I received this book for free from the Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Cold Eternity by S.A. Barnes Published by Tor Nightfire on April 8 2025
Genres: Adult, Horror, Science fiction
Pages: 304
Format: ARC
Source: Publisher
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The nitty gritty: A woman on the run encounters mysteries and horrors on a derelict space ship, in this scary but uneven space thriller.
I can’t resist a good sci-fi horror story, and once again S.A. Barnes gives her fans a fast-paced, edge-of-your-seat thriller with some good jump scares and plenty of atmosphere. Although Cold Eternity isn’t my favorite book of hers, I had a lot of fun reading it and flew through it in only a few days.
All Halley Zwick wanted was to help people, and she was on her way to a promising career in politics, that is until she blew the whistle on one of her coworkers and ended up on their bad side. Now she’s being chased by the very people she once trusted, and she’s looking for a place to hide until things blow over. When she’s offered a caretaker job aboard a remote dry-dock ship, she jumps at the chance to lay low for a while.
The Elysian Fields was the brainchild of Zale Winfeld, who became obsessed with the idea of immortality after the sudden death of his three grown children in a shuttle accident. Winfeld turned the ship into a repository for cryogenically frozen bodies for families mourning their loved ones, hoping that someday science would become advanced enough to bring them back to life. Unfortunately, his experiment failed, and the funds to support the cryogenics tanks dried up and the ship fell into disrepair.
When Halley arrives on board the Elysian Fields, she’s expecting to meet up with her new boss Karl, the only other person on the ship. But oddly enough, Karl only communicates with Halley through a series of monitors, as he’s busy doing maintenance on the lower levels of the ship. Halley’s main job is to press the “all clear” button in the control room every three hours—round the clock—which sends a signal to the Elysian Fields board members that all is well. She’s also tasked with doing security rounds on several levels of the ship, but she soon finds out that Karl has declared some levels off limits.
Right away, unsettling noises and strange shapes in the shadowy corridors begin to unnerve Halley. She keeps hearing odd clicks and scrapes throughout the ship, not all of which can be explained away by normal circumstances. And when she sees what looks like a naked man crawling down a corridor, she begins to suspect that something sinister is going on.
S.A. Barnes is a master of creating creepy, atmospheric stories, and she’s outdone herself in this book. The Elysian Fields is an old ship full of dead bodies, or I should say cryogenically frozen bodies who will probably never wake up, and Halley has to coexist with them. The ship itself is very old and very big, with seemingly endless levels, rooms and corridors, and it’s creepy as hell! Once Halley starts seeing things (I won’t give away more than that), the tension ramps up to eleven, and I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough.
Something terrifying is revealed in the second half of the book, and this is where the horror aspects of the story really shine. At one point, Halley realizes she needs to get off the ship, so you have that claustrophobic feeling of being trapped with something that’s trying to kill you and not being able to escape. If you’re a fan of Stranger Things, then you’ll remember the scary scenes that take place in Hawkins Lab when the characters are trapped by the Demodogs. Yep, it’s that sort of heart-pounding terror.
But as much as I enjoyed the horror elements, not everything worked for me. There’s a lot of page time dealing with Halley and the political mess she’s involved in. The specifics aren’t fully explained until late in the story, and I found myself confused and not very interested in it for the most part. Probably the most puzzling side plot for me, though, was that the Elysian Fields used to host school children on field trips, and Winfeld created a presentation where students could learn more about his vision for the future. He used AI generated images of his three dead children to act as hosts of his show, and Halley discovers this theater during her rounds one night and stumbles onto something, well, very weird indeed. Having read the book, I can see why the author included this side plot, but it was “off” just enough that it didn’t seem to fit with the rest of the story.
I also ended up with lots of unanswered questions, and some elements in the story just didn’t make sense. Why do Karl and Halley never meet in person, even though they’re working on the same ship? (It is finally explained at the end, but it drove me crazy for most of the book.) Why would a derelict ship have a board of directors who need someone on board to push a button every three hours to make sure they’re still alive? And most curious of all, why are there hundreds of frozen bodies hooked up to machines still on board the ship, even after Winfeld’s “vision” failed? Yes, we need those bodies when the horror revs into high gear, but the explanation behind them was pretty thin.
Still, I did have a blast reading Cold Eternity despite my complaints, which won’t keep me from reading Barnes’s next book.
Big thanks to the publisher for providing a review copy.
I really loved Barnes’ previous novels. That combination of horror and science fiction is such a fun one. And even if this one isn’t quite as good, I’m still looking forward to reading it. Love your review! 😀
Thanks Lark! I hope you get the chance to read it.
I haven’t read this author yet, and it sounds like this isn’t the place to start. I do like the sound of being trapped on a spaceship and having the horror elements part of it, but from what you’ve described, I think the political aspects would irritate me too.
It just wasn’t my favorite of her books. But she’s one of those authors I’ll always read no matter what:-)
I’m never sure if I would really like this author because of the horror aspect. The rest all sounds great.
Anne – Books of My Heart
This one had quite a bit of science fiction to it, and a strong political side plot.
Great review! I’m looking forward to this one. 🙂
I hope you love it!
This sounds so creepy, and as though the horror elements were really well done.
It’s a shame about the unanswered questions, I think those would bug me too, especially the one about the derelict ship deeding someone to push a button every three hours to make sure they’re still alive.
Maybe I missed some of the answers, lol. But certain things just didn’t make sense. Still, the creepiness was really well done!
Sigh, I requested this solely for the science fiction aspect (because it sounded good); I’m not thrilled to hear that the best parts were the horror, but oh well, maybe I’ll get lucky anyway. Great review, Tammy:)
Now I’m really curious to see what you think, Will! There is plenty of SF to enjoy, so who knows, maybe this will work for you:-)
I didn’t know Barnes had a new book out! It sounds like this one is a bit of a mixed bag, but still worth reading. I will add it to my wish list. Thank you for your review!
It’s definitely worth reading!
I love space horror and plan on reading this at some point. I just finished another space horror for a book club a last week and I feel I need to put some space between them. Great review and glad there were several things you really enjoyed.
It really was good, but I’m still partial to Dead Silence.
There’s something consistent about this author’s covers, each successfully gives me that sci-fi/horror vibe. One day I will try the author, but good to know I should probably pick one of their other books first.
I do like the way all three covers fit together and give the same vibe:-)
Wasn’t my favorite of the author’s either! For me, it felt a little repetitive and slow in places.
This sounds like a frustrating read in some moments, but I am glad that even with some hiccups the book still worked for you!
It sounds like a gripping read and I may try it out one of these days. It’s not my usual pick, at all, but I loved Dead Silence, strangely enough, so… Why not??
All of this author’s books sound really good! Space horror stories in the movies are some of my favorites, I need to read more books! Great review!
https://lisalovesliterature.bookblog.io/2025/04/16/lisa-loves-to-discuss-7-recommending-books-to-non-bloggers/
The unanswered niggles (for the majority of the novel) would have annoyed me too I think.
Lynn 😀