Dead Silence

De: S.A. Barnes

Narrado por: Lauren Ezzo

"The audiobook read by Lauren Ezzo makes for compulsive, edge-of-seat listening."—Buzzfeed

"Ezzo's dark tone and emotional connection terrify and comfort listeners in equal measure. Not for the faint of heart."—AudioFile Magazine

Titanic meets The Shining in S.A. Barnes’ Dead Silence, a 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 at the other end of the signal is a shock: the Aurora, a famous luxury space-liner 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 trip through the Aurora reveals something isn’t right.

Whispers in the dark. Flickers of movement. Words scrawled in blood. Claire must fight to hold onto her sanity and find out what really happened on the Aurora, before she and her crew meet the same ghastly fate.

A Macmillan Audio production from Tor Nightfire

©2022 S.A. Barnes (P)2022 Macmillan Audio

Reseñas de la Crítica

"This story slides and slithers from creepy and atmospheric to skin-crawling, edge-of-your-seat terror." —T. Kingfisher, author of The Hollow Places

"Barnes ably conjures the kind of haunting setting and atmosphere required for this Event Horizon-esque novel, providing an effective sense of immediacy to Claire's frequently shifting and at times tenuous grip on reality. Recommended for fans of claustrophobic space horror."—Booklist

“Dead Silence mixes horror, mystery and sci-fi into a thrill ride sure to shock you out of your reading rut. ...a claustrophobic race against time as the ship’s horrors begin to affect the crew one by one. Dread slowly builds as small, frightening moments inside the Aurora multiply, showcasing Barnes’ patient plotting and steady pacing. This is one of those time-warp books—the ones where you look away from the clock, then look back and it’s suddenly way past your bedtime.”—BookPage, Starred Review

Often Frustrating

I thought the voice performance was good. The story and characters were often irritating. Claire has a lot of trauma but I wanted to slap her so hard.

Enjoyable B-horror

If I were to describe the novel in brief, Dead Silence is part space horror, part survival thriller, part dystopian dread. It plays out like an offspring of Dead Space and Event Horizon as viewed through the lens of a particularly dark episode of Doctor Who. It's an enjoyable enough ride, and as far as physical horror goes, the descriptions go into gory detail while not getting to the depersonalizing salivating over blood and gore that can mar an otherwise good horror story. Without getting into the weeds of spoilers, I will also mention that the book does feature a decent double twist that should be lauded, if nothing else, for its sheer audacity and dedication to the bit.

On the less positive side, the inside of protagonist Claire Kovalics head can be an at times frustrating place to inhibit, especially in the middle sections of the book. Much work is done in the book to set up various twists, but the unfortunate side effect is that the main character does come across as both painfully thick-headed and preternaturally apt to blame herself at any given point. Some measure of this could be viewed as an expression of her plentiful trauma, but it does raise the question of how, even in a dead-end job in a sadly all too realistic corpocratic nightmare future, the main character manages to stay at least partially functional. A somewhat more nuanced take on how the human mind can pick itself apart under stress would do the story a lot of good. As it is, it's a bit of a slog to get to the, admittedly quite satisfying resolution to the storyline.

As far as performance goes, Lauren Ezzos narration did a lot to lift the experience, giving good panicked energy to the book's more intense passages. She does at times go a little too hard too early for my personal preference, but once the space horror kicks into gear, the little bit of extra lift makes the listening experience sufficiently exhilarating. She also does a good job at conveying the warmer emotions of the story, and I do wish she had slightly more varied material to work with, as the primary romance of the book is heartwarming but ultimately flat as these things go.

Dead Silence is not a story that will change your life, but as far as audiobooks go, it's an engaging walking tour of hell in space, and its central mystery is a decent distraction.

Great Sci-Fi Horror

I love sci-fi horror! This book has a really cool concept based on realistic events (I'm guessing). More than just a haunted house in space. The visuals were nice and gruesome. I hope S.A. Barnes continues to write horror. It's been a long winter of very average horror (at best). This came along at just the right time.
Lauren Ezzo's narration is excellent.

4 Stars ****

awesome!!

was a little skeptical at first but the story had me absolutely sucked in after the 1st hour. the atmosphere and characters are very well done, and I really enjoyed listening to the narrator. highly recommend

Haunted Spaces

This is a spooky read. A team discovers an abandoned ship and uncovers some horrifying truths. The story makes you question what’s real even as the characters try to discern truth from illusion so that you make the journey across space together trying to connect the dots.

Edge of my seat

I actually and stop early one night because I knew if I kept listening I'd never get to sleep. Other that though, I listened every second.

I wasn’t sure for awhile, but I’m glad I stuck with it to the end

I wasn’t sure for awhile, but I’m glad I stuck with it to the end

Good story that gets a bit to mushy at the end

I enjoyed this book overall, and the narrator is great at her job, tho I feel the protagonist is a bit too whiney and it becomes REALLY grating towards the end (which unfortunately the narrator conveys too well).

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

I also feel the sudden shift in the protagonist’s “hallucinations “ from just that to actually seeing the dead was too sudden and unearned.

The ending was a little too pat for my liking as well.

Overall I recommend if you like your sci-fi horror to end like a lifetime movie.

Really enjoyed this book

When I was looking for a story about a ghost ship I wasn't expecting to find one set in space. My only complaint with the narration was that there were times where I couldn't tell if it was the main character speaking or her inner monologue. I found the story overall very enjoyable but I would have liked to see more interactions and scenes with the "ghosts" on the ship. I would love to have a book from the author about Claire's time on Ferris Outpost and in the group home.

Upsetting twist.

I enjoyed the story up until the point where I had never been more disappointed in a horror twist in my life. However, the performance by Lauren Ezzo was fantastic; while the emotional narration may not be everyone's cup of tea, you can really feel everything thing the character is going through.