The Scourge Between Stars, Ness Brown
Received to review via Netgalley
I’m told this owes a lot to Alien and similar stories, but I’m not familiar (I know, I live under a rock), so I’m less qualified to comment on the originality than some other reviewers. For me it was fairly new — not entirely, because I’ve read plenty of sci-fi, and watched some sci-fi TV shows… and even without that, not too narratively surprising.
The thing that was genuinely creepy (for me) was mostly the human aspect — the people who treat other people callously, who decide “me and mine first, and to hell with others”, or “I have the right”. That creepiness definitely adds something here, even though it’s the creepiness of people.
The elements of it are all enjoyable enough, though I feel like maybe it would’ve been a bit better as a novel, with more room to build things up before the deaths start rolling in. Especially since there are essentially two attacks on the ship from different origin (within and without), and one of them is dealt with so glancingly I almost forgot about it in writing this review.
