Cold Eternity is a nerve wracking tale of isolation and paranoia in deep space. What would you do if you were the caretaker of a mausoleum in space? That is the situation that Halley has found herself in after fleeing from her former employer who is very politically motivated to find her and ensure her silence. Now she is mostly alone on a barely functional ancient spaceship surrounded by cryogenically frozen corpses, and her only company is an engineer that never leaves the bowls of the ship and a malfunctioning hologram. That's a lot of stress on one person which makes Halley concerned when she starts to question if all of her "residents" are actually as cold as their supposed to be.

This was a really interesting horror novel. I love space horror. There is so much to play with here and I did not guess the ending. I appreciate horror that I can't predict. My only real grievance was that I felt like the ending was a bit rushed. The book has a lot of suspenseful build up but I would have liked to see more intentionality in the ending. Over all I recommend the book. The suspense is really good and I always enjoy S. A. Barnes' writing style. If you're in the mood for some creepy space ship vibes then check it out.

Thank you @torbooks and @macmillan.audio for the #gifted eARC/ALC of COLD ETERNITY!

I’m not sure how exactly S.A Barnes does it but she’s able to build these accessible sci-fi worlds that make sense to non-space nerds like me and then create horrifying scenarios that make me absolutely never want to set foot in space. Her heroines are a bit unreliable like the thriller heroines of the early aughts.

Our MC Halley is on the run and hiding from an interplanetary political scandal when she finds the perfect job and place for her to lay low… a basically abandoned ship full of wealthy people who were all cryogenically frozen over 100 years ago…. So a ship full of bodies. Not creepy at all. Nope.

The setting was perfect. The FMC was understandably exhausted (she had to push a button every 3 hours or bad things would happen) as any parent of a newborn will attest to. Things start to go bump in the night. I was completely freaked out when her interactions with the AI holograms of the ship owner’s long dead children started getting weird. I was so sure that this was going to beat out DEAD SILENCE in my space horror top spot.

And then there was a reveal towards the end that I just had a hard time with. I wish the author had chosen a different plot twist/reveal because it kind of took me out of the book. There was a scene at the end that made me a bit teary and broke my heart a little.

So DEAD SILENCE remains solidly in my top spot but if you are a space horror fan, this one is definitely worth checking out!

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/7457482317
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/DIRbaZRPR4d/

I've become such a huge fan of S.A. Barnes since reading an early copy of their first novel. Their brand of space horror really speaks to something in me, the terror of space, the isolation, the creeping dread. I didn't even know this was a genre before I read Dead Space, and now I look forward to a new Barnes book the way a person wandering the desert looks at water, as sustenance. Cold Eternity started off with a bang, and just kept right on rolling. We meet Halley Zwick, on the run from something mysterious that happened to her, and hiding out in all the wrong places. Just when Halley thinks her luck has run out, she's offered a life preserver in the form of a job on the decommissioned ship, The Elysian Fields. Although Halley had a strange encounter on board that very ship as a schoolchild, she knows it's the last place anyone would think to look for her. Almost as soon as she sets foot on the ship, weird things begin to happen. Halley's boss, Karl, dismisses her concerns as hallucinations or the work of an overwrought mind. But something very dark is occurring on board The Elysian Fields, and it's up to Halley to find out what, before it's too late.

The pure escapism of this book is fantastic. I loved every bit of it. There is some fantastically spooky imagery and tons of tension throughout. If you're looking to dive into some space horror with a fast pace, give Cold Eternity a try.

I really love how Barnes writes space horror and manages to use the sci-fi elements as tension building horror devices. This one was eerie and atmospheric like her previous ones, and the novel structure and the twist is also similar. This one worked for me better than Ghost Station and I found it comparable to Dead Silence

I love S.A. Barnes writing!
And Cold Eternity is another wonderfully written story.
This story was the best story I've read in some time! As for the characters I really enjoyed them. And how much the characters developed throughout the book. Very interesting!
All in all this book was a great action-packed space horror story.
The writing was beyond interesting and intriguing. It held my attention. And I loved the story.

