Dead Silence

There's a few really easy ways to kill a book for Tobin and cause him to not enjoy the ride.

The first way is to use a lot of hallucinations or dreams. Don't get me wrong, in very small doses, hallucinatory stuff can work well, but page after page after page of "it's not real!" just starts to bug me. And dreams? No. Dreams suck. Don't use dreams as a plot device. Not ever.

The second way is to have an extremely whiny, hand-wringing main character. While all the secondary characters are getting pissed with them, so am I, and I'm questioning why I would spend my valuable time hanging out with a fictional character that I'd flat out walk away from in real life.

The third way is to lift plot devices directly from other, better done stories. show more There's homages, and then there's "oh that worked well over there, I'll just bolt that on over here."

The final way (in terms of this novel) is to build and build to some shocking conclusion that, in the end, is boring and pedestrian.

Which brings us to this novel. Ugh. I truly kept hoping it'd get better. I kept hoping that it would break out of it's Alien and Aliens plot...but it only did so because, instead of really cool facehuggers and xenomorphs, the final big bad was...okay, no spoilers...but it was just so damn average.

And, if you're gonna steal from the Alien franchise, and you have a female lead character, hey, at least steal Ripley, right? Nope. Instead, we get Ripley-lite, the lower interest, lower confidence, bigger whiner, less kickass, more deer-caught-in-the-headlights version, known as Claire.

And where was the horror? Did I miss it?

If this is your thing, maybe read Darcy Coates's From Below instead. Same vibe, but better executed.

But this? Yeah, serious waste of time. I gotta go watch the first two Alien movies as a palate-cleanser now. show less

In this sci-fi horror novel, Claire Kovalik and her beacon-repair crew are doing one last job before their work is made obsolete. With no family or life to go back to, Claire isn't looking forward to finishing things up, so when her crew picks up a strange distress signal, she welcomes the chance to spend a little more time in space.

Shockingly, the distress signal seems to have come from the Aurora, a luxury spaceship that went missing more than 20 years ago. There's almost no chance that anyone on the ship is still alive, but the salvage claim could be extremely profitable for Claire and her crew, so they decide to check things out. Unfortunately, by the time they realize that whatever it is that killed the passengers and crew of the show more Aurora is affecting them as well, it's too late.

In the book's present, Claire has somehow escaped the Aurora and is considered the sole survivor. She has very little memory of what happened aboard the ship past a certain point, although she now suffers from near nonstop visions of her former crew members dying and/or killing themselves. The corporation that employed and rescued her has located the Aurora again and plans to go there, with Claire as a guide, the idea of which horrifies her, even if she can't remember all the reasons why.

This was such a good read. The setup and creepy atmosphere reminded me of the best aspects of sci-fi horror movies like Event Horizon. Even the characters had a sci-fi horror movie feel to them. There was Claire, trying to keep a grip on her authority while also keeping the details of her past history and potential mental instability from the rest of her crew. There was Voller, the stereotypical jerk character. Nysus was the techie geek, and Lourdes was the young and shiny one. Kane, the medic, knew the most about Claire's past, but even he didn't know everything.

The ship itself was spooky enough on its own, filled with the frozen corpses of people who seemed to have gone crazy in their final moments. There was evidence that some of them had killed themselves and others. Claire was used to occasionally hallucinating people who weren't there, but when her crew members started to do so as well, it put everyone on edge.

As all the details came together, I started to resent whenever my reading was interrupted by things like having to go to work. I definitely didn't expect things to turn out quite the way they did. Overall, I really enjoyed this and plan to read more of Barnes' works.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.) show less

3.75 stars

It is the future. Claire is the team lead on a spaceship when they hear an old (technology-wise) distress call. When they go find the ship, they discover it’s a “cruise” ship (a space ship for people on vacation) that disappeared more than 20 years previously. They decide to check it out, but when they board the ship, there it no one left alive. It also appears many/most were killed violently, by their own hands or someone else’s. But they still haunt the ship, and Claire is affected even more, as she has had previous mental health issues. What happened here? We know at/near the start of the book, though, that Claire got home again (and is being questioned by the company she works for – not that they believe her show more visions of ghosts, etc), but she left the rest of her crew behind, likely all dead.

I listened to the audio and the narrator was very good, expressing fear, confusion, urgency, and more. Even so, I did miss short bits of it here and there, but overall, I was able to keep up with what was happening and it was good. There were a couple of creepy scenes, but mostly I didn’t listen as much before bed, to be sure I wouldn’t get creeped out too much at night. show less

If Aliens meets Titanic sounds like your kind of book, then you are in for a treat with Dead Silence by S. A. Barnes. Claire Kovalik is the sole survivor of a previous disaster on the Mars colony and was essentially raised by the Verux corporation for whom she now works. She is captaining a ship on the outer edges of the system on what is to be their final job before they are made redundant by automation. Just before heading back for their final rendezvous, they pick up a distress call. The call is from the Aurora, a luxury spaceliner that disappeared 20 years ago on its first flight.

