Scourge Between Stars

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Now... I am not a stem girlie, but surprisingly, Ness Brown did a fantastic job utilizing engineer and scientific language without overwhelming me. I wouldn't have initially expected this story to be a debut because it has a strong overarching plot with great spaceship world building. You can tell that Ness is a scientist purely from her writing style because she's very direct. The writing doesn't have any lyrical prose because she's describing the scenes as concisely as possible and then jumping into what's next for the characters. This type of writing style, in my opinion, is less common because people like to create lush descriptions of the scenes, so Ness was refreshing in that she doesn't mess around with her writing. Moreover, this writing style led the story to be fast paced with constant action around nearly every corner and sometimes... even within the walls. Each of the ships in the fleet is named after goddesses and I liked the references. The characters also had distinct personalities and were fleshed out nicely, even for ones with limited appearances. The real spotlight however is in the story and intense atmosphere throughout the book. It perfectly captured the claustrophobia of being trapped in a hostile environment with nowhere to go. She looked as stupid yelling outside the bulkhead now as she had the first twenty times. “We voted to decelerate again today. Repairs are ahead of schedule, but we can barely take another hit.” She recited the items from the briefing at the wall. “I vetoed the delivery of extra resources to Orion and Cygnus Wards. There will be more demonstrations, but our ration levels are already critical.” After a pause, she shared what had happened in Data. “Otto may have figured out a way to avoid the engagements.” It had been cheaper to take to the heavens than try to undo the environmental sins of twenty-first century capitalism.” The emergence of this sinister lifeform is a scientific breakthrough, the first proof of extraterrestrial life and therefore worthy of study. However, it is also a menace to everyone aboard the Calypso spacecraft, so the crew must debate about whether the alien should be destroyed or preserved for scientific posterity.

While the ending is a little hmmm and reminds me a bit of An Unkindness of Ghosts (vaguely), the beginning and middle parts are straight up out of a horror movie and I LOVED IT. While I enjoyed the characters and the setup of The Scourge Between Stars, the horror elements were not developed well enough to leave a lasting impression. The novel would have benefitted from being more thoroughly fleshed out, with emphasis on providing greater deviation from the familiar plot points of Alien. Horror details are skimpy, and are more about suspense of both mystery and situation than body-horror. Personally, that's exactly the kind of book I'm looking for.

Read The Scourge Between Stars by Ness Brown

I’ll keep the themes of this novel fairly short. Main ones being: how far is to far when it comes to saving humanity from extinction? Is technological advancement enough to save humanity? Are the decisions of a leader greater than those of their followers because they have the whole picture? Other smaller themes include love, LGBTQ+, diversity, sacrifice, bravery, fear, depression, and more. If Ness Brown ever writes a sequel or an additional book in this universe, I will definitely be buying it. I cannot say enough positive things about The Scourge Between Stars! I had such a good time reading it. 🙂

We’re thrilled to share an excerpt from The Scourge Between Stars by Ness Brown, a tense sci-fi/horror blend set aboard a doomed generation ship—publishing April 4, 2023 with Tor Nightfire.

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What I did need details on, partially because it seemed the set-up for the reason the protagonist is captain and partly because it seems to play a role in her psychological state, is why a crew would allow their captain to isolate during a time of crisis. It didn't make sense to me on any level and very much had the feeling of being saved for Later Dramatic Reveal. The signal-to-noise ratio was abysmally low. This was nothing like the scrubbed-up audio she had heard in Data. Punches in the static vaguely reminded her of words, but she couldn’t make out anything coherent. Just as she leaned closer to the garbled sound, the transmission cut out. NESS BROWN is a speculative fiction author by day and astrophysicist by night. They are a proud New Mexican living in New York City (and missing green chile) with their husband and two cats, Faust and Mephi. They are currently studying graduate astrophysics after several years of teaching astronomy and encouraging students to wonder about worlds beyond our own. The Scourge Between Stars is their debut. There were literally times when I gasped out loud, and wished I could read it with my hands over my eyes.

A perfect blend of science fiction and horror…Short, fast, engaging, wildly entertaining, and unexpectedly gory, it almost demands to be devoured in one sitting.” — LocusShe had seen corpses before--that was the reality of war, even if they were just the ones caught in a cosmic crossfire beyond their perception--but never with viscera hanging out like the wires of an opened console." But in her dreams she had always emerged from the Calypso after her father and mother, with her sister beside her. No matter the promise this signal held, that dream would never come true. She was painfully reminded of that by the eerie sound floating out of Watson’s familiar face, a face stolen from the grave. A perfect scare to swallow up in one sitting. Filled with blood galore while holding tender humanity at its center, this is my favorite type of horror.” — Chloe Gong, #1 New York Times bestselling author of These Violent Delights

Are you afraid of generation ships? And outer space? And dying airless, stranded in nothing? Then keep your eyes out for The Scourge Between Stars , which crosses The Expanse with Pandorum by way of Event Horizon and emerges darkly victorious.”— Gemma FilesI absolutely loved this little novella. It's the perfect amount of suspenseful and horrifying. I'm definitely going to be purchasing a physical copy when it comes out in April. The Calypso is made up of much more than them, though—a whole contingent of nameless ‘officers’ and ‘techies’ who make up the rest of the ship’s population, and who occasionally become redshirts for the prowling alien predators. It's books like this that remind me why I love space horror so damn much. This was an excellent debut novella from author Ness Brown--who, by the way, studied astrophysics as a graduate student and was actually an astronomy instructor! (Badass!) I will definitely recommend this novella to my friends, and I can't wait to see what else Ness Brown has in store for the future.