Dead Silence by S. A. Barnes

​Just how far can you stretch a ghosts-in-space scenario? Well, if you do it well enough, apparently right into the mid300 page range.
It’s ok if it doesn’t come across as very original, because the setting itself it eerie enough to do most of the heavy lifting. After all, hallucinating and isolated spaces go together like peanut butter and bananas.
And that’s Dead Silence in a nutshell. A sort of horrortinged science fiction novel that TOR tends to lose its sh*t over, even without the heavily-featured queerness and other woke signifiers. In fact, the protagonist is this novel is boldly straight as evidenced by a distractingly bland romantic subplot. She also has that tough as nails demeanor, forged by childhood trauma and an emotionally spartan adulthood.
And she is a team leader of a spaceship that comes across the wreckage of the most luxurious spacecruiser ever built, one that disappeared under mysterious circumstances two decades earlier. Surprise, surprise, it’s creepy inside.
Ghostships, you know, aren’t solely for the high seas.
And so, ghosts. Madness. She gets out, only to be dragged back by another crew of disbelievers into the very same nightmare. It might begin to feel repetitive. It sort of is.
But it’s also genuinely creepy at times, plenty atmospheric, decently written, and has that pop fiction sparkplug narrative and pacing that advanced the plot along at a nice clip.
Overall, it’s fun, maybe more of a popcorn fun, but still…fun. An entertaining genre mash-up that would lend itself well to a cinematic version.
What was the tagline here, one might wonder? In space…there’s dead silence? Ooohhhh. Aaaaahhh. Anyway, ghosts in space, there you go. Enjoy.