There’s a fine line between sci-fi and space horror. In this list, we’ve defined ‘space horror’ as horror stories that take place on other worlds, although some may also end up on Earth.
We’re adding to this list all the time so make sure to keep coming back if you’re a space horror fan.
If you know of any space horror books that aren’t on this page, please tell us about them.
| Title | By | Year |
|---|---|---|
YA. Three ordinary teenagers win the chance to become the first young people in space. But something sinister is waiting for them and, in the black vacuum of space, no one is coming to save them. | Harstad, Johan | 2013 |
Grand Galaxies is the most expensive amusement park ever created, built on the surface of the moon. But communication with the moon has been lost. Someone needs to go up there and see what’s wrong. | Wright, Iain Rob | 2015 |
In the darkness between planets, a spacesuit jerks to life. Far away, a human mind has merged with the suit's robotic framework. | Henderson, Christopher | 2018 |
The station, once home to hundreds of workers and their families, is abandoned, its inhabitants either dead or gone. And records show Aperture uncovered something buried deep beneath the planet's surface. | Viergutz, David & Bacic, Boris | 2024 |
Meant to handle the tedious maintenance tasks of a whole ship by itself, as well as having a next gen human communication interface, the Autonomous Robotic Intelligence Computer is designed to feel just like another member of the crew. Now ship captains can rest easy knowing they have one of the smartest super computers ever built at the helm. Or can they? | Beauchamp, Richard | 2022 |
The sole survivor from the first ship to use a new star drive returns, dying from a strange type of radiation. The only way to find out what happened is to go out again. | Brackett, Leigh | 1955 |
A group of astronauts boards the Rib, which has all the grim attributes of a haunted house in space. The Rib has the demonic power to torment its passengers with dangerous visions as it delivers them to the Jovian moon of Callisto. | Clark, Simon | 2023 |
Halley is on the run from an interplanetary political scandal. She heads for what seems like the perfect place to lay low: a gigantic space barge storing the cryogenically frozen bodies of Earth’s most fortunate citizens from more than a century ago. | Barnes, S.A. | 2025 |
A small repair team is jolted awake to perform minor repairs after a meteor strike during their 100+ year journey. But this meteor is no mere space rock. It carries a dead, mold-like substance: Crave. | Barns, Crowley | 2023 |
Deep within Crescent Station’s darkest and most secret places, an ancient evil is awakening and hungry, and it threatens the very fabric of space and time. | Rossi, Phil | 2009 |
The PUV James Keeling can slip into another dimension, travel undetected, then re-emerge onto our plane and surprise enemy targets. People call it "the Crypt," because those aboard are as good as dead. | Sigler, Scott | 2023 |
When a mysterious meteor crashes into one of the Moon's cemeteries, the caretakers find themselves surrounded by a terrifying enemy force that outnumbers them more than a thousand to one. An enemy not hindered by the lack of air or warmth or sustenance. An enemy that is already dead. | Clines, Peter | 2019 |
Dead Shall Inherit the Earth, The In deep space, a colony is devastated by a horrific plague, unleashing a nightmare beyond imagination. A team of mercenaries battle against an army of living dead to save the Earth from a hellish fate where death is just the beginning. | Churchill, Vince | 2001 |
A repair crew boards a decades-lost luxury cruiser and find the wreckage of a nightmare that hasn't yet ended. | Barnes, S.A. | 2023 |
An Interplanetary smuggler and his crew are forced into a deal with a dangerous politician transporting cargo from a military installation to a drop-off near the sun. When the cargo is opened, they find themselves defenseless against a threat unlike any mankind has faced before. | Allocco, Benjamin | 2016 |
Diamond Dogs is about a planet that is home to a machine-like structure called the Blood Spire. Turquoise Days is about amorphous, aquatic organisms who preserve the memories of human swimmers who join their collection consciousness. | Reynolds, Alastair | 2008 |
In a barren, hostile landscape where even machines have nightmares, astronauts will need to examine all the stories, especially their own, to get to the truth. | Coile, Mason | 2025 |
Deployed in orbit to what he first believed to be a simple research station, a soldier named Markus is a member of a squad defending Earth on the front line of a secret war against an alien enemy that attacks telepathically, using our nightmares as weapons. | Najberg, Andrew | 2025 |
An abandoned planet. A hidden past. A deadly danger. | Barnes, S.A. | 2025 |
A crew scouring Jupiter’s moon for resources comes upon two coffins buried fathoms deep in the ice: one contains a man burning with unstoppable rage, and the other contains an ancient evil. | Wildasin, Matt | 2023 |
