Outside, there's nothing. The void. Dark, endless blackness. Impossible cold. No food, water, or air. Just emptiness. Inside, the darkness presses in around you, only better than the void outside by the few work lamps that protect you from the black of infinity. Your head is pounding and the claustrophobia is setting in. The finery of a bygone era is all around you. Rare woods, plush carpeting, and beautiful flowers in every vase. Extravagant jewels, silks, fabrics, and opulence that only the most money can bye adorn the corpses of those who last found themselves in these haunted halls. If not for the dead, it very well may be an exciting adventure to board such a fine vessel, but the question keeps nagging at you. How did they die? Why did they die? And why do I keep seeing something move out of the corner of my eye?
Dead Silence is a masterful recapturing of the classic haunted house story, this time told in the deep recesses of space. Following Claire Kovalick and her team of deep space communications engineers, the story hops quickly between 'then' and 'now' as Claire retells the tale of how she found herself to be the sole survivor of a harrowing discovery after answering a distress beacon at the farthest reaches on known space.
With only bits and pieces of memory, some of which she can't even be sure are real, Claire retells how her and her crew discover the missing luxury cruise ship, the Aurora. A one-of-a-kind piece of history, this ghost ship has been lost for several decades after only a brief hay-day when it was revered as the single most luxurious form of space travel the worlds had ever seen. Only several months into the Aurora's maiden voyage, however, the ship mysteriously went missing without a trace, with no sign of it. Until now.
On entering the ship, they only find more questions than answers. And the mystery, and terror, deepens when they find themselves locked inside the Aurora with no way to escape and something else beginning to react to their presence there.
Now, locked in a mental institution after her discovery, Claire recounts her tale to the company executives in charge of investigating the ship's disappearance. She has no idea how she escaped and is only beginning to put the pieces back together after being discovered in an escape pod by a passing vessel. The company is certain that Claire killed her crew, either by accident or design, in the interest of keeping the wealth of the Aurora to herself. After all, this is the second time that she was the sole survivor of a catastrophic event and the first time certainly didn't paint her in a good light. And it seems all too convenient that she's haunted by her dead crewmates, tripping her up during her interviews when the company men might get something useful out of her.
Using the first person narrative, Dead Silence does a fantastic job of dropping the reader into the terror and keeping them in the action. A lot of information that ties to the heart of the mysteries is readily apparent and available in the reading, but often not plainly obvious due to the disorienting nature of everything going on. Even better than that, and perhaps this is just personal preference, while most things are wrapped up rather nicely, certain fantastical elements are simply never expanded on past the obvious due to the fact that the narrator herself never learns the answers. In my opinion, this actually helps strengthen the narration as a whole and adds to the sensation of being in the action.
I think my one complaint for the tale, and the reason I couldn't give this five stars, is that the strength of the book is also its weakness. Claire is very clearly traumatized and suffering from mental health issues. This is a point of growth with her character and it is very reasonably and satisfactorily addressed. However there are a number of times in the story where the focus is so heavily on this element and the 'spinning gears' in her head, so to speak, that I feel it detracts too much from what's going on. There are a few parts where it steps over the disorienting storytelling and instead becomes self focused enough that it begins to lose the reader and the focus of the rest of the book. If these areas were cleaned up, it would truly be a perfect, scary story.
All in all, Dead Silence does a great job in standing among other space-based horror stories. Akin to tales such as Alien, Dead Space, and, particularly, Event Horizon, the author holds their own, using both the expected and unexpected to craft a fantastic scary story. I definitely recommend this book for anyone who wants a new spin on the old classic of ghosts and ghoulies that go bump in the night, wandering haunted halls til someone new comes to call.
If you're interested in checking it out for yourself, feel free to check out the link below, I personally recommend the audiobook as Lauren Ezzo's acting adds an extra, emotional weight to the story that I believe adds to its telling:
Dead Silence | Audible Audiobook