The salvage value of this opulent craft and her famous passengers would be rich enough so that each of the small crew could live out their dreams. Once show more they find the craft they are surprised to discover that there doesn’t appear to be any obvious damage to it. Upon boarding, they discover that many of the passengers appear to have died violently. Making their way through the ship they begin to experience sounds and visions that are difficult to explain. Are there ghosts? Or aliens? Or are they simply going mad? And could it be that the Verux corporation hoped the ship would never be found?

Dead Silence is a great blend of science fiction and horror. Each character is distinctive and brings different attributes and weaknesses to the job. Barnes does an excellent job of creating mood and mystery. Claire is a complicated and sympathetic character that is honest about her own flaws and self-doubts. Even if you figure out what is going on before it is revealed, the entertainment of the journey is not diminished. Atmosphere is everything in a book like this and Barnes nails it. Dead Silence is a ghost story that will make you feel the cold of space and glance over your shoulder at every sound. This book is well-paced and filled with tension. Looking forward to seeing what’s next from Barnes!

I was provided a copy of this book by the publisher. show less

“Dead Silence” by S.A. Barnes took me on a chilling journey through the depths of space aboard the eerie remains of the luxury space-liner, the Aurora. With elements reminiscent of both Titanic and The Shining, Barnes weaves a tale of suspense, horror, and psychological thriller that grips the reader from start to finish.

The story follows Claire Kovalik, the leader of a beacon repair crew, who stumbles upon a distress signal leading them to the long-lost Aurora. What begins as a potentially lucrative salvage operation quickly spirals into a nightmare as Claire and her crew encounter inexplicable horrors lurking within the ship's dark corridors.

Barnes expertly crafted an atmosphere of claustrophobia and dread that made me feel as show more though I was trapped alongside the characters in the vast emptiness of space. The tension steadily mounts as whispers in the darkness and unsettling phenomena plague the crew, keeping both the characters and me on edge.

One of the novel's strengths lies in its characters, particularly Claire, whose troubled past and unreliable narration add layers of complexity to the story. As Claire grapples with her own inner demons while facing external threats, I was drawn deeper into the mystery surrounding the Aurora and its gruesome fate.

The blend of science fiction and horror elements is executed seamlessly, creating a truly immersive experience that left me breathless. From its spine-tingling premise to its heart-pounding conclusion, “Dead Silence” is a gripping rollercoaster ride of suspense and terror that will linger in my mind long after the final page.

While some may find the pacing sluggish in parts, particularly during the middle section of the novel, the payoff is well worth the wait as the story builds to a crescendo of blood-curdling action and revelation.

Overall, Dead Silence is a must-read for fans of science fiction horror, offering a compelling narrative, memorable characters, and plenty of thrills along the way. show less

In "Dead Silence," by S. A. Barnes, set in 2149, thirty-three-year-old Claire Kovalik is the team leader of a five-person crew carrying out missions in outer space. Much to Claire's surprise, one of her subordinates picks up an automated distress signal from the ill-fated Aurora, a luxurious craft with 657 people aboard that disappeared twenty years earlier. Rather than ignore the call or alert her superiors, Claire decides to enter the Aurora. Doing so might be dangerous, but Kovalik knows that they could all become rich and famous if they were to bring closure to the bereaved families and salvage some of the ship's priceless objects.

In the aftermath of this adventure, Claire returns home, but she is crushed by feelings of intense show more guilt. Her commanders place her in Florida's Verux Peace and Rehabilitation Tower—a convalescent home for "broken" people—where powerful men grill her about what took place on the Aurora. Claire claims that she cannot recall every incident and, complicating matters, she suffers from PTSD after having endured childhood traumas that left lasting scars.

This is an engrossing and graphically violent novel. Claire, who narrates, is self-centered, reckless, and subject to wild mood swings. In spite of her reputation as a loner, she finds herself drawn to the good-hearted Kane Behrens, a medical professional and her second-in-command who treats Claire with kindness and respect. The book's technical language lends realism to the proceedings, and Barnes skillfully draws us in by foreshadowing the tumultuous events to come. We eventually learn what doomed the Aurora, and the answer is as tragic as it is reprehensible. "Dead Silence" is an eerie and shocking work of science fiction that explores the extremes to which corrupt individuals will go to achieve their goals. show less

The idea of floating in space is already a lonely and claustrophobic feeling adventure. Imagine rolling up on a ghost ship, thought to be lost and gone. It's full of luxuries for the elite rich. And in pirate terms, finders keepers. This crew of 5 - Kovalik, Kane, Voller, Lourdes, and Nysus. They decide the money they could get from returning this ship is worth the risk of being outside of communications. They decide to board the ghost ship and try to bring it home.

But as soon as they reach the ship, they know something very wrong happened here. And once they board, they realize whatever happened, whatever was here, may not be gone.

The dynamic of these 5 were great to read. I didn't love them all, I didn't even love our MC Claire, but show more I did understand her. The feeling of being alone, being confined, radiated off every page. The creep factor was great - every time Claire saw a horror it just ramped it up even more. Well paced, a crew you can root for and a plot that kept me turning the pages and wanting to know what happened. This was just as good as I'd hoped for. Perfect cover too.

A huge thank you to the author and publisher for providing an e-ARC via Edelweiss. This does not affect my opinion regarding the book. show less