Things I liked:
Space, horror, impending tragedy, gore.

What I didn't like:
Unreliable narrator, romance, the lack of character personality.

This was a pretty quick moving story, and I liked the second half when everything kind of did a reveal, but to get there.. It was pretty bland. The characters were very surface level. The main character, Clare was so bland.. Yes, there's a lot of trauma, and depression, PTSD and all of that, but it seems like that all there was to her. The attempt at showing other characters with a bit more personality was nice, but it was really a surface level. The main focus was of Clare and her ghosts staying with her for the whoooole plot.

The sensory in this book was a bit too much on unnecessary parts, like Kane's shirt, beard, callused hands. I get it, it grounded our MC to where she is, and didn't allow her to get lost in her head space. But I wish that it played more on the dead silence, and the sensory of what was happening on Aurora. P.S. The name Aurora has been overused in sci-fi. We need a new name, please.

I don't know. This kind of worked for, especially in the second half, But it missed something for me too. It didn't feel like horror. More of a gory thriller in space. I want more!

Thank you to Tor Nightfire for my review copy. 3.5 rounded up.

This was unlike any other space book I've read! I really enjoyed it. I loved the horror and thriller aspects so much, and truly did not see that ending coming. The concept of a ghost ship was so cool, and the underlining reasoning felt very realistic haha. Also really enjoyed the comradery between the shipmates and the underlining romance. Would definitely recommend if you enjoy sci fi thrillers!

thank you to netgalley for this e-arc in exchange for an honest review!

Walking the line between science fiction and horror is a difficult balancing act, where too much of one can easily overpower the other. Dead Silence manages to hit that sweet spot and results in a must-read for any SF-horror fans, guaranteed to keep your nerves on edge until the final page.

The novel kicks off with a few familiar notes—a hardscrabble comms array repair crew led by Claire Kovalik, taking one last gig before their corporate bosses back on Earth replace them with robots. Receiving a distress signal from the edge of the Solar System, and with job termination waiting for them, they respond to discover they’ve been pinged by the Aurora, a long-lost starliner with the reputation of an interstellar Titanic.

Faced with the possibility of enough wealth for several lifetimes from the salvage rights, Claire and her crew are quick to board and stake a claim. What they find are scenes of horrific violence, sudden madness, and disturbing clues that only deepen the mystery of what doomed the Aurora. Worse, whatever madness claimed the Aurora now stalks them as well—the crew finds themselves stranded and begin to suffer outbursts, hallucinations, memory loss, and even visons of the dead. Worse still, after one episode too many, Claire finds herself being pulled from an escape pod, unsure how she got there.

Now the sole survivor and detained by her corporate employers for the suspected murder of her crew, Claire must return to Aurora not only to clear her name but to solve the mystery of what doomed the ship and her crew . . . because after years adrift, the ship is heading toward Earth.

While Dead Silence hits some beats that have long been staples of SF-horror for years—not only in movies like Alien or Event Horizon, but in recent novels like The Last Astronaut—one of the things it does best is know just when to zig instead of zag. The novel takes a simple premise—a haunted house mystery set aboard a decaying luxury starship—and executes it in interesting ways and to interesting destinations.

The attention given to the Aurora as a setting is commendable, an opulent floating tomb, and the book strikes a good balance of hitting different kinds of horror without overstaying any, be it gore, claustrophobia, or body horror. From the moment the crew sets foot on the ship, the slow-burning dread keeps building through the climax.

My favorite aspect might be protagonist Claire, a bundle of nerves encompassing social anxiety to survivor’s guilt, even before events on the Aurora reopen old traumas. She is an unreliable narrator who doubts her own sanity, much less her story, and has plenty of her own ghosts even before the Aurora conjures new ones. Barnes (who has written a dozen YA novels as Stacey Kade) deserves high marks for the accuracy of how she portrays a traumatized protagonist both suffering and working through PTSD—and I say that as a military veteran diagnosed with it.

The result is a story as much about survivor’s guilt as it is survival, and about overcoming trauma as it is facing horrors lurking in the dark. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Thank you for this arc!

