Requiem is a horror novel written by John Palisano, published by Flame Tree Press. A proposal that plays well with the mix between cosmic and space horror, with a fascinating storyline that makes the best out of its setting and the impossibility of escaping from it, creating an unnerving and creepily atmospherical experience.

Eden is an artificial satellite the size of a moon, a cemetery where the dead are stored in a way their loved ones can look up and see them; as something has gone wrong, a crew is sent from the Earth to repair it. A musician will be part of this crew, as the company desires to have a new requiem written for Eden as an apology to the families; but once the crew arrives at Eden, things start going sideways. At some point, it won't be a matter of repairing what's broken in Eden, but of seeing if the crew will escape Eden with their lives.

In terms of characterization, it is interesting how each one of the crew has their own set of demons that are being tested by whatever has taken over Eden; when the entity not only moves you in space but also into your own mind, resisting it proves to be a tough task. We might not have enough space to connect with all of them, but Ava and her grief for Roland was one of the highlights of the book.

Eden by itself is a fascinating place; it can be described as an expression of an eternal grief for the loved ones, refusing them to go; space is the perfect setting for horror, as the inability to escape eventually forces the cast to confront the own entity responsible of the chaos.
The pacing can be slow at the start, introducing us to the place and the crew, but once all is unleashed, you don't really have a moment to rest. The pace is sharp but effective.

Requiem doesn't reinvent the wheel, but it's overall a great novel if you are looking for a blend between space and cosmic horror; an enjoyable experience for lovers of the genre.

Review to be published at Concatenation soon.

Requiem (2025) John Palisano, Flame Tree Press, £20 / Can$34.95 / US$26.95, hrdbk, 247pp, ISBN 978-1-787-58954-4
“In space, no one can hear you scream.”
(Alien (1979)
In recent years I have felt that there seems to have been a resurgence of stories dealing with the potential horrors of space – you know, heat, cold, airlessness, aliens, cosmic horror. I guess that it is because humans are grappling with the idea of the unknown frontier again, and the point that most people don’t know what’s out there - within scientific limits, anything is possible. Or is it just the fact that we are looking at sending humans beyond our earthly confines once more?

Or perhaps this increased interest is just because space travel may now be available to humans once more. Certainly, recent activities have suggested that in the future space travel may be available to all, being accessible and less dangerous than you might think. The work of Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson and the like have emphasised this.

With this in mind then, John Palisano’s Requiem looks to a future where we have a major cemetery floating in space. It is 2112 (RUSH fans, please note!) Above the Earth is Eden, built by the Vita Nova company, a moon-sized space station designed to keep dead bodies and so to reduce the pressure for space on the Earth. By keeping the bodies there in a particulate fluid, they can maintain the cadaver’s appearance in perpetuity. They can even store memories and recreate the person digitally, with those memories.

For visitors there are also churches chapels and temples for all faiths, Gardens of Rest and artificial parks, auditoriums, hotel rooms and about 5000 loved ones at present, with room for more.

As the book begins, we are told that the station has developed a problem. With thousands of bodies kept there in proprietary fluid, it seems that recently in a major incident the fluid system has failed, and bodies were lost. The escaping fluid was highly toxic so the station has been left abandoned by its skeleton crew whilst the AI on Eden (named Eden) repairs itself. Now Vita Nova want a human crew to go back up there and check that it is again running smoothly, and hopefully regain the public’s trust in Eden and Vita Nova.

Sent to sort out the problem are a varied group of travellers, all ‘free spirits’, with few connections to tie them to Earth. It is a deliberately diverse group. Some are experienced space veterans, others are travelling for the first time. Ava Armstrong Duvay is the reluctant manager, trying to make them all work together. Dr. Derek Poole is the Medical Officer, there to manage the group’s wellbeing and to see if there are now any issues with the cadavers stored at Eden. Sanjay Akhila and Ken Lee are there to check the Communications. Midori is a Humani – a virtual intelligence robot, or artificial human, there to assist them all. Lastly there’s Tessa Nightingale, a Special Guest Composer charged with the task of writing a new musical composition for Eden’s visitors and tenants – for who wants to be reminded of the disaster by hearing the old theme, right? I thought of her as Taylor Swift – or perhaps Katy Perry – seemingly there to create publicity and public awareness that Eden was now back in business.

With all of the characters introduced in the first chapter, the book has fairly little preamble. There’s some talk of how and why the habitat is there and why a team is needed to go there in the first few pages. It’s only a couple of short chapters before the group are heading out there.

