I requested a digital copy in order to sample the prose on my phone (since I don't have a eReader) before requesting a physical copy for review. I will update Netgalley once I read & review a physical copy.

I'm not usually a fan of horror but I love a good space ship tale. This book combined the both in a very enjoyable way. Claire's trauma in the past made her a hero by the end of the book. I wish that we knew why she had her special talent but I also like that the author left some of that up to our imagination.

ARC from netgalley.

Oh, man, this book! A big part of this book is on the fact that we don't know if we can trust Claire, because she doesn't trust herself. Doesn't trust that what she's seeing is real. The mental and psychological parts of this thriller was just so tense and atmospheric, and pushed the story along so frighteningly well! Not to say the physical part of the story weren't tense, but the other two were on point!

This concept reminded me of two books, one YA, the other adult. The YA book, Pitch Dark by Courtney Alameda, and the adult book, Salvaged by Madeleine Roux. OK, maybe one other adult book, Salvation Day by Kali Wallace. They all have ships that were either missing or abandoned, where something went wrong. And Dead Silence is a great addition to the group! Lots of dark and creepy ship atmosphere books, these sci fi books really blend well with horror, and I love it!

I really enjoyed the way that it was told. We had little snippets of the present, and then the bulk of the story when Claire and her team find the ship. And then we hit that point where things transition to the present, and oh, do things really take a turn there!

When we found out what was going on, that was very satisfying! Everything made sense, and it tied everything together in a really believable way! Well, almost everything. It doesn't explain what happened to her as a child, but the how and why of that aren't the focus of this book, only how that affects her mental state throughout this book. But yeah, that ending was excellent!

This was such a fantastic read, and I can't wait from more books from the name S.A. Barnes!

It’s Claire Kovalik’s last mission before she’s decommissioned. She has one last check and her and the LINA crew are headed back to Earth. A prospect she isn’t looking forward too.

Space is the only place that feels like home.

Everything is going as planned until they pick up an emergency signal on an old channel.

The AURORA was the first and only ship of its kind, a luxury craft with no expense spared. Infamous after it disappeared on its maiden voyage. Finding out what happened and bringing back a piece of salvage will make the LINA crew rich.

A single gold faucet with the AURORA insignia could fund Claire’s future. Her own ship.

What starts as a simple exploration turns into a waking nightmare as the crew stumble upon the ruined remains of the AURORA passengers. All the clues of a violent massacre, but what made them turn on each other?

As they spend more time on the ship they start to see and hear things. Things that should be impossible. What have they unleashed by entering the AURORA and will they make it out alive?

Full of cinematically gory sequences and creeping dread, I loved every minute of this one.

Thank you to Tor Nightfire for a physical galley of this title.

SYNOPSIS

Dead Silence by S. A. Barnes is a space based tense sojourn into the Schitzo-effected world of Claire Kovalik, Team Leader of LINA – a communications repair space vehicle. Claire, as a child, was the sole survivor of the accident at the Ferris Outpost. An experience that left her traumatized and experiencing the supernatural, or is it just Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)?

The crew receives an emergency transmission from the Aurora; a space liner that disappeared twenty years ago without a trace. They reluctantly answer the call and discover horrors, mysteries, phantoms, and challenges beyond their imagination. Claire Kovalik must conquer her conflicted self, the crew and the company to find her own salvation in the face of incredible odds. Will she be able to put her own demons to bed and rise to the occasion, or will she lose everything by trying?

Many thanks to the publisher for providing me with an ARC of this title in exchange for my honest review.

This book was one of my most anticipated books of 2022. The story is pitched as The Shining meets Titanic. That's all I needed to know.

A salvage crew on the last leg of their job finds a luxury space-liner that disappeared 20 years ago on its maiden voyage. All of the passengers and crew were assumed dead. As the crew boards the ship, they quickly determine that something isn't right. Soon the crew is seeing things that aren't there and hearing voices in the dark.

The best parts of the plot are in the flashback chapters. Unfortunately, you kind of already know how that part of the story will play out, but I still really loved the chapters where the crew boarded this ghost ship.

