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Dead Silence Hardcover – February 8, 2022
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A Best Book of 2022 by the New York Public Library • One of the Best SFF Books of 2022 (Gizmodo) • One of the Best SF Mysteries of 2022 (CrimeReads) • A GoodReads Choice Award finalist for Best Science Fiction!
Titanic meets Event Horizon in this SF horror novel in which a woman and her crew board a decades-lost luxury cruiser and find the wreckage of a nightmare that hasn't yet ended.
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 is shocking: the Aurora, a famous luxury spaceliner 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 search of the ship reveals something isn’t right.
Whispers in the dark. Flickers of movement. Messages scrawled in blood. Claire must fight to hold on to her sanity and find out what really happened on the Aurora before she and her crew meet the same ghastly fate.
"Truly un-put-downable in its purest sense.” Chloe Gong, #1 New York Times bestselling author of These Violent Delights
Also by S.A. Barnes:
Ghost Station
Cold Eternity
- Print length352 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherTor Nightfire
- Publication dateFebruary 8, 2022
- Dimensions8.58 x 1.34 x 5.83 inches
- ISBN-101250819997
- ISBN-13978-1250819994
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What's it about?
A woman and her crew board a lost luxury cruiser and find the wreckage of a nightmare that hasn't ended.Popular highlight
Space travel is boring. As a commweb maintenance team, we’re used to it. A boring day is a good day. Boring is what we strive for. When things are exciting, someone is usually about to die in some new and horrible way.215 Kindle readers highlighted thisPopular highlight
Kane makes me feel like somebody. He makes me feel. Jesus. Is there anything more powerful, more dangerous than that?215 Kindle readers highlighted thisPopular highlight
I’m only thirty-three, almost thirty-four, and it feels like my life is over.172 Kindle readers highlighted this
From the Publisher
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Editorial Reviews
Review
“I ate this book in one sitting because I was in the mood to be freaked out and it delivered tremendously. Truly un-put-downable in its purest sense.” ―Chloe Gong, #1 New York Times bestselling author of These Violent Delights
"Stomach-turning, sinister space horror perfect for fans of Alien and Event Horizon." ―Kendare Blake, #1 New York Times bestselling author
"At the intersection of science fiction and horror, Dead Silence is the ultimate haunted house story, in space." ―Alma Katsu, author of The Deep and The Hunger
“This is great, immersive, atmospheric space horror that shows Barnes is a talented storyteller and proves that, despite rumors to the contrary, horror belongs in space.” ―Locus
“Dead Silence mixes horror, mystery and sci-fi into a thrill ride sure to shock you out of your reading rut. This is one of those time-warp books―the ones where you look away from the clock, then look back and it’s suddenly way past your bedtime.” ―BookPage, Starred Review
“With a compelling haunted-house-in-space frame, excellent worldbuilding, vivid imagery, biting social commentary, sustained tension, and a storytelling style that seamlessly moves between the mortal danger of the present and Kovalik's unsettling past, this sf-horror blend will resonate loudly with readers.” ―Library Journal
“Barnes is giving you Titanic but make it scary, she’s giving you Event Horizon, she’s giving you Ghost Ship; for real, this book will make your skin crawl.” ―BookRiot
"This story slides and slithers from creepy and atmospheric to skin-crawling, edge-of-your-seat terror." ―T. Kingfisher, author of What Moves the Dead
"Dead Silence is a proper ghost story, complete with a narrator who’s trying desperately to shake off her own unreliability."―Tor.com
“Dead Silence gives you the suffocating claustrophobia of 2001: A Space Odyssey mixed with the horrors of Alien. I couldn't stop reading.” ―Mur Lafferty, Hugo Award-Winning author of Six Wakes
"Barnes ably conjures the kind of haunting setting and atmosphere required for this Event Horizon-esque novel... Recommended for fans of claustrophobic space horror." ―Booklist
“Barnes plays nicely on human fears of both madness and of ghosts, carefully blurring the line between science fiction and horror... Those with a taste for blending genres will enjoy this combo.” ―Publishers Weekly
"Creepy and satisfying; I'll be checking under my bed tonight." ―Sarah Pinsker, author of the Nebula Award winning A Song For A New Day
"I've always considered Alien the high mark of sci-fi horror. No longer. Dead Silence leaves it in the dust." ―Lisa Shearin, New York Times bestselling author
"Dead Silence will keep you awake at night....Expertly paced, this novel is full of old ghosts in every way possible, and will haunt you long after the last page." ―Laurie Faria Stolarz, author of Jane Anonymous
"I was turning pages long into the night, and the bags under my eyes are well worth it!" ―Rachel Vincent, New York Times bestselling author of Red Wolf
"Compulsive reading at its best. A sci-fi horror so expertly delivered you'll be peeking through your fingers until the last page!" ―Melissa Landers, author of the Alienated and Starflight series
"The richly realized world that S.A. Barnes creates draws us in, and the relatable characters charm us. The dread mounts to a powerful conclusion." ―David Wellington, author of The Last Astronaut
“The book strikes a good balance 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.... A story as much about survivor’s guilt as it is survival, and about overcoming trauma as it is about facing horrors lurking in the dark. Toss in a chilling mystery set aboard a haunted starship guaranteed to set you on edge, and I cannot recommend it highly enough.” ―Analog
About the Author
Product details
- Publisher : Tor Nightfire (February 8, 2022)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 352 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1250819997
- ISBN-13 : 978-1250819994
- Item Weight : 14.7 ounces
- Dimensions : 8.58 x 1.34 x 5.83 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #181,665 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #5,937 in Science Fiction Adventures
- #8,636 in Horror Literature & Fiction
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
S.A. BARNES works in a high school library by day, recommending reads, talking with students, and removing the occasional forgotten cheese stick as bookmark. Barnes has published numerous novels across different genres under the pen name Stacey Kade. She lives in Illinois with more dogs and books than is advisable and a very patient husband.
