SCREAMS FROM THE VOID by Anne Tibbets
Publication date: May 2021
"A tense, gripping SF house of horrors in space, where not all the monsters are inhuman. I enjoyed this enormously." — Peter McLean, author of Priest of Bones
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 Reina 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 Reina 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. FLAME TREE PRESS is the new fiction imprint of Flame Tree Publishing. Launched in 2018 the list brings together brilliant new authors and the more established; the award winners, and exciting, original voices.
My Impression
I received an ARC of Screams from the Void to review as a participant in the blog tour.
This book starts off with a bang. The first chapter leaves no doubt that the body count will be high, and the reader is in for some excellent sci-fi terror. This novel follows the bloodthirsty alien aboard a starship trope––think Ridley Scott's movie Alien. Anne does an excellent job making the story fresh by giving the ship's crew enough reasons to despise each other that I wonder if a few will die by human hands before the biological threat hunts them down.
I think readers of science-fiction and horror will find much to enjoy in this novel. Inspiring writers will serve themselves well by pouring over the first chapter. It starts off with a big bang, no kidding. Anne does a fantastic job pulling this off, and it's worth studying how she did it.
Due to unforeseen circumstances, I haven't finished Screams from the Void yet, but I wanted to share my initial impressions. I'll put up an extended review at a later date.
Former TV writer Anne Tibbets is the author of the New Adult speculative series The Line Book One and Two: CARRIER and WALLED (2014). Anne is also co-author of the first book in the military science fiction series EXTINCTION BIOME: INVASION (2016), and authored the second, EXTINCTION BIOME: DISPERSAL (2017), both as Addison Gunn.
When Anne isn’t writing or working as a Literary Agent, she’s gardening, gaming, and dodging repeated assassination attempts by her cat. For more information about Anne, visit her website www.AnneTibbets.com or find her on Twitter @AnneTibbets.