Book Review: Ghost Station

Ghost Station is a science-fiction horror novel written American author S.A. Barnes. The book is set in the far-off future in which capitalistic corporations have expanded their reach across the stars to purchase and mine resource-heavy planets. The main character is psychologist Dr. Ophelia Bray who has been hired to take part in a mission with a small exploration crew to a remote icy planet which has been abandoned by its prior survey crew for unknown reasons. While eager to work with her new colleagues to figure out exactly what happened on the planet, Bray faces notable resistance due to her less than flattering reputation in diagnosing and handling the space-based hysteria condition known as ERS. This turns out to be the least of their problems however as the crew soon learns that there’s a dark and foreboding threat buried deep beneath the snow that will eat away at each of them slowly but surely.

This horror in this book is more so on the psychological end though there is the inclusion of some body horror stuff as well. S.A Barnes definitely has a unique quality when it comes to capturing psychological horror based on how well she is able to pit these characters against one another when the paranoia sets in. The way she sets up these up-close encounters between characters definitely comes off as the books strongest elements, down to how well defined each of the crew is and how distinct their characterization is. The other side of the horror though, feels notably undercooked in comparison. The alien world and the genetic horrors that lie beneath the ice are constantly teased in the narrative but the ultimate payoff wasn’t all that fulfilling. It just felt like the narrative was constantly teasing something big and scary but the horrific threat was literally miniscule and it just felt like the payoff wasn’t all that satisfying as a result.

I think the formatting and writing in the book make it generally easy to dive into. It’s a well paced book for the most part and Barnes is able to outline a sequence with a nice layer of description and depth. Her best work is both the external and internal dialogue between characters. They speak and interact like real people with their own agendas and bias that influence their relationships to one another. I feel if Barnes didn’t do such a good job on the writing side, it would have made working through the underwhelming narrative even more of a slog.

Ghost Station isn’t a terrible story but it doesn’t really offer much to make it stand out amongst other sci-fi horror stories out there. It just feels like Barnes had an idea of science-fiction horror but didn’t really think it through before she tried to craft it into a proper reading experience. As a result, you have a story which treads through all the typical tropes of a science-fiction horror without really trying to do anything to make it feel unique or original. The only saving grace is the writing and character work offer some kind of value to engage with from start to finish.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