For readers worried about it being too dark and gruesome, you get just enough detail to know what's going down but the body horror isn't too graphic. 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.

The department was a honeycomb of blinking consoles and constant readouts, each techie’s hexagon crowded with terminals. Wires stretched hazardously across aisles; extra screens hung precariously from jury-rigged mounts. Despite Ventilation’s best efforts, even though every surface was practically oozing heat-sink paste, it was oppressively hot. While Brown does a nice job of building the world and the ship, this is one of those that I'd say falls under 'sci-fi' light as it doesn't get too far into the mechanics and details of the technology. There's enough to give us the parameters for the set-up. That's okay; I didn't need Aurora level technical details, but some might want more. I, for instance, found myself wondering more about the crisis that launched multiple giant colony ships without better resources. He’d explained it to her before—the decades that the fleet had spent on Proxima b, exposed even at the terminator to the host star’s radiation tantrums, had corroded a number of systems and machines. You know what I'm going to say: I would absolutely recommend the audio format. I'm serious though. It's great!With a setup like that, it’s hard to believe this book didn’t strike the right chord, but not only did I struggle to engage with the story, there were parts that I found tedious and frustrating. Many of the issues stemmed from the length of the novella—namely, I felt it was too short to truly explore any of its elements in depth. First of all, the reader is thrown headfirst into a situation about which they know very little; all we know is that the colony at a planet called Proxima b failed and that the fleet has been limping along home for quite some time yet nobody in the story appears to be reacting convincingly to what has transpired. Human beings can exhibit a wide range of reactions to a desperate situation, but the attitude on the Calypso feels oddly indifferent considering their captain has not been seen or heard from in more than a week. The captain had stopped answering his comms and leaving his quarters last week. As the first mate, she could only cover for him for so long. She stared at the closed door, wondering for the nth time if she should rip out the panel next to it, scramble the wires controlling the mechanism, and force her way in. 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: 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.

Carry on then,” she snapped. Otto jumped at her tone, but she wasn’t looking at him—she was looking at Watson, who tilted its head at her curiously. Unable to stomach its docility anymore, she turned on her heel and stalked out of the office. 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.

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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!)