fi premise (the ethics and creepiness of the cryo-ship) with visceral horror elements – reviewers mention body horror and a generally gorier feel than some of her previous work, which I felt served the story's intensity.

The central mystery of what exactly is happening aboard the Elysian Fields kept me thoroughly hooked. While it employs some familiar, effective tropes of the 'haunted spaceship' subgenre, the specific execution here felt engaging and atmospheric. Perhaps, for my taste, the final revelations unfolded just a touch quickly in the last chapters, but the journey getting there was undeniably tense and compelling.

Overall, "Cold Eternity" struck me as a highly entertaining and well-crafted sci-fi horror novel. It delivers perfectly on suspense, unsettling atmosphere, and scares, all anchored by a compelling protagonist fighting for survival in an incredibly creepy setting. For readers like myself who appreciate atmospheric, character-driven space horror, this is a really satisfying and spooky read.

I'm a new fan of S. A. Barnes and they have me wanting more. It's space, it's scary, and I NEED TO KNOW what happens next. Will definitely recommend to library patrons & staff.

S.A. Barnes has terrified me once again. This book is so creepy, timely, and hard to put down. I really love how this book blends a tense horror read with a believable sci-fi story. (Almost too believable in an eerie way!) Readers of Blake Crouch and Darcy Coates will enjoy this book. It has jump scares, an exploration of politics, power, and space, and a really satisfying plot!

4.5/5 stars
This book had me paranoid and checking over my shoulders in the best of ways! I already knew it was going to creep me out but I wasn't prepared for how terrifying I would find the monster, especially in a ship full of cryogenically frozen people. Every few seconds I was paranoid because I was convinced the people were waking up in a zombie state until I realized it was a separate monster. I loved and enjoyed this book and I'm so happy I got to read it.

I have really enjoyed the novels by S.A. Barnes . They aren’t quite 5-star reads for me, but they are definitely enjoyable and deliver on both the sci-fi and horror aspects! Plus, the mystery in this book was intriguing and I enjoyed trying to unravel it! And two pages into this book and I was already loving the premise of it as well! Halley has had it rough and accepts a shady job as a caretaker/security on this sort-of abandoned spaceship. And I say sort of because this ship holds a bunch of cryogenically frozen bodies.

So the job shouldn’t be that hard, right?

WRONG. In fact, it is super creepy and there are weird noises on the ship that have nothing to do with the repairs the creepy and mysterious (read: suspicious) guy who hired her is doing. One thing I love about S.A. Barnes's books is the creepy factor. She has that down perfectly! I mean, just imagine being on an isolated ship with a bunch of bodies in cryosleep and no one to talk to. And on top of that, you start to feel like there’s something lurking on the ship, possibly hunting you...

There is just something about that premise that I loved so much! Probably the fact that it was creepy... and set in space. Lol. Space horror is my jam these days, and this book definitely satisfied my craving for the subgenre! I don’t want to say too much because spoilers, but I loved the creepy descriptions of... things and situations. Lol. They were SO good! It was horrific! And I loved it!! 😆 I also liked the mystery surrounding the ship, its owner, and the AI. There were some things I guessed ahead of time and some things I didn’t, but I really enjoyed the story either way. It was CRAZY!

One thing I didn’t care about too much was her political past, and, honestly, that’s just a me thing. I’ve had too much politics in real life and I am tired. Lol. However, I did appreciate the character development Halley went through. And I actually really liked Halley as a main character. I liked that she was smart because, let’s face it, a lot of protagonists in anything horror-related are not 😂

But I enjoyed following her on her journey as she tried to get her life together and figure out what the hell was going on with this creepy job on this creepy ship that she desperately took.

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"There is no freedom, no escape. Not from Elysian Fields."
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I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for a review.

Another awesome book by S.A. Barnes. I don't think this one is as creepy or nail-biting as the first one, but it was still really good. There were plot points I could see coming a mile away. I may be in the minority here, but I really liked the ending. It was fitting and made sense.