Of course, once they get there, the crew start to experience hear sounds and music and experience hallucinatory visions, perhaps triggered by the oddly discordant Requiem music Tessa has written. Things all go a bit HAL 9000 at this stage, as the AI Eden, who runs the whole spaceship, starts doing things like cutting off the heating and the oxygen.

With communications between Eden and Earth cut off, the visions become weirder. Ava sees her dead husband Roland on board the habitat, even though he died in a mission Ava was the sole survivor of. (Solaris, anyone?)

The story then focuses on what these strange things are and why they are happening. Are these strange events caused by mechanical malfunction such as a lack of oxygen and hypothermia or could it be that the stress of space travel and the situations the characters are put in have created mass hysteria? Is it an alien attempt to communicate? A signal from the retrievable memories of the dead bodies already on Eden? The reader is left to ponder on these things in the latter part of the novel.

And it was in this last section that I began to lose interest. At a point when the ratcheted-up tension should be making the pages turn, I found that I was instead becoming less and less bothered. Even though the short chapters focusing on different characters kept things moving along, the lack of depth to the characters meant that I was less interested with them as I should have been.

It didn’t help that the rather deux ex machina ending felt a little contrived and didn’t entirely work for me. Without giving it away, anyone who has seen The Abyss will feel they have been there already.

In the end, Requiem’s solid enough. You pretty much get what you might expect, including the weirdness at the end. I can see that some readers might be reading this just to see who dies and in what particularly gruesome way. They may be disappointed.


Nevertheless, Requiem’s a decent read that undemanding readers will get pretty much what they want from. It’s not particularly challenging, nor particularly original (see other material I’ve referenced), but it is a pretty good representation of the space horror idea and is accessible and readable.

Mark Yon

John Palisano’s Requiem is a fast-paced, atmospheric blend of science fiction and cosmic horror that wastes no time plunging the reader into its chilling, otherworldly setting. Set aboard the Eden—a massive, moon-sized cemetery adrift in space—the novel explores grief, memory, and the thin veil between the living and the dead.

From the first page, Requiem hits the ground running, making it a great pick for readers who prefer action over exposition. There’s very little hand-holding here, and the story unfolds with an eerie momentum that mirrors the unraveling sanity of the characters aboard the Eden. One of the most striking elements is the ship itself: a floating mausoleum that not only houses the bodies of the dead, but eventually their restless souls as well.

At the heart of the story is Ava, a strong and emotionally complex protagonist wrestling with personal grief while confronting a rising, reality-warping entity. Her emotional arc becomes even more layered with the reappearance of Roland, her lost love, adding a haunting intimacy to the larger cosmic threat. The inclusion of a musician tasked with composing a “Requiem” for the dead brings a poetic, mythic quality to the horror—and her music awakens something vast, ancient, and terrifying.

Palisano’s concept is undeniably unique. A cemetery in space isn’t something you come across every day, and the strange, almost dreamlike horror of it all gives the novel a distinctly weird and unsettling tone.

While the brisk pacing may leave some readers wanting a bit more development in the world-building or character backstory, those looking for an intense, emotionally-charged ride through space-bound terror will likely find a lot to love here. Requiem is a haunting meditation on grief, memory, and what lingers after death—set against the cold backdrop of space, where silence isn’t the absence of sound but the presence of something darker.

Ava is part of a small crew stationed on Eden a moon-sized cemetery in space. If they are to keep their sanity or even their lives Ava will need to take on a cosmic entity who has taken hold in Eden.

A satellite with hundreds of dead people in space has to be the perfect setting for a horror novel. Add in a cosmic entity messing with minds of the dead and living, and you have the greatest premise I have heard in quite some time. The characters are diverse and interesting. I thought the psychological attacks went on a bit too long before answers are given, but overall I really enjoyed this book. If you like very psychological science fiction horror stories than this one might be for you.

My Rating: 3.5 out of 5 Stars

This is a DNF - if I return to the book at some point I will review it at a later date. I read the first 25% but struggled to move along with the story.

