Dead Silence

book notes

title: Dead Silence
author: S.A. Barnes
published: 2.8.2022
publisher: Tor Nightfire
Source: Kindle Unlimited
genre(s): sci fi
pages: 340
format: eBook
buy/shelve it: Amazon | B&N | Kobo | BookBub | BookHype | Goodreads
rating:

the blurb

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.

a few notes

❗trigger warnings: death, gore, mental health

POV: 1st person
setting: space
keywords/phrases: space, ghosts
tropes: larger-than-life threat, traumatic past, space travel, power amd tech
spice: 0/5
language: 5/5

mood reading: in the mood for space drama 

awards:

• ALA Alex Award Nominee (2022)
• Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Science Fiction (2021)
• RUSA CODES Reading List Nominee for Horror (2022)

my review

The blurb caught my attention immediately with this book. The concept is fantastic, a group of corporate space workers coming to the end of their last mission. They find the space version of the Titanic, the Aurora, a spaceship gone missing twenty years earlier. Faced with reshuffling into new jobs, some less fulfilling/wanted than others, the lure of claiming the find and the rewards that would bestow is too much to ignore. Then, of course, it becomes a task much easier said than done.

While the concept was great, I struggled with some of the character development, or the lack of it. Most especially that of the main character, Claire. Her backstory is traumatic, to be sure, but it seemed to be the sum total of her personality. It was often very one note. The rest of the cast just felt a little surface-level. It made it difficult to really connect with any of them. I think the one-not, surface-level issues also contributed to the awkward feeling of the romantic dynamic between Claire and one of her fellow crewmates. Honestly, it just felt stilted and unnecessary to the overall plot.

The pacing of it was good, and the world-building was wonderful. The author is a pro at creating a vivid setting, as well as a creepy atmosphere. That really helped with building the anticipation and suspense of the mysterious aspects of the story. There were definitely some deeply horrifying moments.

The end was good, although I wouldn’t classify it as perfect. While I liked the direction the author took it, I just wanted more answers to some of the still-dangling questions. It felt like we got 70% of the answers with the events on the Aurora. There was so much more left unsaid about what happened there and why exactly. There was a lot of science in there that was really left unexplored, which made understanding some of it a bit difficult.

Rating Report
the story
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Overall:

Reading this book contributed to these challenges:

• 2025 52 Books Reading Challenge
• 2025 Alphabet Soup Reading Challenge: Author Edition
• 2025 Cloak & Dagger Reading Challenge
• 2025 Linz the Bookworm & Logophile Reading Challenge
• 2025 PopSugar Reading Challenge