Quick review for a quick read. Oh my gosh, I think I've found one of my favorite reads of the year. "Dead Silence" by S.A. Barnes really hit the spot for me in terms of having a blend of sci-fi survival horror that I was looking for this year. The story revolves around Claire, a woman tasked with leading a crew investigating the abandoned ship Aurora after detecting a distress signal from it. It had long been missing and the crew thinks they may uncover some rather unique treasures from the Aurora. That's where it starts, at first, but then Claire and her crew start uncovering some mysterious horrors that have occurred within the ship - a combination of footage and a grisly body count that leave behind so many questions.

The narrative, at first, trades between past and present. Claire is interrogated as part of an investigation of events. She doesn't remember everything that happened, but she's presumably the sole survivor of her crew after serving as its leader, though questioned for her leadership abilities even before the fallout venture on the Aurora. Claire tries to put the pieces together, navigating her own history of trauma with the more recent events. I thought the way this book handled the psychological element and fear was very well done. I felt bad for Claire while also questioning what actually happened in the lead up to the present. But what surprised me even more was the fact that this group was willing to put her back into the fray to direct events in order to discover more of the truth of what happened on the Aurora...and the eventual fall out and discoveries that unravel from there. I was on the edge of my seat wondering who was going to make it out alive, especially with the fear of not knowing whether this foe was something left to the imagination or a real, omnipresent threat.

Pacing was wonderful, the development of the characters was realistic, the big bad made sense and I found myself enjoying the ride all the way up to and through the ending. Definitely one of my favorite reads of the genre this year and I look forward to reading more from the author.

Overall score: 4/5 stars.

Note: I received this as an ARC from NetGalley from the publisher, but I also purchased the audiobook copy from Audible.

Titanic meets The Shining? Yes please. Could not put this down. No cliches that you generally find in horror or space tropes. Hands down a favorite of 2022.

Dead Silence is a gripping psychological thriller in a slightly dystopic sci-fi setting. My rating: 5 of 5 stars.

Sci-fi fans will enjoy the very plausible future of Barnes's imagination, where early space travel is controlled by rival corporations and the rich and famous pay to board a cruise ship around space.

But this is no ordinary sci-fi novel. Everything that happens from the moment Claire and her crew discover the lost cruise ship is creepy, uneasy, and disturbing.

Claire's character was also very relatable. Her history of trauma causes her to question her own perceptions of reality, ability to lead, and protect those she cares about.

While I had an inkling about the "twist" about halfway through, I feel like this was a fun, tense read. Having a narrator who describes themselves as unreliable gave us shaky ground in which to start on. There were times, although I would not use this as an overall descriptor, that this felt like a gothic work. Are the ghosts real or is our character insane? A lot of the elements presented in this book had been done to death on earth, but I love that it was in space. A solid 4 for me. I loved the main character and for the most part the time shifts helped. However, when those stop I feel like I'm missing something. I really liked this and hope to see more from S.A. Barnes.

A solid horror scifi story set on a space cruise ship that went missing years ago and has just been rediscovered by a repair crew out in empty space. Eager to get rich from this find and claim the ship as their salvage they board it and quickly realize that something horrible has happened there.

This was very much a book of two halves for me, one of which I vastly preferred over the other. The first half of the book is genuinely creepy as the characters explore an abandoned space ship. I thought the atmosphere was great and the interplay between the characters felt authentic. Unfortunately, the second half of the novel took a turn that I wasn't expecting and didn't really like. It went from being a frightening haunted ship story to a bit of an action romp, which didn't work for me. Overall, I think that the writing was good and I would definitely pick up books from this author in the future - I just wish the horror vibes had remained throughout.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for a fair and honest review.

A blend of Titanic and The House on Haunted Hill. IN SPACE! http://bewarethescarylibrarian.blogspot.com/2022/04/new-arrival-dead-silence-by-s-barnes.html

There are a few specific things I adore: horror in space, search party missions (and similar themes), and conventionally unlikable, flawed narrators that I can't help but root for from the very first page. Given that Dead Silence was one of my most anticipated releases of the year, I feel very lucky that it held all three of these things and executed them exactly the way I like it. If ever there has been a book that felt specifically "for me", Dead Silence is that book. It's one of those stories where, every time I hear criticism for it, I'm thinking, "Okay, sure, I get where you're coming from... but I liked that about it!"