One of my favorite tropes of when a crew stumbled across something and things go very, very bad. Nothing is black or white or as it seems. The descriptions were so visual it felt as if I was watching a horror movie rather than reading as it came across so easily understandable.

There's nothing better than picking a book up by an author you've never read and having it become a new favorite. I knew I would enjoy the premise of this story when I requested the ARC but I didn't realize it would hit so many things that I love in a story.

Dead Silence is a space horror novel in which a beacon repair crew follows a distress signal and discovers the Aurora, a luxury space-liner, that went missing twenty years ago. When investigating the ship, the crew discovers that something horrific happened and they must figure out the truth in order to prevent the same fate from happening to them. It has a bit of a haunted house vibe (though instead of a house it's a luxury space-ship that feels a lot like the Titanic) which I loved.

I enjoyed all of the characters and all of their interactions but our protagonist, Claire Kovalik was absolutely my favorite. Claire is the crew's TL and has a mysterious tragic past that informs a lot of her decision making and helps her navigate/survive the horror she faces in this book. She's complex and I loved her character arc throughout.

I also really enjoyed the worldbuilding. I felt immersed in the setting without there being any info-dumping and I never felt lost.

A couple of things I want to mention that I can see not working for some readers even though I loved them:
1. There is also a romantic subplot in this book which I don't typically expect when it comes to horror but it was a pleasant surprise to me. I loved their angsty relationship and how it developed throughout the course of the book. That being said if romance in a horror story isn't your thing, you may not enjoy the book as much as I did. It's not the main focus of the story but it played a bigger role than expected.
2. The structure and pacing of the book is also different than I expected. Again, I personally enjoyed it - the switching between past and present in the first part of the book worked well to build tension and I liked the feeling of "waiting for the other show to drop" as most of the action didn't occur until the second half. If you're not intrigued by the premise or the characters, I could see the book feeling "slow" for some readers. The horror elements are introduced early on but the plot is slower to unravel. However, if you are intrigued by the premise and/or the characters, you'll likely find this a page turner like I did.

This book is FANTASTIC and I highly recommend to anyone who enjoys creepy space horror, complex and stubborn heroines, and angsty romance subplots. I especially recommend it if you, like me, enjoy all of the above AND went through a phase of wanting to learn everything about the Titanic.

Claire Kovalik’s job contract is about to end, so when her salvage crew picks up a distress signal, they seize the opportunity to investigate.

They think they’ve hit the jackpot when they discover the signal’s coming from the Aurora—the infamous luxury space-liner that had mysterious disappeared on her maiden voyage two decades previously.

However, what they find inside chills them to the bone. Now Claire and her crew must try and find a way to escape before they meet the same ghastly fate as the ship’s previous passengers.

Dead Silence by S.A. Barnes is a surreal, nightmarish space horror that leaves the audience questioning alongside the crew: what is real and what is a hallucination?

For me, what I adored most about this book is how well it handles psychological horror. It’s a clever set up, really. Something aboard the ship is very targetedly preying on the regrets and fears each crew member, slowly driving them mad. For instance, Claire is haunted by (possibly) literal ghosts as well as the metaphorical ghosts of her past—allowing for a wonderful examination of unresolved grief.

Overall, if you love the social commentary of Leviathan Wakes along with the psychological mind games of Event Horizon, I think this one might be right up your alley.

DEAD SILENCE is space horror novel that feels very comfortable and familiar in its execution. It feels like a combination of ALIEN, ALIENS, and EVENT HORIZON, in that it has a lot of the right elements for an effective space horror that are timeless. You have a crew in danger, you have a strange ship that has been off the grid and contains horrors unknown, and you have insidious things that aren't limited to said strange ship. There are a lot of really good horror moments in this book, with disturbing imagery, built up dread, and a protagonist who has a back story that makes her question everything around her. Boy oh boy were there some moments where I was thinking to myself 'oh gosh', because Barnes REALLY hit the horror nail on the head. But when I say it's comfortable, I mean that the themes from the stories listed above are very prevalent. They are elements that work, and Barnes does it well, but from a scrappy survivor to a ship that messes with perception to a shady corporation with ulterior motives, it is all VERY familiar. Entertaining for sure, and I definitely enjoyed reading it. But it didn't feel like it shifted enough of those themes to make them the story's own. I think that had we not shifted into a second act that went in a different direction, and had the focus been on the scary ship and the horrors it holds, it may have had more room to turn into something more unique. The potential is there! And when we are on that ship not knowing what is happening, it is SO disturbing.

