Dead Silence

by S.A. Barnes

Hardcover, 352 pages

English language

Published Jan. 24, 2022 by Tor Nightfire.

ISBN:: 978-1-250-81999-4

(31 reviews)

Claire Kovalik is days away from being unemployed—made obsolete—when her beacon repair crew picks up a strange distress signal. With nothing to lose and no desire to return to Earth, Claire and her team decide to investigate.

What they find at the other end of the signal is a shock: the Aurora, a famous luxury space-liner that vanished on its maiden tour of the solar system more than twenty years ago. A salvage claim like this could set Claire and her crew up for life. But a quick trip through the Aurora reveals something isn’t right.

Whispers in the dark. Flickers of movement. Words scrawled in blood. Claire must fight to hold onto her sanity and find out what really happened on the Aurora, before she and her crew meet the same ghastly fate.

1 edition

KnitAFett reviewed Dead Silence by S.A. Barnes

More of a creepy suspense than a horror book.

4 stars

I did enjoy this book, but I can absolutely see how fans of horror may have been disappointed in it. "Unspeakable horrors" and "ultimate haunted house" (found on the cover) were not really good ways to describe this book. I can fully understand why some are irritated with this one. But since I'm a blind reader and don't read into my books for the most part, it didn't bother me at all.

I felt like there was a good amount of suspense and tension through the book. The structure is a little weird because you start off with how the crew came across the ship and get to relive the experience through the MC, Claire. Then you jump to "present time" where you realize that the story-telling has been her literally telling the story to the corporate bosses. The middle gets a little mundane and could have been cut down …

I found this to be a fun read overall and the suspense had me flipping through pages and staying up later than I should have to read more. There is a little romance plot thrown in and I don't really feel like it added anything to the story at all and really didn't need to be in there, but it didn't bother me much.

I would recommend this one to be read for a good suspense read with some gore, but go into it knowing that you're not going to get a real horror story out of it.

gregorgross reviewed Dead Silence by S.A. Barnes

Not really frightening at all...

3 stars

... and it starts very poorly written, I thought. The main protagonist doesn't do Show and Tell, it's mostly just Tell, which forces the reader to accept and makes me feel dumb, for I'm being told what to think.

The story starts really to pick up much later on, and in the end I liked the book as good entertainment in times of SciFi-Horror-need.

The Reading Seamstress reviewed Dead Silence by S.A. Barnes

3 stars.

3 stars

Content warning (Review includes spoilers)

The book was okay, but that's basically it. Some of the tropes were overdone and the ending was dragging on much too long for my taste. By that point you already knew what caused all the horrors, I wouldn't have needed more of the same.

Also, [Spoiler] it's one of those books I personally get annoyed with because the author spends the whole 200+ pages building up a supernatural story only to reveal "Huh, it wasn't supernatural, after all, at least not all of it, not much mystery there, just your ordinary greedy capitalists" at the end.

CW: murder, suicide/suicidal thoughts, blood/gore, illness/death, loss/grief, ableism, mental illness, PTSD, hallucinations.

mandugar reviewed Dead Silence by S.A. Barnes

Muerte por agotamiento

3 stars

Poco terror hay en una novela que repite los mismos trucos narrativos hasta la náusea. Agotador pero a ratos Interesante.

David Hughes reviewed Dead Silence by S.A. Barnes

Derivative rubbish

2 stars

A spaceship crew responded to a distress signal with dire results. Now, although her corporate masters don't really believe her story, they need the sole survivor to go back to where it all happened.

Alternatively: a spaceship disappears on its maiden voyage. Many years later it's found, but the investigating team find that it's haunted!

The two paragraphs above more than adequately (IMHO!) describe the plot of the book. Unfortunately, they also describe the plots of the films Aliens and Event Horizon, both of which are far superior to this novel.

Clunky, not greatly written and with a bunch of unsympathetic & underdeveloped characters, it at least has a nice, though not particularly unexpected little twist which does explain some things and provides a second star to the review.

There's also a romantic sub-plot, which does nothing for the story.

Go and watch Aliens and Event Horizon instead - a …

A spaceship crew responded to a distress signal with dire results. Now, although her corporate masters don't really believe her story, they need the sole survivor to go back to where it all happened.

Alternatively: a spaceship disappears on its maiden voyage. Many years later it's found, but the investigating team find that it's haunted!

There's also a romantic sub-plot, which does nothing for the story.

Go and watch Aliens and Event Horizon instead - a more enjoysble use of your time than reading Dead Silence.