So this was pretty cool! (Sorry, had to heh.) Anyway, I loooove the premise. Very The 100 Seasons 5-6, always here for that. Plus, it’s just plain thought provoking- if you could, would you freeze yourself in hopes for cures and what not? I would, tbh, because death is scary but that isn’t what we’re here to discuss.

The atmosphere is on point, and I was absolutely invested in Halley, what the heck she’s running from, and what on not Earth is happening on this ship! It’s very readable from all those perspectives. Honestly, the only thing that didn’t quite work for me is that it is very… isolated. Which I get, it lends to the ambiance, right? Wouldn’t be so creepy if Halley was among friends, eh? But the lack of characters gets to be a little grating at times, which is why I am docking a star. I did still really enjoy it, but it did lack whatever it is we get from character interactions. That isn’t eloquent, but alas, the point stands.

Bottom Line: Exciting and atmospheric with a very cool premise, just could have used a few more characters for me!

S.A. Barnes has a spectacular way of putting you right into a scene, no matter how terror-inducing it may be. And a creepy spaceship filled with bodies frozen in cryotanks is not a place most of us would volunteer to be. You feel each frisson of terror along with the main character as she grows increasingly paranoid.

Maybe she has a right to be paranoid, though—sometimes things really do go bump in the night.

This is great horror. Don’t read it at night.

My thanks to NetGalley and Tor Nightfire for the eARC in exchange for my honest review.

Outer-space horror seems to be having a renaissance recently and SA Barnes is right at the forefront, leading her readers into that deepest of unexplored darkness and science gone very, very wrong.

The key to good science fiction is still as it’s always been: holding on to the core of humanity amidst the unknown. ‘Cold Eternity’ does that expertly, with one woman (almost) alone on an immense cryogenic space-tomb, on the run from her past but unable to escape the demons both within and without.

Halley is an excellent protagonist in her relatability. This may be the not-too-distant future, but people are still struggling to get by, politicians remain corrupt, and everyone is held within a system that only cares about those with money. Halley fights constantly to hold on to her integrity amidst all this, despite the pull of her family and her old employers, seeking refuge where nobody except the desperate would go. And on that vast, echoing and decrepit ship, she’ll discover exactly why.

In the manner of many traditional horror movie characters, Halley can be frustrating: I found myself almost yelling at the page as she made decisions that seemed so obviously nonsensical, before realizing that if I was in her situation, would I really do any better? She stays grounded throughout, which is remarkable given what she ends up facing. Having worked in a similar background myself (the political side, not the spaceship!), I admired her as she finally stepped up instead of running, no longer buckling or compromising for the sake of those long-dead but still worth fighting for.

In its way, this is a ‘locked room mystery’, encouraging the reader to guess what’s going on behind the curtain. Who is the mysterious administrator that we never really see? What was the real intention of the Elon-esque creator of this ship, and what happened to him and his family? And that old favourite, just what is making that noise outside the door at night?

As always, SA Barnes’ writing is excellent, with gorgeously grotesque visuals and tangible Silent Hill-style ramping up of fear. Many answers are revealed at about two-thirds through, leaving me wondering just what was coming next? This an author who is far too skilled to play her hand early - and I was right.

With shades of ‘Event Horizon’, ‘Resident Evil’ and ‘Demolition Man’ (particularly the social commentary), ‘Cold Eternity’ traps the reader in its enclosed space and demands they stay until the ride comes to a complete stop. I did so with pleasure.

I was kindly sent an early copy of this book by the publisher, but the above opinions are entirely my own.

When S.A. Barnes writes a horror novel set in space, I am there! This book did not disappoint. When Halley is describing the scenes unfolding around her on the abandoned spaceship/museum/cryo-crypt for the wealthy, you cannot help but start to feel a little bit of her claustrophobia and her unease. While there were some plot points that were not as flowing as I normally expect from Barnes, overall I still really enjoyed the book and can't wait for another!