A mission aboard the space station turns into a nightmare when a culture of single-celled organisms begins to regenerate out of control and infects the crew with agonising and deadly results. | Gerritsen, Tess | 2011 |
Thirty-seven miners disappear within a Titanium mine, deep within Zeta One, a moon orbiting the planet, Terra. When an FBI agent arrives to investigate, strange phenomena begin to manifest. | Holley, Justin | 2023 |
An expedition to find a legendary long-lost colonization vessel has to contend with the alien parasites that infest the blood-like seas of a planet-sized organism called a fleshworld. | Kozeniewski, Stephen | 2022 |
A crew arrives on a long lost, abandoned ship and discovers it is crawling with monsters, as well of some of its original residents. | Hunt, Taran | 2023 |
When a new marine brings a deadly virus aboard the deep space exploration ship, Juggernaut, it throws the entire crew into a blood drenched battle for survival as the infected are reduced to their basest level. | Allison, Kelvin V.A. | 2021 |
A large alien object is on a straight course toward Earth. It has made no attempt to communicate. As the object reveals its secrets, the crew sent to investigate find themselves in a desperate struggle for survival. | Wellington, David | 2019 |
A caver on a foreign planet finds herself on a terrifying psychological and emotional journey for survival. | Starling, Caitlin | 2019 |
Captain Goldwing leads a mission aboard the Metropolis Seven while the remaining crew members of the Icarus play babysitter with a psychotic madman who will stop at nothing to reclaim his freedom. | Hellscream, Matthew J | 2014 |
A research team travels to the Nether anomaly, eager to understand the mechanics of the wormhole and to explore its possibilities as a shortcut to Alpha Centauri, but another race of ancient beings has already been there. | Anderson, Kevin J. | 2025 |
In the near future, an aggressive and terrifying new form of dementia is affecting victims of all ages. The cause is unknown, and the symptoms are disturbing. | Hart, Joe | 2018 |
Spaceships aren’t programmed to seek revenge—but for Dracula, Demeter will make an exception. | Truelove, Barbara | 2025 |
Mankind is not the only species hungry for exploration. When a new species, the Opas, escape into the expedition’s living quarters, they are not only curious, but very hungry. | Meikle, William | 2023 |
When a guard discovers an unusual lifeform on her remote moon outpost, she disregards protocol to investigate. It soon becomes clear she's stuck in isolation with an alien capable of incredible depravity. | Coates, Darcy | 2020 |
YA. Two teens must outwit their enemies, evade brutal monsters that kill with sound, and work together to save the human race. | Alameda, Courtney | 2019 |
When a salvage team comes across a ship that has been missing for decades, the ship’s unique drive kicks in, causing relics of the original mission to develop a strange new life deep below Mars. | Meikle, William | 2014 |
Ava must fight an entity locked in on taking out the crew of the Eden, a moon-sized cemetery in space, as it brings back the souls of the dead buried aboard. | Palisano, John | 2025 |
The crew did not know what awaited them on the massive abandoned exploration vessel. A terrifying secret, a threat to all of humanity that lay sleeping alongside the orbiting dead. And then they woke it up. | Wallace, Kali | 2020 |
Constant threats of starvation and destruction in the treacherous minefield of interstellar space are not the only threats to a doomed generation ship limping its way back to Earth. An unknown intruder begins picking off crew members in grim, bloody fashion. | Brown, Ness | 2023 |
Lauren was a celebrity, involved in the manned Mars expedition. But Lauren knew fear. Inside: voices entreating her to love them. Outside the missing group that had gone before her. | Pike, Christopher | 2011 |
After centuries of wandering through the galaxy in search of other life, the crew of the starship Argonos, the home to generations of humans, is lured by an unidentified transmission to a nearby planet. Released in 2003 as Unto Leviathan. | Russo, Richard Paul | 2001 |
Upon arrival on the remote ice planet Xiao 2, Zilfaquir discovers the facility has experienced an epidemic leaving most of the station’s personnel either dead or dying. Or transforming. | Cooley, Paul E. | 2022 |
In the deepest reaches of space, on a ship that no longer exists, six travelers stare into the abyss, and the abyss stares back. | Talley, Brett J | 2012 |
Jay is been uploaded into a new body to investigate why the transporter ship Candlemass went dark fourteen days ago. | Castle, Micah | 2024 |
A skeleton crew looking after more than 50,000 cryogenically frozen colonists comes into contact with an alien artefact and unwittingly awakens an ancient, powerful evil. | Kuzack, Nathan | 2019 |
Alto's shift aboard the starship M.G. Yellowjacket turns hellish after waking from a tryst to learn every crewmate has vanished. Worse, a sinister presence has crawled aboard the ship. It's violent, destructive, and it can reach into your thoughts to make you see and feel what it wants. | Piper, Hailey | 2022 |
This is a list of space horror book series where there is more than 1 book about space.
