Before we get into this: No I have not seen the film or the Syfy (still hate that name change) series. I am only reviewing the novella here.
Author: George R. R. Martin
I walked into Nightflyers mostly blind. I had read a little of George R. R. Martin’s 1,000 worlds short stories. I knew George R. R. Martin liked to kill his protagonists and that he hates stock writing tropes. So I was at the edge of my seat for this story.
A group of looser scientists are sent on an underfunded mission to study an ancient alien spacecraft that has been discovered floating through the galaxy. . . I still don’t get how in a world with interstellar space travel you miss this thing, but we did.
They charter a spaceship with an eccentric captain who stays locked in his control room, appearing to them only in holograms.
It’s a fun space trip with kooky characters. . .
. . . Then someone’s head explodes.
As our heroes race to find answers, they find that they are in a battle of wits with a power they can not hope to understand, as they begin to question just what they are up against and just who is really on their side.
I really liked this story. This is scifi, for those of us who actually like scifi, not the random dribble “set in space” that masquerades as scifi these days.
Enough Said
I really enjoyed this story. You might call this a scifi/horror story due to the graphic deaths and the body count. I’m not a fan of gore-fest horror stories, because gore is not scary to me. To me, being grossed out and being scared are two different things.
Alfred Hickcock scares me. Agatha Christie and Shirly Jackson scare me. Steven King can gross me out but he doesn’t scare me. Nightflyers. . . scared the pants off of me.
Odd Librarian Out 