Let me say at the outset that this is my new favourite author. Their books are extremely addictive and I adore their worldbuilding and characterisation.

This series is not complete and only the three books are released right now, which is why my review is reduced to only these three.

A remote resource planet. A mysterious illness. And a rescue team frighteningly out of their depth.

It was supposed to have been an easy job: go in, kidnap or kill his mark, get out. Shine’s done plenty of jobs like this before, no problem. But when it all goes suddenly wrong, he has only one option left to save his skin.

He finds himself an unwilling volunteer on a medical mission to a remote resource planet. It sent in a distress call a week earlier, and then promptly went silent. No one knows why, and no one can contact them to find out. And, Shine is increasingly beginning to realize, every person on this mission is politically unimportant–a perfect crew of disposables. Their mission is to go in and figure out what happened, and save whoever they can. But he’s smart enough to realize that anything that could cause an entire mining colony to go silent is probably not something accustomed to leaving its victims alive. And after meeting the rest of the crew, he’s not sure that they’re any safer than what’s waiting for him out on the planet …

Set in the world of The Devil and the Dark, Inhuman is the first book in R.M. Olson’s gripping new space-horror series, The Dark Between Stars.

This is my first book from this author and I really loved it.

Shine is a terrorist from the Stacks, and when he’s asked to kidnap or kill a scientist on death row named Jem, it’s just another mission.

But things go wrong when Jem is given a last minute pardon and taken away by a man called Puppy—someone Shine’s leader, Recoil, calls a most dangerous man. Shine is given new orders to kill Jem so Puppy won’t have her.

Puppy is putting together a medical team to go to a resource planet on a rescue mission. He’s already recruited Jem and Knives, a surgeon from the stacks, who’s also handy with her fists and guns.

When Knives intervene in Shine’s subtle attempts to abduct Jem, Shine volunteers to go on the mission with Puppy’s team, though he doesn’t understand why Puppy, who’s awkward and clumsy and seems unable to cross the street safely should be considered dangerous by Recoil who asks Shine to kill him as well as Jem.

Thaddeus is a doctor with a secret: he was in the navy before his sister’s death forced him into medicine. It’s a secret that could make it unable for him to work anywhere, but when Cassius, a government representative asks him to go with Puppy to spy on the man in exchange for keeping his secret, he has no choice but to agree.

But the resource planet will test them to their limits, bring out secrets, and force them to trust one another, against their will.

This was a book I adored. Seriously. The fate of the miners in the resource planet, the reason why they turned out the way they were, gutted me. This may be titled inhuman, but it’s about humanity and what it means to be human in the end. This is an action packed book with never a dull moment, but it also provokes very deep questions.

If you love medical and adventure sci fi, with a blend of cosmic horror, this is the perfect book for you.

On a desert settlement on a remote planet, the limited water is as precious as life. Until it starts to kill them…

Thaddeus and the rest of the small medical crew have just arrived at their next assignment—a small, drought-ridden settlement, where people are dying in horrific, unnatural ways. They suspect the water source has something to do with it, but how do you live without water?

The crew soon realizes the deaths are only part of the problem. The people are hostile and suspicious, the settlement’s doctor is hiding information, and the crew can’t get off the planet until the annual storm blows through. They need to find what’s killing people, and quickly—but trapped in a hostile settlement on the harsh desert wasteland with water running low, even that might not be enough to keep them alive.

Set in the world of The Devil and the Dark, The Water Paradox is the second book in R.M. Olson’s gripping space-horror series, The Dark Between Stars.

Book 2 in the Dark Between the Stars, this one starts off where Inhuman ends, at least for our protagonists.

They have been called to help in another resource planet, but this one is a desert planet which dehydrates them within minutes, and the settlers don’t want any help, insisting that the call for help that went out was a mistake. Their leader is also their doctor called Cuddy and the settlers seem hostile to Puppy and his team.