I am officially a fan of SA Barnes! This is the second book of theirs that I’ve read and I am hooked. Cold eternity was creepy and gross in all the best ways. The main character was so relatable as someone with hope and ideals crushed by politics and unwinnable scenarios. Barnes continues themes that resonate despite the fact that I am not on a haunted space ship with no way to contact anyone on the outside. Power corrupts. No one is safe. The only way to win is to refuse to play the game. I will 100% be recommending this book, and Barnes’ other work, to anyone who wants a good mystery and some good old fashion horror, wrapped up in an interesting science fiction future setting. Excellent book!!

Imagine being alone on a massive, decrepit spaceship, watching over hundreds of cryogenically frozen bodies?! It’s a chilling concept that S.A. Barnes nails perfectly in COLD ETERNITY. The creep factor is off the charts!

I absolutely loved the sense of isolation, and underlying dread that permeates this story. Halley, the main character, is relatable and engaging, making the story all the more immersive. And the ship setting is simply fantastic!

As a longtime fan of Barnes, I can confidently say that this book is my favourite yet. Every one of her novels reads like a movie in my mind, and COLD ETERNITY hooked me from the very start. If you're a fan of space horror, S.A. Barnes is a must-read!

Cold Eternity is the second book I’ve read from S.A. Barnes and after thoroughly enjoying Ghost Station I had to request the newest from NetGalley as soon as I saw it was available.

In the novel, the reader follows our protagonist who (clearly) has a shady past. It’s not immediately obvious if Halley is a hero or a villain, running from a political scandal 200+ years in the future. She decides to hide out on a space barge called Elysian Fields (my history nerd self loves this name) where wealthy citizens of Earth have been cryogenically frozen. It isn’t long before Halley starts seeing things on grainy security cameras and hearing scraping and clawing in the vents.

Ghost Station was filled with so much suspense and cliff hangers at the end of almost every chapter and this is what I really wanted from Cold Eternity but found to be lacking. I wanted that feeling of being on the edge of my seat and wondering how reliable Halley was as a narrator and I just didn’t have that.

I was intrigued by the plot and it seemed like such a solid basis for a novel but there wasn’t much action until about 70-80% in. The political scandal felt very drawn out and I was more invested in what was going on around the ship rather than Halley’s past. Part of this may be because I didn’t connect with her as a character so I wasn’t concerned with HOW she got to the ship but more about WOULD she make her way off of it?

I would still recommend Cold Eternity if you enjoy S.A. Barnes and want to explore some Sci-Fi Horror. I just didn’t feel like it was as strong as it could have been.

Thank you to NetGalley and Tor Nightfire for access to the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Cold Eternity is out today!
3.75

S.A. Barnes keeps getting better and better.

There is not enough money in the world to get me on a spaceship full of frozen dead people. But that’s Halley Zwick’s only option for the chance of a fresh start. Following a political scandal, Halley is broke and forced into hiding. What better place to hide than aboard the Elysian Fields, a large space vessel/former museum that is home to the cryogenically frozen bodies of Earth’s wealthy elite. Halley has only been aboard a few hours when she starts seeing things that don’t make sense on the camera screens.

This book really managed to freak me out. Isolated space settings are scary enough on their own, but add in dozens of frozen dead bodies? NOPE. I felt so uneasily while reading this and couldn’t wait to see what happened next. I loved the use of the monitors and thought that really added to the feeling of always being watched. There was a “romantic” subplot I thought came out of nowhere, and that I really didn’t love, but other than that this was such a fun time. I hope this author keeps exploring the space horror genre in the future.

Thank you to Tor and NetGalley for a review copy.

Delightfully creepy, the science fiction/ horror mashup in this novel made for a delicious escapism read. Halley, running from a past that wants to either kill her or use her, takes a black market job under the table on a ship full of cryogenically frozen patients from a previous century doomed to never be revived. As more and more things stop adding up, Halley finds herself fighting for her survival and sanity.

I enjoyed the immediate entry into the story without needing a ton of background. Halley's past dribbles out a little at a time in order for the reader to understand her choices. The creeping sense of danger increases throughout the book, pulling the reader along with Halley to find the truth of her situation.