The present day storyline really took me out of the book though. I didn't really care about the conspiracy within this company that made the ship. And I really hated the ending and the explanation for what happened to the luxury space-liner.

The early parts of the novel were exactly what I was hoping for from this story though. The book runs out of steam in the second half though, so I am settling on 3 stars. I wish there had been more of the crew exploring the ship and less of the company drama in the final act.

Review will be posted to social media platforms closer to pub date.

Creepy and deliciously tense, this was a fun sci-fi horror novel that delivers on the atmosphere you want to cultivate around Halloween.

I was drawn to this book as a Halloween/October read, plus I enjoy a good space thriller. While I found it dragging in a couple places there were some surprises and overall it was a good, scary, thrilling ride, full of potential. Definitely had the creepy scary vibe I was looking for.

Ahhh this book is so good and spooky. I _love_ a good locked door mystery and space is about as locked door as you can get. I don't typically read a lot (or any) science fiction, but Dead Silence has opened my eyes to the whole genre of space horror which I am very excited about. This was the perfect book to dip my toe in. I kept describing it to people as "haunted Titanic meets that one episode of the X-Files meets the Shining meets The Happening" which sounds insane but completely works. I loved it, the characters felt real and the world building was chef kiss. Plus the absolute SPOOKINESS of it. I couldn't put it down and resented my coworkers for talking to me during lunch when all I wanted to do was read this. I'll absolutely be buying my own copy. 100 stars out of 10.

Notes of Ghost Ship and The Shining are here from the get-go in this book. However, while some of it felt a bit forumulaic-,- it was clear from page one which character would go first--when the big mystery was revealed, it was unexpected. At the point in the plot where most horror would end, this one more or less started over again. With some books, that could have been tedious, but there were enough unknowns here that I was guessing until the end. Definitely will be keeping an eye on this author in the future.

This is different from anything I've ever read. It's an interesting mix of sci-fi and horror. The overall feel is spooky, so it was great for this time of year. The ultimate reveal was a bit disappointing, and the ending wrapped up a bit too neatly.

This book deserves all the freaking stars. I absolutely devoured it in two sittings and had to force myself to put it down at night. Imagine Titanic meets Ghost Ship in space and you’ve got Dead Silence. It was the perfect spooky book and I loved the scifi horror elements. I’d been wanting a book to scare me and this one DELIVERED. It creeped me out so much, it actually gave me chills at one point, and I don’t scare easily while reading. Definitely a five star read!

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I saw hints of horror and sci-fi influences without the story being tired or feeling like a knockoff. It was one of the best books I've read all year. Excellent space horror.

A patchwork of sci-fi horror's greatest hits, from plot points to character names. Above all, it's Ghost Ship meets Event Horizon. Barnes hinges everything on an unreliable narrator in charge of an ill-fated crew, and this keeps you hooked and turning the pages quickly for answers. While the atmosphere is spooky and the lingering questions gripping, the ultimate reveals disappoint and its conclusion far too tidy. Even still, it's a brisk and entertaining read.

4.5 Stars.
Claire is the LT of a maintenance crew ship. They’re almost done with their mission when they hear an outdated distress call a few days travel away. They agree as a crew to check it out and it ends up being the luxury space-liner The Aurora (a space ship comparable to the Titanic but in space) that has been missing for twenty years. They agree to go aboard and take some valuables via a “salvage claim” so 1). they can become rich when they get back home and 2.) so people believe what they found.
Aboard the ship they find terrible things that had occurred when the ship went missing and they all start to see violent hallucinations, ones that because of Claire’s traumatic past has seen before. Claire has to keep her crew safe and get back to safety.

I could not put this book down. Perfect for the lover of sci-fi mixed with horror. I would have given this 5 stars except for bits of romance thrown in that I can see was possibly necessary, but I didn’t feel like it fit the flow or theme. I also hated the ending. Or at least how quickly it came up. You have 200+ pages of mind-blowing detail where you can visualize the entire novel, where it could end in so many possible ways, and it was just done so quick that it broke the magic. I’m sure others will love the ending/epilogue l, but I felt it just fell too short of what Barnes had painted up until those last few pages.
Either way, it was so good. A onion slowly unraveling to a great story. I’ll have to check out more from this author.

