Dead Silence - S.A.Barnes - Top Pick 2022

Sci-Fi/Horror

Rating: 9.5/10

Wanted to start 2023 off with my Top Picks from 2022! This is my second favourite book of 2022!

In space no one can hear you scream…this famous quote will reverberate in your head as you delve into this stellar story that gives off Aliens and The Shining vibes.

Claire is recounting the events on board the Aurora from some sort of rehabilitation unit that is a dumping ground for all the people deemed broken or damaged.  This is not her first time there.

Claire was leading her last mission when she and her crew stumbled upon a long-lost luxury space vessel that hasn’t been seen or heard from since its maiden voyage, more than twenty years before.  It was presumed all souls on board were lost. 

Deciding to attempt a salvage claim, they risk missing their rendezvous with the vessel set to take them home.  Turns out they risked a hell of a lot more than that.

As they move through a ship dripping with excess and luxury, looking for treasures, they find a hellscape.  They expected to find the dead of course, but the manner of these deaths, not so much.

People having beaten each other to death with anything not bolted down, others strapping knifes to their arms and slashing anything in their paths, and some clawing out their own eyes and stabbing out their own ears.  What happened here?  Over and over and over again?

The author has a deft hand at imbuing tension, there is nothing like a reader wondering what horrors a character will discover as they turn the corner, or God forbid, look under the bed.

I read somewhere recently that sci-fi horror novels are trending higher than ever this year.  This is a haunted spaceship I can get onboard!

Book Pairing(s): Dark Matter by Blake Crouch, Cold Storage by David Koepp, Salvaged by Madeline Roux