Things become even more strange when a settler called Neena and her partner come to the ship at night and have Puppy and Thaddeus disguise themselves and go to the settlement to examine the bodies of the dead. The dead are desiccated as if all the moisture inside them were sucked dry and the settlers who wanted them there confirm there were patches of water around the bodies.

With an actively hostile people and no way to find out what’s going on, can Puppy and crew solve the mystery or will they fall victim to the same thing that’s killing the settlers?

Ngl, this one was even more interesting than Inhuman. I finished it in hours. It helped that I was bedridden and was unable to do much of anything else.

This book hit me hard in the feels. The start itself was something that would have triggered me hard if not for the really thoughtful warnings provided by the author at the start. And things don’t get any better. Puppy remains as enigmatic as ever, and though Shine and Thaddeus both think him suspect, they can’t help but follow him. Shine’s suspicions are deepening by the minute, but he can’t help but be drawn to Puppy.

I’m fully not convinced Puppy is an evil mastermind yet, but I guess I’ll know when the next book is out. Once again, Jem and Thaddeus were the POVS I found most engaging, though Knives came a close second. Shine just doesn’t do it for me, but the plot and the rest of the characters more than make up for it.

If you love sci fi with an element of mystery, adventure, and horror, you will love this book and this series.

There’s something lurking in the caverns under Blackrock…

When Jem and the rest of Puppy’s small team of medics arrives on the pirate settlement of Blackrock, none of them know what to expect. But when they discover Puppy’s mysterious contact there is a notorious pirate captain who’s on a first-name basis with Puppy, it doesn’t make any of them feel better about the situation, especially since they all know perfectly well that Puppy is hiding things. But that’s not the worst news waiting for them.

The pirate settlement of Blackrock depends for oxygen on the vast algae vats set into caverns deep under the surface of the rocky moon. But recently, vat workers have been turning up dead. And not natural deaths—they’re shooting their own friends, walking off 30-metre drops, stepping out into the path of a ghost to be torn to pieces, driven mad with terror. The overworked doctors at the small hospital can’t find any trace of what’s causing it, but everyone who’s come back alive swears there’s something down in the caverns beneath Blackrock. Something alive. Something unnatural. Something that wants them dead.

Jem has spent thirteen years running from her own terror and guilt. But now, deep in the caverns below Blackrock, she and the rest of the crew will have to face up to a terror they can’t run from, unless they’re willing to let the entire settlement of Blackrock die.

And Puppy’s crew could never do that.

Set in the world of The Devil and the Dark, Blackrock is the third book in R.M. Olson’s gripping space-horror series, The Dark Between Stars.

I may have bullied someone into giving me an ARC of this book. I also may have annoyed someone a LOT.

But I’d do it again, because this book was so WORTH it.

Puppy and his group of ragtag medical professionals are on their way to Blackrock, the stronghold of the pirates who were both the bane of the navy and the resource planets. Both Thaddeus and Jem have reservations, but they couldn’t leave Puppy be.

Things grow tense as Shine shares some of his past and his mission and his suspicions about Puppy, suspicions that Thaddeus shares as well. Though doubtful, both Jem and Knives are torn, and Jem has a feeling that Shine was going to kill her back in the Level and can’t get past it.

In Blackrock, they discover a strange ailment that causes hallucinations that drives people to kill their friends or to stand still while ghosts tear them apart. Even as he resents having to help people who he had fought against as a naval officer, Thaddeus tries his best. But when they are affected by the toxin and learns something that threatens the very existence of Blackrock, they have to take a chance to save everyone here while risking falling victim themselves.

I loved Jem’s character growth in this, and how her relationship with Knives is evolving. Knives is much more real in this and I love that she’s the one in need of a rescue in this, which is not a common thing.

I also have theories about Puppy and the trauma in both Jem and Knives’ past, the incident that made Thaddeus lose his sister and Shine his parents.

I’m sad there are no more published books in this series, but Imma grab another book by the author in the meantime.

If you love medical thrillers, sci fi, space operas, and complex characters, you will love this book and this series.