Cold Eternity by S.A. Barnes
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Cold Eternity is the latest release from S.A. Barnes, author of Dead Silence and Ghost Station. I always look forward to Barnes new books and this one did not disappoint.
This is another Space Horror novel and features a compelling protagonist, Halley, who after taking a remote assignment on an abandoned space barge, discovers there’s more danger in the job than she could’ve ever anticipated.
In the very beginning, this was giving me light-Artemis vibes. I think mostly because Halley, the way we meet her and the things she was thinking about at that time, were reminiscent of Jazz, the MC in Artemis.
You can tell that Halley is girl with a complicated past, who is trying her best to stay clear of it. I liked how the author filled that in for us over time, and I truly became attached to Halley and her well-being over the course of the story.
She takes the job on Elysian Fields, a giant space barge housing a now defunct cryo program, thinking the remoteness and isolation will help her to avoid the things she’s trying to avoid. Unfortunately, life on the floating crypt isn’t as harmless as she thought it would be.
Constant disturbing noises, and mysterious moving figures, haunt Halley’s days and nights. She finds it impossible to sleep, impossible to rest her nerve-rattled brain.
Karl, the only other human worker aboard, is just as puzzling as everything else about the Elysian Fields. Halley’s thoughts race and ramble as she tries to make sense of her new surroundings. It’s during this time that the Reader may begin to question how well they can rely on their narrator.
Learning about the Elysium Fields, its past, Halley’s connection to it and its present iteration was so compelling. Barnes does the horrors of future tech so well, and this story is absolutely terrifying if you think about it for too long…
S.A. Barnes has really made a name for herself in the SF-Horror space. She does such an incredible job creating an ominous atmosphere in each one of her stories, as well as well-developed main characters.
I feel like some Readers may avoid, or be intimidated by SciFi stories, as they feel like they may be too science-heavy, or too high-concept, for them to understand, or be pulled in by. And while I can understand that inclination with many SF-books, I would urge you, if this is you, to give S.A. Barnes’s work a try.
She makes her stories accessible to all types of Readers, whether you are a big-SF fan or not, I think you’ll easily be pulled in by her work and find it enjoyable.
This story, in particular, is well within our range of current understanding as tech rapidly progresses around us every day. I could absolutely picture a world where a situation like this becomes a reality.
Stories of futuristic tech always get under my skin. I just find it genuinely frightening to think about. All the ways such developments could go wildly wrong. Reading about it, in fun works of fiction like this, provide me with a safe place to explore such concepts, and honestly, it does help lessen some anxiety around these topics for me.
That may sound silly, but it is one of the reasons I so enjoy this type of story, and S.A. Barnes is my absolute go-to author for gripping, realistic, futuristic SF-Horror.
This had a lot of unsettling moments, with a great creepy atmosphere throughout. Towards the end it did have some moments where it started to feel a little muddled for me, but overall, it was a great reading experience.
Thank you so much to the publisher, Tor Nightfire and Macmillan Audio, for providing me with copies to read and review. I’ll be anticipating whatever Barnes releases next!!!