Reviews tagging 'Pandemic/Epidemic'

Ghost Station by S.A. Barnes

10 reviews

horrorandscience's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Violence, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Child abuse, Gore, Suicide, and Blood

mice_are_nice's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Mental illness, Violence, and Blood

Moderate: Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Gun violence, Self harm, Suicide, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Minor: Alcohol

priscillarobock's review

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Alcoholism, Body horror, Confinement, Death, Gun violence, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Murder, Abandonment, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Panic attacks/disorders, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Gaslighting, and Pandemic/Epidemic

kaneebli's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Mental illness, Violence, Blood, Grief, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Body horror, Gore, Suicide, and Medical content

Minor: Bullying, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Gun violence, Death of parent, and Pandemic/Epidemic

skywardstorytelling's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Pros: Very creepy. There were a lot of little details that all coalesced to create the horror, which was very effective to maintain tension. The novel covers a lot of good points re: mental health and dealing with trauma, using horror as a lens to talk about these things. The Big Bad was quite nightmarish and a well-conceived blend of a couple of sci-fi horror tropes.

Cons: Unlike Dead Silence, I felt as though this narrative didn't have a lot of force behind it. The stakes felt lower, despite being objectively higher - the foundations for the shock at the plot reveals and rooting for the characters were not as well laid here. I found Ophelia a frustrating protagonist - she is ineffectual at the best of times, which made her denouement feel almost out of character. The plot was more amorphous and I had a lot of questions left by the end of the novel, making some of the major scenes feel more like set dressing for shock value rather than major plot points. I also disliked the implied romance between Ophelia and Ethan - it follows a disappointly generic romance novel arc and yet has no real payoff. It seems like it was the only way the author could think of to get Ophelia to care about Ethan, even though their conversations were good setup for mutual respect and trust without lingering on the potential of "more" that we never see played out.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Body horror, Child abuse, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Mental illness, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Gaslighting, Alcohol, Classism, and Pandemic/Epidemic

puntifexmaximus's review

dark mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

Starts slow

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Bullying, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Mental illness, Self harm, Suicide, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, and Pandemic/Epidemic

anarmandameg's review

dark tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Ew.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child abuse, Death, Gore, Mental illness, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Moderate: Domestic abuse and Physical abuse

Minor: Addiction, Alcoholism, Bullying, Child abuse, Cursing, Eating disorder, Gun violence, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Forced institutionalization, Excrement, Dementia, Abandonment, Alcohol, Deportation, and Pandemic/Epidemic

barometz's review

dark mysterious reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Definitely a slow start, slowed down further by the amount of time that Ophelia spends mooning over Severin*. At almost no point could I take her seriously as a medical professional. But once the horror kicked off, I was still totally sucked in. Ultimately, I wished we could have had more time with

the alien entity

before the book ended.

*I think I jokingly whined to a friend who was also reading this book that it was too heterosexual for me, but it did make me very glad to see queer people included even if just as background characters. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child abuse, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Domestic abuse, Self harm, and Death of parent

lahars_little_library's review

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Gore, Gun violence, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Mass/school shootings, Death of parent, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Vomit

bibliomania_express's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

Ghost Station by S.A. Barnes is a skin-crawling space horror that delves into the psychological effects of trauma, grief, survivor's guilt, corporate greed, and the unknowable. Ophelia is a psychologist, trained to treat space exploration teams for psychological conditions. 

This book has a great blend of science, alien horror, and a creepy, cold isolated setting. Ophelia is wracked with guilt, still carrying trauma from her past, and determined to help this team who absolutely don't want her help. 

There are parallels with Barnes's first book, Dead Silence - the isolated setting, the critique of corporate capitalism, the use of auditory and visual hallucinations paired with internal conflicts, the hint of romance. But this book shows that Barnes excels at what she does. I felt Ophelia's fear, paranoia, and her intense longing to help. I understood the team dynamics and what motivated each character. My skin crawled at the whole alien part of it. The worldbuilding felt full while not relying on info dumps. 

There are some thing I wish had been expanded on, particularly at the end. The epilogue ends rather abruptly, just to tie up the story, but we don't really get to see the fallout or return to some of the side characters we met at the beginning. 

I also wanted a bit more from the team. Obviously, some characters, like Ethan and Birch, are more prominent due to their roles in the story, but the action kicks off rather quickly, so there's not a lot of time to get to know each character before the plot is happening. 

Perhaps part of it is that I wanted more answers. I have so many questions about details. I suppose some are unknowable, but I wanted a little more space for the characters to breathe at the end. 

If you want a isolated space horror that features discussions of mental health, secrets from the past, dystopian worldbuilding elements, and a fight for survivial (plus literal skin-crawling), you might enjoy this book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Moderate: Confinement, Mental illness, and Physical abuse

Minor: Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Dementia, Murder, and Pandemic/Epidemic