Overall I liked DEAD SILENCE and found it to be a fun read. Well tread territory perhaps, but still enjoyable and at some points quite scary.

Dead Silence by S A Barnes is a sci-fi horror coming out from Tor Nightfire on February 8th. Promoted as Titanic meets The Shining, Dead Silence follows a crew of comms technicians who stumble across the remains of a luxury space-liner that has been missing for more than twenty years.

This was a book I was really looking forward to reading - with promises of strange and scary happenings on ship that disappeared along with all of its passengers. Instead, what I got was too many different elements vying for attention within a story that actually only served to further a romantic plot line and left out huge swaths of what would have been the most interesting part of the story if the author hadn't decided that convenient amnesia was easier than actually writing a satisfying solution.

The events of the first half of the story are told through a framing device that completely ruins the suspense of horror. The main character is being interviewed about what happened when her crew boarded the ship - removing the tension from every possible life or death moments because obviously the main character survived. Eventually, the two timelines meet, which theoretically would have upped the suspense, but by this time there were too many different elements at play and it took away from the clarity and tension of the story.

Yes, there were moments that were wonderfully scary, but they suffered for the rest of the book and from future plot/character developments that left them feeling cheesy. I wish I could share why without spoilers.

This book suffered for the number of concepts it was trying to balance, a seeming ignorance of what makes sci-fi and horror interesting, shallow characters, and a story that couldn't decide what it wanted to be.

I've been spoiled by the diversity of some other speculative fiction books, so a book about a blonde lady; her dark-haired, golden-skinned, blue-eyed love interest; a super Christian lady; an angry white dude, and a pale, waif-like Japanese tech nerd 😬 just didn't do it for me. There's like one other POC who gets introduced as a semi-important character and they die like two chapters later 😬.

The nitty-gritty: Titanic meets The Sixth Sense in this terror-filled mystery set in space.

I had a blast with Dead Silence, undoubtedly one of my most highly anticipated early 2022 releases, and while it didn’t necessarily go where I expected it to, I found it to be surprising and addictive. Dead Silence features an unreliable narrator stuck in an impossible situation, a survival story with ghosts and evil corporations, set in the dangerous depths of space, and if this sounds like your cup of tea, you'll probably love it too.

The story is narrated by Claire Kovalik, Team Leader of the LINA, a small commweb maintenance sniffer tasked with maintaining deep space beacons. She and her crew of four—Voller, Lourdes, Kane and Nysus—have been out in the black for two years, but their assignment is over and it’s time to go home. Claire isn’t happy, because she knows her future involves nothing more than a boring desk job, and she’s trying to draw out her last moments in space as long as she can.

But just before they’re ready to rendezvous with the ship that will take them home, communications expert Lourdes picks up a faint distress signal. Claire jumps at the chance to spend just a little more time in space and convinces the rest of her crew to investigate. What they discover is shocking: they have found a luxury ship called the Aurora, missing for twenty years with all 650 people aboard presumed dead. The crew knows that they can “claim” the ship for their own and get rich selling off bits and pieces of the now famous tragedy, but Kane in particular is leery about what they might find once they board. But the thought of making enough money to change her future is too tempting for Claire, and so they decide to check it out.

Once aboard the ship, they discover all normal systems to be offline, like the gravity and temperature controls—not surprising after being lost for twenty years. The corridors are dark and eerie, and Claire keeps seeing movement out of the corner of her eye. But even worse, the ship is full of dead bodies, and most appear to have died under strange and unsettling circumstances. As Claire and her crewmates make their way to the bridge—in order to secure the ship’s black box—they begin to sense a threatening presence on board the Aurora, and what began as an exciting opportunity begins to turn deadly.