Customer reviews
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This was very well written and in a way that was easy for me to follow. The world building was done in a way that wasn't a giant info-dump you have to slog through (thank you!).
The characters were flawed and felt like real people.
The story was excellent. It very much had the atmosphere of the earlier Alien movies mixed with a hefty dose of Event Horizon.
Definitely worth the read, highly recommended.
Somewhere I read that the author is usually a YA writer, and I think it shows. The only reason we know this takes place in space with all this tech is because the author told us it is so. Outside of that, the author does very little to describe this “futuristic” environment, so it breaks consistency when you try to picture what’s going on. For example, at some point, they are inside an structure where they use rope to float around. A rope? Couldn’t they think of something more sci-fi than a rope? And I wasn’t sure if zero G was a thing or not until then. It feels as if the author remembered they were writing a sci-fi and interjected something quick. The structure they enter in the book is described a being huge, and yet not much is done to really describe the place, so it’s hard to picture how big it is. It doesn’t help that we only explore a few places and go back to them, the rest of the structure is unknown. Towards the end, there is more inconsistency in the writing during a physical confrontation where one of them throws themselves towards the other and pins the other person down. The characters state that the systems are off, which means they are not in zero-G; however, one of them says they can’t get the other person off because they are too heavy. Throughout the story, you lose a sense of how they are getting through; floating or walking. The author also uses current time sayings (real life not the book) and explaining in the book that that is how they used to say it in the past. At some point the MC criticizes that someone is using a pencil, which is described as old way of writing with a tube and ink inside. How about describing how they do things in their time in the story instead of this lazy workaround.
Those were some of the issues I had with the writing. I am trying my best to avoid spoilers. The main character is one of the most unlikable character I’ve encounter. I kind of get what they were going with, but it just seems like the main character, also team lead, was unfit to be in charge of anything. It doesn’t help that the MC doesn’t really do anything other than glare at others. Even the guy that the author writes as the a**hole of the group had more development and common sense than our MC. The romance was unnecessary and amounted to nothing. There wasn’t much of exposition for the rest because one minute they’re fine, and the next they’re dead. No climax or something interesting.
The “twist” of the story was weak and poorly executed. I was expecting this to get better but they never did. The author borrows ideas from Alien, Aliens, Event Horizon, Ghost Ship, and Dead Space games 1 and 2, but only borrows the generic aspect and fails at capturing what made those titles great. If you have read “The Effort,” then this is the same; a whole lot of nothing. It had potential, but it has way too many problems to be anything other than a wasted effort.
I would recommend this book,however, It is still a 4.5 and not a 5. I think I was expecting more for the horror aspect. It was chilling(don’t get me wrong) but it lacked surprise and I guess I thought we would be reading of an alien creature(like a Xenomorph or Necromorph). I guess I should be thankful cause those stories on games and movies are repeating time and time again. Another thing that did bother me was the many pauses like for example:
I see…something
It was kinda annoying to keep seeing … basically on every page. Maybe that’s just me and I read it as a character was pausing but I can’t imagine them all doing that.
But this book is good enough. I will be reading this author’s next book coming out in Spring 2024.
Top reviews from other countries
This is spooky , eerie, and plausible sci-fi. Great characters and convincing (if minimal) world building. I highly recommend it.
Right up until around 50% I was questioning everything, until I guessed one of the twists and worked some of the read out. Even still, I have so many questions at the end. Why did Claire see ghosts? Was anything real for her or was it just some survival coping mechanism? It is written in multiple timelines, so we never really know what it real and what is not.
Normally, books set in space are not for me. I went in to this read wondering if I would enjoy it as much as I wanted to. I actually found it after going on a binge of novels on the Titanic and it popped up in a recommendations list. A repair crew right at the end of their mission finds a beacon signal that leads them to the scavengers motherlode - The Aurora, the Titanic of the sky. A luxury space liner that went missing on her maiden voyage decades ago with a mass of rich and famous on board. On the ship is where we discover all sorts of horrors, and Claire and her crew must fight for their lives to get back to home base.
My heart raced. I gasped out loud. I had to put it down a few times to collect my thoughts. This will absolutely be the book I recommend to everyone I know. I'm looking very forward to seeing more from the author, even across other genres.
You'd love this book if you love thrilling horror stories that leave you with questions and suspense, if you love the idea of horror in space that may or may not include aliens or you just want to give something new a try. Due to the nature of certain moments, it is highly recommended to more mature readers.