Requiem promised me a space horror and it delivered!
What do we do when Earth has run out of room for the dead? Bury them in orbit, of course. Bringing the full weight of an out in space cemetery, Requiem dives into morals, ethics, religion and everything linked to death. Eden is a moon-sized cemetery with the deceased suspended in sci-fi fluid and when Eden malfunctions, the company behind it hires Ava, a space ship captain who swore she'd never return to space after her last mission went horribly wrong.
Reality becomes thinner and thinner as something alters Eden's systems to continue multiple malfunctions and manipulates Ava and her comrades on board until they're driven mad. It was difficult to know what was real and what was actually happening as the characters' dreams and fears grew.
Perhaps Requiem should be considered to be more as a Cosmic Horror as explanations are limited. It requires a lot of concentration to understand what is happening. There was also some frustrating lack of character development for one or two characters (I won't say who), but my favourite was Midori which developed only because of what the reader is seeing through Ava's eyes which is clever.
Lastly, Requiem may seem like a gothic story placed in outer space, but don't forget the technology and how it is used. This is an element unessential to the gothic and it is this I feel Palisano wants the reader to focus on more than anything else.

Here is my review for Requiem by John Palisano

I found this to be an intriguing horror story that I really enjoyed reading right from the start of the book. Ava was cautious about going back to Eden after her previous stint there and she still had strong memories of Roland who she still believed to be missing. On this trip to Eden, Ava is made leader of the crew. This time round, Eden is haunted by spirits of the interred that are on board there. One by one the crew are driven mad but Ava has to fight against it. I thought the book was brilliantly written and well thought out by the author. The characters were interesting and well thought out. I liked Ava and thought she was a terrifically strong character. She was trying to get over her grief for Roland and lead the crew. The story was interesting and the writing was very descriptive so it explained everything in great detail. I liked the author’s writing style and I found it very easy to get into. I would like to read more horror stories from this author in the future.

Blurb :

New gothic horror from Bram Stoker Award winning author, and recent past President of the Horror Writers Association, John Palisano.

Ava must fight an entity locked in on taking out the crew of the Eden, a moon-sized cemetery in space, as it brings back the souls of the dead buried aboard. One such soul is Ava’s lost love, Roland.

The spirits of the interred on the Eden haunt those aboard, including a visiting musician is tasked with writing a new song for the dead. Her Requiem calls a cosmic entity that illuminates their darkest fears and secrets. One by one, they’re driven mad. Ava fights her grief and must rise up before they’re lost and the entity reaches Earth.

FLAME TREE PRESS is the imprint of long-standing independent Flame Tree Publishing, dedicated to excellent original writing in horror, science fiction and fantasy. The list brings together fantastic new authors and the more established; the award winners, and exciting, original voices. Learn more at www.flametreepress.com and connect on social media @FlameTreePress. Awarded independent publisher of 2024 by the British Fantasy Society.

Space horror is quickly becoming one of my favorite things. Fun. Interesting. Unsettling. There were moments when the pacing worked against the claustrophobic feeling to it, but really interesting and a good read overall.

I am sadly DNFing this book at 50%. I was so drawn in by the premise, but each time I put it down I’m finding it increasingly difficult to pick back up. The characters seem out of touch with each other despite having lived and worked together for a month, and I had no real understanding of Eden because of the time jumps. I wasn’t sure who we were supposed to be rooting for or following and found my interest dipped as a result.

Thank you to NetGalley for this advanced copy.

Thanks to the author, the publisher, and NetGalley for providing me this eARC in exchange for an honest review. I love the genre mashup of science fiction and horror. And this title has it in spades! At times I felt the story was not presenting itself as either genre and it was frustrating. Finally in the last half of the novel it hit the mark and an exceptionally original take on sci-fi horror. Highly recommended.

Eerie, fantastical and all round insane. This was a fantastic story that gave me shivers from the start to the end.

I’ll give this 2.5 stars. I really liked the premise of this book, and was really looking forward to reading it, but to be honest, I felt like what I read was a first draft. It seemed like a lot of thoughts and ideas were just thrown on the page. One minute we’re in third person, the next it’s first person. There were a lot of telling, not showing, as well as just general redundancies and being told the same thing within paragraphs of each other while also somehow contradicting previous statements. Big plot moments would happen, and then they’d just be forgotten about or not brought up when the pov changes, or there would still be questions about what’s happening in the space station, even though we just got told there’s an alien life form two chapters before. I still enjoyed the story for what it was, overall, I liked that we got the flashbacks of Ava and Roland’s relationship, and what happened there. I think if this had been fleshed out more, it would’ve been a lot better.

I loved the premise of this. Humans have run out of space and now a company has offered the option of burial on this (moon sized?) satellite. There’s some sketchy coffin fluid (the deceased are suspended in a fluid, this is scifi after all) that caused havoc and now they have to fix the facilities and the company’s reputation. That’s about where it stops being rooted in a solid story line. If you love stories disjointed from reality this book is for you.