The story is told in dual timelines. We start out in the present, when Claire has been rescued from the Aurora and is being interrogated by two men. She’s telling them what happened—or at least the parts she remembers—all while trying to convince them that she didn’t kill her crewmates. This is a great set-up, because the reader is immediately thrust into a mystery: what exactly happened on the Aurora? In the second chapter, we go back to the beginning of the LINA’s adventures, finding the Aurora and going aboard, and Claire’s tale unfolds over the course of the first half of the book. But at the midway point, the story shifts from past to present after Claire has finished telling her horrifying tale, and Reed and Max tell her what's going to happen next. I think some readers will be thrown by this abrupt change—I know I was a for a bit—but I ended up loving the second half, which is full of even more tense action and creeping terror. This was a real page turner for me, and despite the scary premise, I found myself reading late into the night.

There is a lot going on in Dead Silence. In addition to the mysterious deaths on the Aurora and the dangerous situation Claire and the other find themselves in, Barnes also adds a political element in the form of two competing corporations, Verux and CitiFutura. This rivalry has a lot to do with the reasons behind the Aurora’s tragic end, as you find out later in the story, but it also figures into Claire’s life and her uncertain future. Reed and Max, the two rather unpleasant men interrogating her, eventually find out the truth later in the story when they get to see the Aurora first hand.

Claire is a fascinating character, and I sympathized with her completely. Barnes gives her a harrowing backstory that added a nice touch to her “unreliable-ness.” As a child, Claire and her mother were assigned to Ferris Outpost, but a viral outbreak due to corporate negligence killed everyone in the colony, including Claire’s mother, and Claire was the only one to get out alive. She’s clearly still dealing with PTSD and may or may not be mentally unstable, so some of the things she’s experiencing in this story are questionable. Claire can see ghosts (and in fact she claims that her mother’s ghost was responsible for saving her on Ferris Outpost), but she also questions these visions time and time again. Is she going crazy due to the trauma she suffered as a child? Or can she really see ghosts? It doesn’t help that Reed and Max are gaslighting her and insist that she is indeed crazy.

By far my favorite parts of Dead Silence were the ones when Claire and her crew first board the ship and discover the bodies. Barnes’ descriptions are full of eerie imagery, like the frozen swimming pool full of bodies and blood—and yes, there is a swimming pool on this luxury space ship!—and hundreds of bodies floating in the air. In the midst of all these people who have died in what looks like horrible ways, Claire is seeing ghosts everywhere she looks. This combination of corpses and ghosts was chilling, and there’s a claustrophobic feeling as Claire, Kane, Lourdes, Voller and Nysus make their way through the dark corridors, heading further into danger as they go.

The final chapters are off the charts crazy and felt more like an explosive action movie, and yes, you are going to have to suspend your disbelief a bit. But I loved every second of it, especially the epilogue that takes place several years later and nicely resolves Claire’s mental state and her struggles with Verux. If you’re in the mood for a spooky mystery set in the depths of deep space, you’ll definitely want to check this out.

Big thanks to the publisher for providing a review copy.

Holy crap. I’m far from a sci fi lover, but this titanic meets the shining in space novel had me hooked from the first chapter. Smart, dark, tense and brimming with suspense. Another home run from Tor Nightfire.

It’s taken me days to find the words to express how much I enjoyed this book, DAYS and I still cannot find the right words.

It’s horror, it’s thriller, it’s sci-fi
Haunted House in space.

It had me questioning everything I thought I knew and screaming mad other times.
I’ve already been recommending it to people, and twisting friends rubber arms to preorder.

Thank you for the opportunity to read this eARC.

This was fast paced, intense, and a really great read. Barnes creates characters that grab you by the throat and don't let go. It's the type of creepy that makes you forget where you are, and then become suddenly aware of every noise and shadow. Loved it.

Thank you so much to TorNightfire for a free review copy of Dead Silence!

It’s like Titanic in space..except instead of finding a giant, expensive necklace they find ghosts.

This book was well written, creepy and atmospheric. My only issue is that it’s excruciatingly slow.

Great concept, but I found myself doing a lot of skimming to get to the end.

If you love ghost stories and creepy mind games, you’ll love this one.

