“Somehow, I always knew it was going to come back to this. Me. Alone with the dead.”
We’ve never been on a cruise before, but we have watched all the movies in the Alien franchise. If you’re wondering what sort of qualification checklist this forms, welcome to our book review for Dead Silence. These claustrophobic sci-fi horror stories are some of our favourites in the world of fiction, and this was a book we had been hyped to read after featuring it in a number of our listicles this year. It was also one of the most acclaimed sci-fi books from 2022. But, did S.A. Barnes’ book live up to all these expectations? Join us at What We Reading for our full Dead Silence review to find out!
Date Published: 2022
Author: S.A. Barnes
Genre: Horror, Sci-Fi
Pages: 343
Goodreads Rating: 3.80/5
Premise
Claire Kovalik is days away from being made redundant when her crew of four pick up a strange distress signal. Having nothing to lose and eager to postpone their redundancy, the crew followed the signal. However, what greets them at the end of the call stuns them: the Aurora. A luxury space cruiser that has been missing for twenty years. Salvaging anything off the solar system’s greatest mystery would set them up for life, so Claire and her team decide to investigate.
Once on board though, they soon realise things aren’t quite right. Strange noises coming from the shadows. Bloody warnings are left on the walls. Flickers of movement in the corners of their eyes. Claire and her crew have to cling to their sanity to work out the mysteries of the Aurora before they end up meeting the same grizzly fate.
What Worked
The premise of Dead Silence had us hooked from before we picked the book up, but goodness did it keep a hold of us throughout. The idea of a luxury space cruiser is something so incredibly capitalist we can easily imagine it becoming a thing in the not-so-distant future, and would certainly attract small salvage ships stumbling across it looking for an easy score. It’s a premise that is done justice with Barnes’ vivid descriptions, with every inch of the Aurora being described in a way that is so easy to visualise.
And on Barnes’ descriptions, they are beautifully done for a horror book. There’s so much variety in the types of horror going on in Dead Silence. Barnes goes from sequences of rising paranoia and psychological suspense to absolutely brutal instances of gore but manages to do all of them justice throughout the book. The scares in this book are something, the whole vibe had us gripped the whole time.
Finally, Dead Silence is a breathless ride. Readers are thrown into the mix of things immediately, and there is barely a minute to breathe from the first chapter to the last. There’s always something new being shown or explored, and yet the true mystery behind this ghost ship in space isn’t revealed until the end, meaning readers are kept captivated throughout.
What Didn’t
Whilst Dead Silence does a stellar job of immersing its characters in some truly terrifying situations, it isn’t necessarily amazing at avoiding the typical sci-fi character tropes involved with a story like this. The pilot who is cocky and self-assured, the nerdy computer guy on hand for an exposition dump whenever it’s needed, the quiet comms girl, the caring second-in-command who inevitably falls for the captain – it all feels a little archetypal.
On that, the romance storyline in Dead Silence didn’t feel like it was needed. It was nowhere near as fleshed out as the sci-fi or horror aspects of the story and, being so heavily hinted at early on, actually ended up taking away a lot of the suspense surrounding the fate of certain characters.
Finally, the book is told via jumps in time from the perspective of Claire between the present day and onboard the Aurora with her crew. It’s a format that can be very innovative when utilised well. However, for us, the portions spent in the past with the crew were far more immersive and much more ‘high-stakes’ than those in the present day.
Verdict
As well as a romance arc that felt entirely redundant, Dead Silence suffers from having a few characters that feel less unique than they should and a slightly predictable final third. But, these things are small gripes compared to just how much of a thrilling ride it is to sit through on the whole.
A haunted luxury space cruiser filled with all manner of horrors does give off vibes of Titanic meeting The Shining, and Barnes does a wonderful job of taking advantage of such a unique premise with an array of vividly-told terrors. The book constantly feels claustrophobic and the pacing makes every decision feel that much more pivotal to the fates of the characters.
Ultimately, the suspense and mystery behind the Aurora make Dead Silence much more a psychological thriller than an outright space search party adventure. Nevertheless, it is a breathless experience that any sci-fi fan can have plenty of fun with!
Our Rating: 4.5/5
Part-time reader, part-time rambler, and full-time Horror enthusiast, James has been writing for What We Reading since 2022. His earliest reading memories involved Historical Fiction, Fantasy and Horror tales, which he has continued to take with him to this day. James’ favourite books include The Last (Hanna Jameson), The Troop (Nick Cutter) and Chasing The Boogeyman (Richard Chizmar).