3.5 / 5 stars

Halley Zwick (not her real name) is on the run. After getting embroiled in an interplanetary political scandal, she needs a place to disappear, fast, and a way to accumulate some credits. She finds it in an opportunity as a caretaker on Elysian Fields — a massive, decaying vessel once tasked with storing the cryogenically frozen bodies of Earth’s wealthiest citizens, who paid for the promise of a second life. The cryo program has long since proven dodgy, the AI hosts are glitching, and the ship itself feels more like a crypt than a sanctuary. But isolation soon gives way to paranoia, as Halley begins hearing whispers in the vents and seeing things that just shouldn't be possible. She's alone, sleep-deprived, and her only company is a ship full of long-frozen bodies and a single person she can talk to over a video link. Whatever safety Halley thought she had found on Elysian Fields might be even more dangerous than what she left behind.

S.A. Barnes is an author who has been on my radar because there’s just something about a spooky, derelict spaceship that hooks me every time — and that seems to be her genre niche. This book didn't quite meet my high expectations, but I'm still very excited to check out her backlist.

Halley is a compelling lead. She’s got this idealistic streak that’s partly rebellion against her wealthy, less-than-attentive parents, and partly just her own genuine drive to do good. I was rooting for her, even when she made some questionable choices and stumbled in to some common horror tropes. Overall though, she felt grounded and believable, which helped keep me invested even when the plot got a little wild. (More on that wild turn shortly.)

The atmosphere is, without question, the book’s strongest elements. The space barge setting is eerie from the start, but it’s not just the classic "abandoned ship" horror. There’s something extra unsettling about the contrast between luxury and decay — all these cryo pods, filled with people who believed they’d bought themselves immortality, now reduced to relics in a floating tomb. Barnes plays into that tension beautifully.

For most of the story, the creep factor builds at a satisfyingly steady pace; there’s a steady build of tension that kept me engaged, especially as Halley starts to question what’s real and what might be the product of exhaustion or something more sinister. I found myself genuinely immersed, and at one point I was audibly yelling at the audiobook. ("No, no, no! Don't go in there!" Spoiler alert: she ignored me.) Whether you’re reading or listening, it’s the kind of creeping dread that feels both realistic and relatable, especially since Halley herself isn’t sure what’s real anymore.

I think what is holding me back from loving this book as much as I had anticipated is the uneven pacing in the later parts of the book. There’s a long, slow burn as tension mounts, and then suddenly the final act hits like someone cranked the dial to maximum chaos. Personally, I like a little escalation, but this felt like it went from simmer to full boil a bit too fast — and not everything in the finale worked for me. I don't want to get into spoilers, but I will note that I am not the only reviewer who was thrown by the sudden mismatch between the setup and the revelation. The pseudo-romantic connection that Halley finds also felt shoehorned in and detracted from the finale's impact. I almost wished Barnes had let the core horror of the cryo program and its fallout stand on its own, because that thread was genuinely chilling and thought-provoking.

That said, this was still a quick, engrossing read for me. Despite a few narrative overreaches, I had a great time with Cold Eternity. It’s a fast-paced, claustrophobic ride through a chilling vision of the future — one that asks unsettling questions about wealth, mortality, and the lengths people will go to in their pursuit of eternal life.

If you’re craving atmospheric space horror with a healthy dose of psychological unraveling, this is absolutely worth boarding — just brace yourself for a bumpy landing.

2.75 stars rounded up.

Thanks to NetGalley and Tor Nightfire for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

This book is extremely tough for me to review, for a few reasons. Cold Eternity was one of my more anticipated reads of 2025, as I am truly terrified by space horror, and there aren't actually many books specific to both horror and science fiction in space. I really enjoyed Dead Space, and Ghost Station wasn't bad, but not quite up to the caliber of Dead Space...and a lot of authors tend to struggle a bit with their sophomore novels, so it didn't really bother me much that while the last one wasn't a favorite of mine, it still was a solid story.

This being said, I did enjoy some parts of Cold Eternity. I'm always interested in a government conspiracy, which one of the (many) plot points included. There were some good, creepy moments, and I loved the idea of an actual physical alien/creature feature. The inclusion of AI and the fears along with that were also valid and intriguing.

