Dead Silence
Author: S.A. Barnes
Rating: 6.0 DECENT
What’s it about?: 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.
“We’re getting deeper and deeper into this ship and it feels like we’re marching farther into the gullet of something that has yet to decide whether it will digest us or spit us back out.”
Deep space? Strange distress signal? Abandoned spaceship? Strong Alien and Event Horizon vibes? Yes please. This should have been a slam dunk for me. It has all the makings of a classic haunted house story in space. Unfortunately, the more I read the more I was let down by a series of plot holes and decisions by the author that had me scratching my head instead of gripping my chair in dread.
The premise of the book is a familiar one. The author, S.A. Barnes is able to build suspense by borrowing all the familiar trappings that space horror junkies love. A tight knit crew with a palpable camaraderie. The vast emptiness of space and the lived-in feel of the crowded ship. The beginning half of the book was suspenseful, drawing me into the world. S.A. Barnes had me genuinely on edge for the insanity that would inevitably follow. There is one particular chapter that so hauntingly realizes a version of insanity within the human mind. You never know what's real and what's not. Never knowing when or if it will ever stop. It's here where I think the author really excels and sets the story apart from other space horrors I've read.
“I’d rather limit my attachments. To anyone. Why set myself up for that pain? But apparently that kind of thinking makes me “detached,” “cold,” and, as I once overheard, “sort of creepy.”
The camaraderie of the crew makes the characters relatable. They finish each other's sentences and know what each other's thinking. Ellen Ripley and the crew from Alien were seemingly an inspiration for the crew in Dead Silence. There is even a character named Kane. The main protagonist Claire is the Team Lead on the ship and someone who comes with a lot of baggage. Previous events in her life are continuing to haunt her and the author brings this to life so vividly you really feel for her conflicted decision making and constant mental struggles. It's these character quirks that make the crew unique and interesting. For the most part, they were well realized and interesting.
However, the dialogue began to grate on me. They continuously cut each other off in mid conversation. What started off as charming banter between the close crew, quickly turned unrealistic and annoying. I understand that the author wanted to convey conversations taking place in a tense environment. It can be a very effective tool when used sparingly, but the constant interruptions throughout most of the dialogue heavy scenes continued and felt unrealistic and distracting. Additionally, there is a romantic interest between a couple of the characters that was not believable to me at all. I don't buy that anyone would have any type of romantic thought amongst the unspeakable chaos and carnage within the halls of these doomed spaceships. There is a time and a place for romance, and this wasn't it. I could see some readers not having issues with these points, but for me it didn't work.
I really did enjoy the interesting plot twists that I wasn't expecting. It threw me off of what I thought the second half of the book was going to be. Unfortunately, this is where the story began to fall apart with its many plot holes and an ending that left me very underwhelmed. Which is extremely frustrating as the first half of the book was fantastic. After the final page turned I sat there and really thought about why I didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I would. It was during this time that the gaping plot holes, unrealistic character developments and underwhelming ending became clearer. I feel like the author could have capitalized on an opportunity to give us a profound and jaw dropping ending that could have brought us back to the fantastic first few chapters. Unfortunately that wasn't the case. Ultimately, Dead Silence by S.A. Barnes was a decent space horror story let down by some of the character developments, dialogue mechanics and plot holes.