The entire story is so incredibly atmospheric and gave me the most wonderful mix of Event Horizon and Ghost Ship vibes — which you should probably know were two of the most influential films of my early childhood horror watching and are eternal favorites of mine. The important thing about Dead Silence is that it never felt like it was ripping off another story, but it paid clear homage in many places, and I loved that element of it so much!

Finally, I adored Claire as a narrator. She was unreliable and unlikable in all the ways that I enjoy most, and I loved the depictions of her PTSD and social anxiety (the latter of which hit very close to home!). I found her easy to love and root for, I wanted her to get a happy ending, and I genuinely liked the time that I got to spend inside her head. I would say it's actually rare that I love a protagonist in a horror novel this much, and that alone — not even counting how much I enjoyed the plot, the other characters, the writing, and the setting — has me incredibly eager to read more from S.A. Barnes!

I absolutely loved this book. It was unnerving and spooky while still giving us characters that we cared about. The mystery unraveled in two timelines which worked really well and set up an even bigger climactic ending.

Scifi-horror-thriller blend can never go wrong. It did take me a while to finish reading DEAD SILENCE, I blame my work schedule! But I was always able to pick up the story where I left it before. Haven’t read from Barnes before, but I will be watching for the author’s future works and checking out their backlist titles!

Thank you Tor Nightfire via Netgalley for the reader’s copy.

Dead Silence is in the genre of Scifi horror which I tend to always flock to and the narrative to this one is quite bone chilling. It's about a space crew who board a lost spaceship but what they find is unexplainable and quite literally a nightmare. Our main character Claire must find the truth behind it all which throws her into quite a mental circus. It's creepy and claustrophobic. Highly recommend for the horror fans out there.
Full review on my YouTube channel.

This was my kind of perfect sci-fi book, You know, light on the sci-fi and heavy on the thriller mystery side!! This plot was so engaging and so descriptive. The narration was perfect. I felt like I was right there in the midst of this creepy read!! Everything I wanted from a horror book wrapped in one nice bow! I highly recommend listening to this one! This had my heart pounding from the beginning all the way to the end! 5 captivating stars!!

A huge thank you to the publisher for an ALC and e-arc of this thrilling gem in exchange for my honest review!!

Unfortunately this book just wasn't for me. I really wanted to love it and get into it, but I really struggled to get into it.

I think this book is atmospheric and scary in parts. There are a lot of mysteries and unknowns throughout the story and I really think a lot of people would love this book! If you like space horror, mysteries, some suspicious corporations, and unreliable narrators this is the book for you!

I’m still deciding on what rating I want to give this. Interesting premise, great tension, and spooky atmosphere. I love settings set in places you can’t easily escape/be rescued from. It automatically ups the tension tenfold.

For this one, there were times that it was a bit slow and for me personally, I would have rather it not been told in dual timelines and just experienced in real time as it unfolds. It made it hard for me to invest in the other characters knowing their fates very early on.

Overall enjoyed

⭐⭐⭐.5/5 ⭐

This is a Futuristic, science fiction thriller/horror set in space. It was discribed as Titantic meets the Shining and I do feel this was an active discription.

It takes place in 2149 on Earth as our main character, Clairw Kovilik recounts what happened to her and her crew nine months earlier.

Clair and her crew are finishing up on their last job when they recieve an old distress signal. Claire isn't ready to return to Earth yet and so decides to answer this distress signal to prolong her stay in space for as long as possible. It turns out that the distress signal came from an old luxury space ship. 500 passengers and 150 crew left on the maiden voyage of a tour of the star system. It was supposed to take a year, but the Aurora disappeared 6 months in. All souls on the ship were presumed lost.

This story goes back and forth between Claire giving her account of what happened and officials trying to put the pieces together.