However, there was a lot that I wasn't entirely thrilled with...the story had a lot of potential, but in the end it felt like there were too many ideas trying to be meshed together, and it just was a struggle for me to finish reading. This is also the 3rd book that takes place on an isolated ship in space. It's getting redundant at this point. When I reread my previous review for Ghost Station, I found myself having the same issues with this book - the story moved along too slowly and got repetitive, only to rush through the ending with a lackluster conclusion that left me unsatisfied. There was also no need to throw in a random (kind of bizarre) romance between the FMC and the AI/hologram of one of the ship's "tenants." Additionally, I was kind of confused by our FMC, who was on the run and had created a new alias for herself - but when she was alone with her own thoughts, she would refer to herself as her new name, not her government/birth name...which was also odd to me because personally I'd still think of myself as my real name when thinking to myself. At times both names were used interchangeably which got a bit confusing.

My biggest issue, however, is what makes this book so difficult for me to rate. There's a comment at one point, and I am sincerely hoping that the author and editors found this comment and removed it, because to be honest it really turned me off to the rest of the book and I almost DNF'd it. I'll include the quote here, and like I said, it might not be in the final version of this book, which might influence me to increase my rating a bit. The quote was from Chapter 24:

"Every brilliant man is misunderstood in his own time. Da Vinci, Galileo, Tesla, Jobs, Musk, Winfield--" "And you?" I scoff. I can't help myself, in spite of the danger of pissing him off too much. Also, given what I've learned, I sincerely doubt Zale (Winfield) should be classified among them, either.

Now, I don't want to get into too many details with spoilers, but this is a convo between one of the characters in the book with our FMC. Zale is a rich man who had been working with cryogenic research and had a massive ship that would house these people, until the family had passed and the ship became a museum. He was of questionable integrity. My issue is our FMC, who is passionate about human rights, being upset that he was compared to other "brilliant, misunderstood" men, like Elon Musk. Considering the current climate and things that have happened within the last few months, this is appalling to me. I'm giving the author the benefit of the doubt and I'm assuming this was written well before the last few months. I hope this is amended/removed prior to publication. If not, yes, everyone is entitled to their own opinions and this is a work of fiction, but I can't stand by/support authors who claim that Musk is brilliant and "misunderstood." For me, it's my own moral values that turn me off from this. He has been publicly awful to his previous wives/mothers of his children and his transgender daughter, and not to mention his "salute" he had performed multiple times. No one else seems to have noticed this, but it really stood out to me and after that comment I just couldn't really focus or even care much about the rest of the novel.

Again, thanks to Tor Nightfire and NetGalley for the advanced copy. While it had some potential, it just really wasn't one of my favorites.

I think I’m going to forever be chasing the high of Dead Silence 😩

I loved the premise of this so much—a caretaker for a ship full of cryogenically frozen people? PLEASE. That’s such a good setting for a horror book. I was vibing so hard until about 80% when something was revealed and I just couldn’t get on board.

It felt weird and out of place.

Bummed!!! But if you want a great space horror, Dead Silence (by the same author!) is where it’s at!!

The suspense is palpable. Running for her life Halley finds a job abroad an isolated ship that is used to house cytogenetically frozen people who have died and are waiting to be brought back to life when science catches up to bringing people back from the dead.
But weird things are happening here. Halley blames what she has been seeing on her lack of sleep, but can things be that easily explained away? And then she discovers something she can’t just turn a blind eye to.

*Special thanks to NetGalley and Tor Nightfire for this digital e-arc.*

I LOVED THIS BOOK! I've been a Barnes fan since Dead Silence and while I didn't enjoy Ghost Station as much, Cold Eternity was truly a return to form as far as existential terror in space. I never thought I'd be rooting so hard for a relationship between a human and a hologram/animatronic, but here we are. Barnes blends the existential dread of aging/dying and isolation with the more immediate fears of sentient animatronics, AI, and aliens brilliantly. The protagonist's central conflict about whether the ends (stopping a despot) justify the means (casualties from a staged riot) was especially relevant to today's political climate, though I do disagree with her ultimate decision.

This book was entertaining, even if the end was a little disappointing. It really could have done without the secondary plot and I still don't know if I can call this horror. But it was better then the last book...to a point.