Part syfy, part horror story of a space salvage crew that finds an abandoned luxury vessel 20 years after it was reported missing. All of the crew and passengers are dead. Then, the salvage crew starts seeing things that shouldn't be there. I thoroughly enjoyed this scary novel.

Dead Silence was so much fun to read. It hit me right in the sweet spot: a mix of horror, sci-fi, and mystery. I went in knowing very little about it, and I don’t read a lot of sci-fi horror so when I stumble across one I’m always excited.

The Aurora is such a fantastic setting: a ghost spaceship with a previous life as a luxury cruiser. Claire is a great character: a giant mess, but capable and brave. The supporting characters were well-drawn enough to make me care about them and keep me unsure what they were up to.

I won’t say more because this is one best enjoyed without knowing too much. There’s some wonderfully grisly imagery, creepy moments, and a satisfying conclusion to the mystery of the Aurora.

Thank you to NetGalley and Tor Nightfire for providing me with this review copy.

In Space, Your Screams Can Last Forever

It's been some time since a science fiction novel's left me feeling this jumpy and jittery. My mind's blown to the point where I've found my reading experience difficult to describe. Rare, vivid, and full of shocking, mindbending suspense, Dead Silence is scary as hell.

Claire Kovalik is introverted and prickly, not fitting easily into any kind of social situation. She's the kind of flawed, vulnerable underdog who makes a reader root for her even though she may have done terrible things. And 'may have' is the operative term since, in her medicated state, ghostly visions entangle with broken memories and make it difficult for the reader to trust in her version of events.

Her narrative allows strobing glimpses of present, past, and maybe never, like slides shifting crazily in a projector. Her last spacewalk; an involuntary stay in the corporate Tower psychiatric facility; orphaned on the Ferris Outpost, the tragedy of her childhood; her last day on the Lina, the day they encountered the Aurora.

In the hands of lesser writer, it could have been hard to follow, but it absolutely isn't. Despite the disjointed presentation--in fact because of it--the tension builds to an incendiary level that I suspect will be hazardous for readers with heart problems. Or night terrors.

The author has masterfully married an action-packed survival story of an encounter with a ghost ship to a woman's struggle with a predatory, plutocratic dystopia. Be warned, this is not a young adult novel, despite the genre's prevalence in that category.

I was fortunate to receive an ARC courtesy of SA Barnes and Tor Nightfire via NetGalley. I'm enthusiastically offering my review and recommendation, uninfluenced by anything except my reading experience: Dead Silence is an excellent book! If you love science fiction, horror, and psychological thrillers, it's among the best of all of them. I hope it will be made into a film!

When I saw the synopsis of this book, my first thought was: "Horror and science fiction? COMBINED??? SIGN ME UP!!!". I am so glad I received an ARC (thank you, TOR Nightfire and NetGalley). This was surreal. The best way to describe this psychological horror novel would be: The Shining meets the Titanic meets Alien.
As a rule, I love murder mysteries set in space (Tamsyn Muir's Locked Tomb series is my favourite series of all time) and this did not disappoint in the least. Reading "Dead Silence" was a breathtaking experience; one that made me question my own sanity and understanding just as the characters were questioning their own. I read it (nay, devoured it) compulsively. I genuinely could not put this book down. It was incredibly creepy, and the ambiance of the setting was immaculately terrifying. I just know this will be a hit with fans of both genres.

This was an exciting, couldn’t-put-it-down read. It was definitely a horror novel with sci-fi touches; meaning that it will most likely appeal to horror readers and open-minded science fiction readers. There is a fairly low level of gore and violence, with much of it in the past with descriptions of the outcome. This means that a reader who might be turned off by extreme violence or gore (like me) will be able to read this. [Note, there IS some gore/violence that happens on the page, so consider yourself warned. But it’s not as visceral as most horror movies I’ve seen.] A steady level of dread and suspense (much like the first Alien movie) helped move this along and made me quite unsettled at times. The last third of the novel might disappoint some readers (I’m almost always disappointed by the reveal in thrillers), but I still recommend this to anyone looking for a solid thrill.