Thank you NetGalley for the Kindle download!
Click below for my review of Dead Silence.
https://thewritebook.substack.com/p/in-space-no-one-can-hear-you-scream?r=17i72o&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&utm_source=direct

If you liked the movie "Ghost Ship" and space books based in the future, this book will be perfect for you.

I wish I was able to sit down and read this in one sitting. I had a hard time putting it down since it had a great amount of creepiness to it. I had an interesting time trying to imagine a bunch of dead people floating inside the ship since there was no gravity. Yikes!

Thanks Netgalley and publisher for the digital copy in exchange for my honest review.

This is easily the best book I've read this year. It's also one of the scariest books I've ever read. It is amazing and I really hope S.A. Barnes continues writing horror because they really have an incredible talent for it. My advice to anyone about to pick this book up should just plan out the next 12 or so hours that it will take to read it and have nothing going on, because they won't be able to put it down.

Thanks for the ARC, Netgalley. The Shining meets Alien on the Titanic in space! When Claire and her crew are on their very last mission before settling into boring desk jobs to finish their career, they receive a distress signal. The Aurora, famed luxury liner in the sky had been missing for 20 years, all occupants presumed dead. Discovering the ship, or even rescuing anyone alive means not only riches and notoriety for Claire and company, but the opportunity for Claire to own her own ship and not be reserved to a humdrum life on Earth. As the crew explore the ship, it’s evident that something violent occurred. Dead celebrities, scientists, royal families, crew members- it seems they all turned on each other and died by their own hands. While the crew searches for any sign of life (and evidence to satisfy those who would call hoax when they return), Claire begins seeing visions of the dead committing their horrible acts of savagery among each other. This sparks the memory of her childhood and being the only child left alive on one of the very first space colonies. I enjoyed trying to imagine the landscape of the ship, and what the characters would look like. The only criticisms I can offer would be that the word "wince" was used a ton, and it was a little confusing trying to figure out if we were dealing with paranormal versus psychological elements. Overall, though, this was a great modern science fiction horror story and should be relatable and gives the feel that the events could actually occur in the future.

3.5 stars!

Think abandoned Titanic ship but in space rather than in the ocean. Add in paranormal activity, mystery, and creepiness. That’s exactly what this book is! Perfect for reading with the lights dimmed low or even in the dark. The horror scenes are so good and descriptive. I could clearly visualize what was going on. I think this would make a fantastic horror movie or mini-series for this reason! Perfect setting for jump scenes!

The first half was spectacular, I was completely invested in the storyline and finding out what was happening on this abandoned space ship. The second half though is where the book fell a tad flat for me, I wasn’t as interested and was losing connection with the characters and the storyline. The first half jumped back and forth between past and present , then second half was just the present.

I enjoyed the way everything was tied together in the end. Overall, I liked this story and am glad I got the opportunity to read it. I think it could be a big hit for you if you love sci-fi horror!

Thanks so much to Macmillan / Tor publishing group for providing me with this advanced copy!

Pub day : February 7th,2022

Fast moving, intriguing mystery, satisfying resolution - what more can you ask from a horror-thriller? I really enjoyed this one.

They had me at “Titanic” meets “The Shining.”

I knew I was going to love this book before I even started. Last year, I got really into science fiction, and was super shocked to realize sci-fi horror existed. My two favorite genres, mixed. What a treat.

Claire, an antisocial team leader with a traumatic past, is finishing up her last assignment as a commweb maintenance leader. She doesn’t want to go back. Being in space, alone, clears and quiets her mind. When the LINA intercepts a distress beacon on the edge of space, she quickly finds herself in a terrifying situation. The Aurora, a luxury ship missing for 20 years, is calling for help.

Dead Silence is truly terrifying. Everyone soon becomes an unreliable narrator, trapped in a claustrophobic space. Nobody trusts their own minds anymore. Something, or someone, is causing everyone to lose their sanity.

I called the ending pretty early, but that doesn’t mean I’m disappointed. I was very happy with the ending. No spoilers, but you never know who, or what, you can trust.

Thank you to Net Galley and Tor Nightfire for the chance to read this advanced review copy. Dead Silence releases on February 8th.