Spread me

Gailey (Just Like Home) sets this sleek, sexy thriller in a six-person research station in space. Kinsey, the head scientist and researcher, stumbles across the discovery of a lifetime in the desert surrounding their base: proof of life on another planet. Her scientific curiosity has her breaking protocol to bring the sample into the base, where, to the eventual doom of her team, it proves to be an extraterrestrial virus--and far more alive than Kinsey first thought. Isolation and fear of contamination lead to paranoia, compounded by a sandstorm that traps the team inside. The plot becomes a struggle to root out the infected from the healthy, all while Kinsey experiences an exhilarating sexual fixation with the alien virus. Gailey's genre-aware prose sprinkles nods to The Thing and other sci-fi classics in humorous asides while still maintaining the tension and anxiety of being marooned and helpless. The small cast is skillfully drawn, with wonderfully distinct characters and complicated interpersonal dynamics. The creeping terror of things not being what they seem and people not being who they say they are keeps the suspense simmering. It's a fun, modern take on first encounter horror. (Sept.)