Space is a big and lonely place, and that isolation can do strange and terrible things to people’s minds.
In S.A. Barnes’ Ghost Station (Amazon), it can lead to a mental disorder known as Eckhart-Reiser Syndrome (ERS). The syndrome leads to mental decline, ultimately leading to a catastrophic break with reality … as well as murder and/or suicide. The book opens with Dr. Ophelia Bray, psychologist and ERS researcher, joining an exploration crew.
That crew is tasked with investigating a planet full of alien ruins. The ruins were once held by a rival corporation, which abandoned it for inexplicable reasons. After all, one simply does not walk away from the technological gold mine of alien ruins. Understanding why they did that becomes one of the book’s central mysteries.
From the beginning, the crew is resentful of Bray’s addition, feeling that it’ll undermine their long-term chances of success. As an ERS researcher (and with a former member of their crew potentially having succumbed to the disorder), Bray’s presence risks undermining their professional reputations.
It quickly becomes apparent that the crew hasn’t recovered from the loss of their colleague. The strangeness of the planet they’re investigating does nothing to improve their mental state.
Slow Burn on a Dead World
I read S.A. Barnes’ Dead Silence, her debut book about a salvage crew exploring the drifting hulk of a legendary lost space liner as part of my 2023 summer reading list. I enjoyed it for the creepy space ghost story it was.
Ghost Station is a slow burn, more focused on the psychological health (and dysfunction) of the crew and Bray’s own mentally distressing past. There are strong supernatural undertones to the book, which plays up the tension. Is there an external threat? (a haunting? weird alien tech?). Or is the crew on their way to mental breakdowns? There are parts of the story (in particular, Bray’s own history) which feel a little too convenient. That said … the “investigator confronting her own ghosts” is an effective genre trope.
Ultimately, I liked how the book unfolded, and it was a great vacation / summer book read. As I hear the wind howl outside my window on this January morning, I can safely say it’d make for a great wintertime read, too.