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A review by shanaqui
Dead Silence by S.A. Barnes
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Received to review via Netgalley
I originally grabbed this mostly to see if my wife would want to read it; I find the broad idea fascinating (abandoned ship floating in space, the mystery of what happened), but the horror vibes here really got to me, and especially so Claire's mental state for most of the book. I like the crew enough -- not Voller, of course, but the others -- that I got quite anxious about what was going to happen to them, and I was also having stress nightmares at the time, so it was all a bit awful. A combination of "not quite for me" and "not the right time".
That said, once I got past a certain point and it stopped being "awful stuff is happening without explanation" and started being "action is being taken", I got back into it and finished it more or less in one go. The explanation behind the mystery made sense of things beautifully, and the body count wasn't as bad as I expected, so that was all fascinating.
It was pretty interesting that Claire's ability to see dead people seemed to not just be hallucinations, though; she was genuinely perceiving something about them, or there were genuinely ghosts around them. That was never quite explained and dug into, and I almost preferred it that way.
It's a genuinely tense, claustrophobic SF/horror story -- just a little much for me personally.
I originally grabbed this mostly to see if my wife would want to read it; I find the broad idea fascinating (abandoned ship floating in space, the mystery of what happened), but the horror vibes here really got to me, and especially so Claire's mental state for most of the book. I like the crew enough -- not Voller, of course, but the others -- that I got quite anxious about what was going to happen to them, and I was also having stress nightmares at the time, so it was all a bit awful. A combination of "not quite for me" and "not the right time".
That said, once I got past a certain point and it stopped being "awful stuff is happening without explanation" and started being "action is being taken", I got back into it and finished it more or less in one go. The explanation behind the mystery made sense of things beautifully, and the body count wasn't as bad as I expected, so that was all fascinating.
It was pretty interesting that Claire's ability to see dead people seemed to not just be hallucinations, though; she was genuinely perceiving something about them, or there were genuinely ghosts around them. That was never quite explained and dug into, and I almost preferred it that way.
It's a genuinely tense, claustrophobic SF/horror story -- just a little much for me personally.