If a space book is part of a series, but the series is not all about space, then the book will be in the table above.
| Title | By | Year |
|---|---|---|
Alien Book 1 of 3 A crashed mining ship uncovers a nest of Xenomorphs, and hell takes on new meaning. | Lebbon, Tim | 2014 |
Alien Book 2 of 3 A team of mercenaries are sent to investigate an ancient excavation. Somewhere in that long-forgotten dig lies the thing the company wants most in the universe: a living Xenomorph. | Moore, James A. | 2014 |
Alien Book 3 of 3 The secrets behind the colonization of LV-426, the planet where the Alien was first found in Alien, and the setting for Aliens where a sole survivor was discovered. | Golden, Christopher | 2014 |
Amalgam Book 1 of 3 An off-world mining company scrambles to launch an operation and stake its claim first after a deep space satellite scan reveals a large vein of unidentifiable metal on an exomoon light years away. Except it’s not a vein of metal at all. | Duke, Mike | 2021 |
Amalgam Book 2 of 3 The survivors of the alien massacre at Gambler’s Hope mining colony have anxiously waited six months for their rescue to arrive, but now their nightmare may begin again. | Duke, Mike | 2022 |
Amalgam Book 3 of 3 Maynard and his fellow survivors are trapped onboard the Queen Antares, moving at faster than light speed through the abyss of space with the alien amalgam in control of the ship. | Duke, Mike | 2022 |
Contagion Book 1 of 2 A skeleton crew is sent into deep space to perform a standard search-and-rescue mission. When they arrive, they find the planet littered with the remains of the project, including its members’ dead bodies. | Bowman, Erin | 2019 |
Contagion Book 2 of 2 Thea, Coen, and Nova have escaped from Achlys, only to find themselves imprisoned on a ship they thought was their ticket to safety. | Bowman, Erin | 2020 |
Cosmic Monstrosities Book 1 of 2 A crew responds to the distress signal of the SS Revelation, only to discover that nobody is there. It quickly becomes apparent that something monstrous is lurking aboard the ship. | DeBoard, Radar | 2022 |
Cosmic Monstrosities Book 2 of 2 After escaping the nightmare aboard the SS Revelation, Talisha awakes on an unfamiliar medical station, only to realize she has escaped one hell, only to be plunged into another. | DeBoard, Radar | 2022 |
Dead Sun Chronicles, The Book 1 of 4 Ryon is aboard a ship fleeing into the unknown abyss of space, but where exactly are they heading? Inter-dimensional demons lurk in the shadows beyond reality, waiting to guide Ryon and the ship towards a horrifying destiny no one is prepared to confront. | Phillips, Sam M. | 2021 |
Dead Sun Chronicles, The Book 2 of 4 Seeking direction and meaning on his journey through the cosmos, Ryon must commune with the demonic beings which prowl just beyond the scope of his reality. | Phillips, Sam M. | 2021 |
Dead Sun Chronicles, The Book 3 of 4 A year into their journey through space, the situation looks hopeless for the crew of the ship fleeing the death of Earth’s sun. | Phillips, Sam M. | 2023 |
Dead Sun Chronicles, The Book 4 of 4 Caught in a cosmic conundrum, Ryon Barker is desperate for a way out. | Phillips, Sam M. | 2023 |
Firefall Book 1 of 2 Who do you send to force introductions with unknown and unknowable alien intellect that doesn't wish to be met? | Watts, Peter | 2006 |
Firefall Book 2 of 2 It's the eve of the twenty-second century: a world where the dearly departed send postcards back from Heaven and evangelicals make scientific breakthroughs by speaking in tongues; where genetically engineered vampires solve problems intractable to baseline humans and soldiers come with zombie switches that shut off self-awareness during combat. And it's all under surveillance by an alien presence that refuses to show itself. | Watts, Peter | 2014 |
Hell Divers Book 1 of 12 They dive so humanity survives... | Smith, Nicholas Sansbury | 2022 |
Hell Divers Book 2 of 12 Betrayal and sacrifice in the skies... | Smith, Nicholas Sansbury | 2022 |
Hell Divers Book 3 of 12 They will dive, but will humanity survive? | Smith, Nicholas Sansbury | 2022 |
Hell Divers Book 4 of 12 They dive so humanity survives. Now they take to the sea. | Smith, Nicholas Sansbury | 2022 |
Hell Divers Book 5 of 12 Humanity has finally found a new home, but the price is blood... | Smith, Nicholas Sansbury | 2022 |
Hell Divers Book 6 of 12 The war for the Metal Islands is over, but the search for survivors has just begun. | Smith, Nicholas Sansbury | 2022 |
Hell Divers Book 7 of 12 While the Hell Divers cross an ocean to battle the machines, an old flesh-and-blood threat returns to the islands. | Smith, Nicholas Sansbury | 2022 |
