Leanne Olson

Dead Silence by S.A. Barnes

Releasing February 8, 2022 from Tor Nightfire; first two chapters available here

Dead Silence by S.A. Barnes 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.  Look at that creepy cover!  It didn’t let me down.

Dead Silence is a wonderfully creepy mashup of Event Horizon and Titanic.  Claire Kovalik leads a repair crew at the edge of known space on their last trip out, before they’re required to return to earth, shipless and unemployed.  Claire’s crew of misfits picks up a distress signal that they discover belongs to the Aurora: a luxury space cruise liner (here’s where the Titanic comparison comes in) that has been lost for decades.

The crew decides to claim salvage rights to the ship and they climb aboard.  But there’s something terrifying happening on the ship: they hear noises in the dark, and see flickers of movement in the shadows.  What really happened to the crew and passengers of the Aurora?

My favourite things about Dead Silence were the characters and the atmosphere.  Claire in particular is a wonderfully complex, flawed lead with a dark history—she’s a giant mess, but she’s brave and loyal.  The Aurora is such a perfect setting, and Barnes drew me in completely with the sense of claustrophobia and terror.  The finale was incredibly tense and the mystery wrapped up in a satisfying way.

Thank you to Tor Nightfire and NetGalley for providing me with a review copy of Dead Silence.  

(Note: I posted a shorter review of this book in the fall of 2021 but expanded it for the book’s release.)