Dead Silence

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

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352 pages

Average rating: 6.76

59 RATINGS

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Community Reviews

WordsatPlay
Mar 09, 2025
SF horror
Miranda_1999
Mar 30, 2024
3/10 stars
What even was this??? This is labeled horror and sci-fi... IMHO there was zero aspect of horror in this book. There was maybe 2 scenes throughout the 359 pages, that could be considered suspenseful, but that is it. The only sci-fi to be seen is the fact that this book takes place in space and the author did a semi decent job describing minute details on the space crafts.
ScaryKerrie
Jul 06, 2023
9/10 stars
I thoroughly enjoyed this book, I couldn't put it down. Creepy space vibes, a hint of romance, and a heap of conspiracy and cover ups. I enjoyed how there were no loose ends, it was a well thought out ending.
Hartfullofbooks
May 28, 2023
7/10 stars
Claire is captain of a communications crew far out in space on their last voyage when they receive an old signal asking for help. They travel off course looking for the signal and discover a decades old missing ship called the Aurora. The Aurora is like the titanic of space, so seeking fame and fortune the crew decides to board the Aurora and take it back to civilization despite knowing there’s tons of dead people on board. The crew soon discovers what happened to the poor souls of the Aurora, and desperately try not to join them. Space terrifies me so a supernatural space horror novel was right up my alley. There was a lot I enjoyed about Dead Silence, the characters were endearing, the plot and mystery of the Aurora kept me interested, the supernatural elements were perfectly eerie, and even the unnecessary romance grew on me after awhile. What I didn’t like was the writing. It’s written in first person which isn’t my favorite style because it always feels very YA to me, which was my main problem. The writing comes off as YA even though it’s marketed as adult. The descriptions of the Aurora are fantastic but the inner dialogue of Claire is very basic and at times repetitive. It was hard to take the action seriously when it was written in first person. I also felt the second half of the book wasn’t as engaging. The reveal ends up being not supernatural at all, making the novel more of a space thriller than a space horror. This lost a little of my interest and I didn’t enjoy the second half of the book as much as the first. If you’re a fan of space horror/thrillers, or want a unique read I would still suggest picking this one up! Despite what I disliked I still enjoyed the story and the creepy space vibes of the Aurora.

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