Hell Divers Book 8 of 12 Hell Divers VIII: King of the Wastes Face the uncertain future without fear... | Smith, Nicholas Sansbury | 2022 |
Hell Divers Book 9 of 12 New monsters. New terrain. New threats. Welcome to Australia. | Smith, Nicholas Sansbury | 2022 |
Hell Divers Book 10 of 12 Much is lost, but hope in one man remains... | Smith, Nicholas Sansbury | 2023 |
Hell Divers Book 11 of 12 The secret location of the Vanguard Islands is no longer a secret... | Smith, Nicholas Sansbury | 2023 |
Hell Divers Book 12 of 12 Two final dives. One mission that will determine the fate of humanity forever. | Smith, Nicholas Sansbury | 2024 |
Obelisks Book 1 of 2 The astronauts on the International Space Station wake up one morning to silence. All communication with Earth, gone. From half a dozen different agencies with multiple installations and redundancies across the globe, there is simply...nothing. | Marmell, Ari | 2022 |
Obelisks Book 2 of 2 Along with other scattered survivors, astronaut Cynthia Han and the remainder of ISS Expedition 81 have finally learned what happened to the people they’d left behind, and it’s worse than any of them could have imagined. | Marmell, Ari | 2023 |
Reality Bleed Book 1 of 12 It’s not a war. It’s an extermination. | Foster, J.Z. and Woodward, Justin M. | 2020 |
Reality Bleed Book 2 of 12 The nightmare is just beginning. | Foster, J.Z. and Woodward, Justin M. | 2020 |
Reality Bleed Book 3 of 12 They crawl inside you and take your body. | Foster, J.Z. and Woodward, Justin M. | 2020 |
Reality Bleed Book 4 of 12 Ammunition is running low, and even now on the surface of Mars, the war continues. | Foster, J.Z. and Woodward, Justin M. | 2020 |
Reality Bleed Book 5 of 12 Hail the New Age. Hail the New God. Hail the Fall of Man. | Foster, J.Z. and Woodward, Justin M. | 2020 |
Reality Bleed Book 6 of 12 The World has gone to War. | Foster, J.Z. and Woodward, Justin M. | 2021 |
Reality Bleed Book 7 of 12 The world may soon be lost... | Foster, J.Z. | 2021 |
Reality Bleed Book 8 of 12 War comes home... | Foster, J.Z. | 2021 |
Reality Bleed Book 9 of 12 As the world burns... | Foster, J.Z. | 2022 |
Reality Bleed Book 10 of 12 All things die. | Foster, J.Z. | 2023 |
Reality Bleed Book 11 of 12 We all Bleed Red. | Foster, J.Z. | 2023 |
Reality Bleed Book 12 of 12 Humanity stands at the brink of extinction. | Foster, J.Z. | 2024 |
Red Space Book 1 of 2 Paradise-1, Earth’s first deep space colony, was an opportunity for a new life for thousands of people. Until it went dark. | Wellington, David | 2023 |
Red Space Book 2 of 2 Now they can pursue their original mission and investigate why Earth's first deep space colony has fallen silent. | Wellington, David | 2024 |
Spatterjay Book 1 of 3 The savage ocean planet of Spatterjay draws visitors with very different agendas. Erlin is immortal and seeks a reason to keep living. Janer hosts a hive mind, which paid him to find this planet. And Keech is an agent of Earth who’s been dead for seven hundred years, but still hunts a notorious criminal. | Asher, Neal | 2002 |
Spatterjay Book 2 of 3 Deep below the sea, remnants of the Spatterjay virus undergo a terrible mutation that will affect everyone. After ten long years, something dormant deep within the ocean is breaking free. | Asher, Neal | 2006 |
Spatterjay Book 3 of 3 An ancient war drone has stowed away aboard Orbus’s spaceship, and the purpose of the journey is not entirely what the captain expected. Also heading in the same direction is the Prador king and the Prador Vrell. | Asher, Neal | 2018 |
| Title | By | Year |
|---|---|---|
12 stories. Here the planets are tombs and the moons haunted catacombs. And here are extraterrestrial nightmares beyond imagining. There is no benevolent first contact. No utopian worlds. Only alien horrors. | Curran, Tim | 2022 |
14 stories. Beyond the stars, hell waits. On dead planets, primeval worlds, and in the deranged spaces in-between, are alien horrors. | Curran, Tim | 2025 |
Three sci-fi horror novellas that explore threats lurking in a forbidden and blighted sector of space. | Crystal Lake Publishing | 2024 |
Midnight from Beyond the Stars There’s life out there… and it’s coming for you! | Silver Shamrock Publishing | 2021 |
Terrible Things That Happen When You’re Alone In The Dark From alien abductions to foreign worlds, from wormholes to parasites, these stories run the gamut of galactic horror. | Baynam Books Press | 2025 |
Updated: 9 October 2025
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