This book was super atmospheric. Ghosts and mystery everywhere. The book discribed the ghost scenes pretty well, but the journey through the book felt more climatic than the ending itself.

Overall it was a quick and fun science fiction thriller. It felt like it was lacking something. I don't feel I got the full spectrum of intensity. But it was still a fun ride and I enjoyed it.

I've been begging for a Dead Space type of book that brings all the haunted vibes, thrills, and psychological terror (because a little horror is good for the blood), and DEAD SILENCE hit the spot. Though the plot isn't all that complicated or different from most SF Horror stories, the characters' experience of sheer fear and paranoia, which was emphasized by jumping between the past and present, made the story addictive. I couldn't let it go, couldn't put it down, and couldn't stop thinking about what had happened. Like the MC, I was consumed with unraveling the events that took place, no matter how horrific.

A huge thanks to the publisher for providing me with an ARC of this epic SF Horror!

Thank you Netgalley and Macmillan/Tor for the chance to read Dead silence by S.A. Barnes. This was one of those advanced copies that was suggested to me as I do read and like horror/sci-fi. I don't often turn down requests, and the premise sounded really good...Titanic meets The Shining. It took me forever to settle down to start to read it because I do a fair bit of reading these days at night...AND not sure I want to scare myself; but I picked at this book; and finally had to force myself to finish it. I didnt like the characters, and this was more sci-fi then horror. It was just ok.

What an EXCELLENT spooky read! I absolutely devoured Dead Silence, after putting it off for months because I was scared it was going to let me down. My experience showed I was being silly, though, because this book was incredible.

I was on the edge of my seat the entire time. Literally, the ENTIRE time. As soon as I picked the book up and I read about the characters picking up on a ghost signal, then watching them as they came across an abandoned luxury liner, I was hooked. I couldn’t wait for them to step on board, but I was also dreading it because I knew it was going to go OH SO WRONG.

There is a dual timeline in this book where the main character has lost most of her memories past a certain point, and she has no idea how she got off the ship. I know dual timelines sometimes bother people, so I wanted to mention that the jump back and forth in Dead Silence is handled very subtly and is used as a tool to catch the reader up and bring them to the present when the two timelines are about to meet. I loved this aspect of the book and I thought it really added to the suspense, as we know that somehow Claire got off the ship, and we need to find out how.

Dead Silence was true sci-fi horror, and it made me crave more of both the genre and the author’s works. I can’t wait to see what S A Barnes comes out with in the future, as she has just given me a favourite book of the year!

I absolutely loved this book! I loved the cast of characters and how creepy atmospheric it was. You could almost feel as unsettled as the characters at times. Definitely recommend for those who love space horrors.

I don't want to write a long review since I feel like I have already wasted 7 hours of my life listening to this audiobook, but here it goes...

I didn't like Dead Silence for one main reason: it didn't deliver what it promised. The book was marketed as the Shining meets Aliens with the hint of Ghost Ship and Event Horizon. Being a huge sci-fi junkie I love all those movies, so of course, I was excited for this book. In reality, while it tried to borrow the tropes from all of these movies, it ended up being very predictable, unoriginal and simply boring.

However, that's not its cardinal sin: rather the book is not sci-fi/horror to begin with. It is very cliché YA romance with elements of sci-fi and horror. The main protagonist is thirty something female with a lot of psychological trauma and self-doubt, but she is also awesome and special. Because it the book is written in first person, you can really hear her thoughts and, I guarantee you, she doesn't sound like a mature adult, but rather like a teen girl going going through puberty.

The other characters were one dimensional and forgettable. The romantic subplot is unnecessary and lacks any originality. The ending is disappointing and there are just so many loose ends that I won't even trying to explain how it just doesn't make sense.

If you are planning to read this book, maybe because you like YA space romance (which is totally cool with me), you may want to stay away from the audiobook. I usually love audiobooks but this one had the worst narrator in it: it was overdone, too melodramatic and in some cases the narrator just sounded hysterical. I get it, the narrator tried to act and to give the voice to the main character, but it was just too much for my brain that already had to deal with YA emotions when it was expecting some juicy scare space stuff.