This novella has everything I want in a sci-fi horror: lots of action, excellent character arcs, and a solid resolution.” — Buzzfeed Ness Brown's The Scourge Between Stars is a tense, claustrophobic sci-fi/horror blend set aboard a doomed generation ship harboring something terrible within its walls. The Scourge Between Stars is a SF-Horror novella from Ness Brown. I had the opportunity to listen to the audiobook, which is performed by my favorite narrator, Bahni Turpin.

You know what I'm going to say: I would absolutely recommend the audio format. I'm serious though. It's great!

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This novella has everything I want in a sci-fi horror: lots of action, excellent character arcs, and a solid resolution.”— Buzzfeed 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. 🙂 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. There were literally times when I gasped out loud, and wished I could read it with my hands over my eyes. 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.

Otto’s lips pursed at the interruption. “Watson is the most advanced post-zettascale system ever constructed.” He didn’t have the decency, as its creator, to blush as he said so. “It’s about as difficult for her to ingest the data as it is for you and me to take a biscuit with our coffee.” 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. 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. That was absurd, since infrared sensors in the captain’s bunk would’ve alerted her already. But it was a stain she couldn’t wash from her mind.However, I really liked the ending and the way most of it tied together. Honestly, though, there was enough to flesh this into a Robinson/Stephenson sized-novel if Brown would have been up for it. (That said, as a reader I appreciated just a bite-sized chunk). As it is, I'd definitely read more of her writing, particularly if Brown puts out a full-length novel in this world. This would make a very solid 0.5 kind of story in a series.

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. I’m doing much more than that,” he insisted. “I’ve developed and imported into Watson a processing library more sophisticated than anything Data has ever run before. This morning I put the finishing touches on a new series of tasks that should be able to find what we’ve been missing.” It could take weeks—months—years to translate this data.” Otto hummed. “Perhaps longer to figure out how to use it to map a safe route.”The Scourge Between Stars has some nice jump scares and cool action sequences whilst recycling a well-used science fiction trope to favourable effect. The story nails the claustrophobia and loneliness of space, but I am unconvinced the cosmic horror-style vibe the ending connects with the rest of the narrative. Ultimately it is a solid read but has the potential to be much better if expanded and fleshed out. Grades: Tense, gory, and genuinely creepy…. Brown handles the astronomy and exobiology equally as competently as the interpersonal dynamics and trauma. The result is a sci-fi horror mash-up that holds its own with the classics of the genre.”— Publishers Weekly Ness Brown’s The Scourge Between Stars, a tense, claustrophobic sci-fi/horror blend in the vein of Alien and Event Horizon, will be published by Nightfire in April 2023! She didn’t laugh. “What’s so secretive that you couldn’t tell everyone earlier?” They could have used some good news at the briefing, which was otherwise spent discussing how close the Calypso was to collapse. 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.”