Screams From The Void by Anne Tibbets
I would like to thank Flame Tree Press for a copy of this novel in exchange for a fair and honest review
Publisher - Flame Tree Press
Published - Out Now
Price -£5.99 kindle ebook £12.99 paperback
For two years in deep space, the freighter Demeter and a small crew have collected botanical life from other planets. It's a lesson in patience and hell. Mechanics Ensign Raina is ready to jump ship, if only because her abusive ex is also aboard, as well as her overbearing boss. It's only after a foreign biological creature sneaks aboard and wreaks havoc on the ship and crew that Raina must find her grit - and maybe create a gadget or two - to survive...that is, if the crew members don't lose their sanity and turn on each other in the process.
Space allows for a different type of horror. Knowing that whatever is haunting or pursuing you there is no where you can escape to. Be it Alien or Event Horizon you can never escape the nightmare unless you have a handy escape pod and even then you need somewhere to actually get to in time. In Anne Tibbet’s science fiction horror novel Screams From The Void I was hoping after a blistering start for some true scares but sadly i found this tale lacked enough bite to grab me.
The United Space Corps Vessel Demeter is nearing the end of its two year space mission and its crew are tired and ready for home. But the Captain and pilot are altered to a biological on board - alien life. Before they can investigate too quickly they are soon in the command centre of the ship all dead and the rest of the crew are unaware. The remaining crew including grumpy and risk taking Technical Sergeant Pollux and constantly on final warning Ensign Raina have to work out all is not well on their ship and then face the dangers before the rest of the crew are dead and this ship a wreck in space.
This was a frustrating read. The initial opening chapter of a bloodbath in a starship’s command centre really pays off and then the expected tension soon vanishes. Tibbets has opted for an interesting approach of showing the crew in the now and also the past. We get to see relationships start and end but with little use of character. Its a dysfunctional crew with lots of rivalries and allies that I struggled to understand how it could ever have worked well as a unit. Unfortunately this attempt at Alien for me falls very flat. The crew are too fractured and characterisation for most is thin. The SF elements are basic and the writing is often a little clunky for my tastes with just gruesome deaths to keep us occupied but a sense of horror had soon drained away. Sadly not a book I can recommend.