I thought I loved weird lit but this version of weird lit just wasn’t for me. It’s hard to say without spoilers, but, for much of the book the characters are experiencing weird events and the plot goes no where except describing these events.

This book is definitely going to be a hit with folks who love vibing in a scifi and just letting the words roll over them. It just didn’t hit the spot for me personally. I needed more to be happening in the book than one long fever dream.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this advanced reader copy. All opinions are my own.

A crew trapped in a spaceship far from home face a terrifying force. Things they thought were in their past have came back to haunt them. Can they defeat the ghosts.

Requiem by John Palisano

Before reading Requiem I hadn’t read anything by John Palisano. Browsing NetGallery, the amazing cover art drew me in and the premise — gothic horror in space? Gotta love that, right? — compelled me to request an eARC from Flame Tree Press. I love science fiction and am always on the lookout for new authors in the genre who can provide the wonder, thrills, and mind-altering perspectives that I crave. Palisano is now on my radar, and I will certainly read more of his books, although this one left me wanting a bit more at the ending.

In Requiem, Ava captains a small crew staying aboard Eden, a moon-sized orbiting mausoleum that houses thousands of Earth’s deceased who are labelled as “residents” by the Vita Nova Corporation who owns the satellite. Not only are the bodies of the residents stored on Eden, but so are their memories — very lifelike and active memories thanks to a strange entity awakened by the new requiem being composed onboard by a member of Ava’s crew. Something in the music begins to drive Ava and her crew mad, creating vivid and dangerous hallucinations. With the immense satellite seemingly coming apart around them and struggling to think clearly as she is haunted by her lost love Roland, Ava must discover the key to defeating the entity before it consumes the people on board and on the planet below.

Palisano hits all the notes for a gothic horror story, cleverly utilizing the space satellite in place of the typical haunted mansion, and he certainly knows how to ramp up the action for a page-turning read. However, I did feel let down by the story after the climax. The ending drags on through the last two chapters, a coda, and another piece of “Supplemental Material.” There’s plenty of time to explore the changed perspectives of Ava and her companions after their mind shattering experiences, to reveal their new philosophies on life and the afterlife —something I wish Palisano had delved into more, especially since he’s chosen such a diverse cast of characters.

As a fast summer read, Requiem hits the mark. As to whether I become a fan of Palisano’s writing, I’ll hold off on my opinion until I read some of his other work.

I tried to read this but I just can't finish it. To be fair, I don't read these types of books so I feel my experience probably isn't what others will think but I was intrigued by the description and am thankful for the opportunity. However, I don't like the writting style and maybe that's why I couldn't keep going. This felt like a cheesy horror film where things are happening and you don't know why (which is usually fine if you like anything else with the book such as the characters, which I didn't feel connected to at all) If you like a cheesy horror with not much depth, this would be great for you!

An eerie space horror that gripped me from the start. The tension was palpable the author got that spot on. Ava fights the entity and her own fear abourd the space cemetery. I love the atmosphere and pacing and I for onrwill be looking for more from this author. Thanks to Flame Tree Press and Netgalley for this review copy.

A crew heads to space to address issues on board the Eden, a space cemetery. I thought the concept was cool and there were some really creepy parts. This was a very claustrophobic read, as most of the story takes place on this space vessel where the atmosphere is very isolated and bleak. This was a shorter read, but it took me forever to get through. I just couldn’t stay interested for some reason. I think I wanted more of a backstory to all of the characters because it was hard to connect to any of them. There were some great gory horror moments though, and I liked the ending.

Recommend for: fans of space horror

This book is mind boggling.. 😵‍💫😂 It grips you because you have no idea why things are happening!

Love the way it is written in third and first person, very cool! 🤩

The story… you’ve got to concentrate quite a bit to know what’s going on. The reveal of what is happening without giving anything away was confusing 😂 but overall, a good book that I would recommend to any Sci-Fi lovers 🚀👽

Requiem is a cosmic gothic horror novel that explores the familiar trope of what can happen when AI goes wrong (in space!) but the familiarity did not detract from the story and as advances in AI technology continue, is even more relevant. More importantly, the AI and the space station setting serve to create the isolated, dread atmosphere that defines gothic horror. Though I was intrigued by the mystery of what is causing the calamitous events, John Palisano’s characters and his way of putting you behind their eyes, especially mission leader Ava, were what gripped me and kept me turning page after page to learn their fates - and that of all of humanity. #Requiem #NetGalley @flametreepress @johnpalisano