The Silence

4.5/5

Before I discovered how to really use Twitter and before I discovered #bookstagram and those two fantastic communities, I was a simple man. I would (gasp) head to the local Chapters bookstore, first in Nelson (when it was Coles) then in Abbotsford (also Coles) and then in Calgary. My wife always hated these excursions because she would know just how long I’d be spending in the Horror sections in each store. The book stores had the books stocked well, but spine out. So I would have to pull each book out to look at the cover and read the synopsis. This is how I would find the books I wanted to read and the books I would eventually purchase.

At some point in Calgary, I was perusing the book shelves when I spotted a book with an intriguing cover. I took a picture but waited to purchase the book, as I had a number of Bobsled related expenses coming up and just didn’t have the extra $9.99 to buy the paperback.

Flash forward to the release of the movie “A Quiet Place.” A number of articles were released with headlines such as; “If you liked the movie A Quiet Place you’ll love these books!” Well, I hadn’t watched A Quiet Place when it came out, but I checked out the books and on that list was “The Silence” by Tim Lebbon. Something about that name clicked and when I looked at my book photos – there was the cover for “Coldbrook” also by Lebbon. I chuckled at the coincidence (as I’m chuckling now thinking about all you suckers reading this who thought that the book I took a picture of was The Silence, SUCKERS!) So I snagged “The Silence.” Then when I became a more active Twitter user I started following Lebbon and saw that a movie was coming out. Such an exciting piece of news! So I had to get to reading the book.

So I have.

And now ladies and gentlemen of the jury – I present to you my 4.5 star review of “The Silence” by Tim Lebbon.

You’ve read the comparisons, seen the fodder saying “oh here we go again, haha, another book where people can’t look or hear or see.”

The Silence is firmly a post-apocalyptic creature feature, which I think sets it apart from a few other similar releases, simply because the creatures are front and centre from Chapter One and they are not kept away from the reader. We get their descriptions early on and we know exactly how they operate and where they came from. There have been some comparisons made by others to bats. Whether this is something that scares you or not, the similar sonar/echolocation adaptation was great and it really made the essence of ‘silence’ paramount. They swarm and kill and are directed to the sound.

The story rolls back and forth between 1st person POV and 3rd person. The 1st person POV is from teenager Ally. She’s been left deaf following a car accident years before that also took the lives of her grandparents. The 3rd person is told more from what the father, Huw experiences but doesn’t always stay with him. Because of Ally’s injury, the family has all learned a modified sign language which allows them to communicate.

I really only had two issues with the book. The first was initially I found the POV narrative change jarring and at some points slightly disorienting with descriptions. Because Ally couldn’t hear what was being said in a few interactions, the reader was left to assume dialogue and resulting action. The second (and this will feel like 100% nitpicking) was that I hated Huw’s name. It’s not a name I’m familiar with/have experience with and when I was reading it I just didn’t know how to pronounce it. It sounds like a minor grievance but he was an integral character throughout, so I would have preferred a simple name like Frank or Dave or something.

As for the rest of the book – I loved how at the start of each chapter it featured snippets from news reports and social media accounts. I didn’t like World War Z and how it bounced around, but Lebbon’s use of this was great and pointed. The characters that Lebbon introduced were well thought out and I enjoyed that they continued to make choices that felt real. When you read a book like this, of course, the question will constantly pop up about ‘what would you do?’ if this actually happened. I didn’t find any of their decisions or actions irrational or ridiculous. Everything was done with survival in mind, which played really well and I found really engaging.

The last thing I’ll touch on is the ‘ending.’ Like many post-apocalyptic books, the story just kind of ends. This is always an expected thing, for me at least. Very rarely is a book like this going to have a definitive ending. With the release of the Netflix film, the ending will, of course, raise questions about Lebbon revisiting the family and delivering a sequel, but as it stands the ending played out really nicely and Lebbon did allude to a possible way for the creatures to die off.

For me, the entire time I was reading this, I kept thinking about the scary stats related to bees. As the book went on Lebbon described how the vesps, as they were called, would kill birds as they flew or made noise. The same would be true with most insects and of course with bees. There’s a line attributed to Einstein, that paraphrased says; ‘if all of the world’s bees were to die, humans would only live for another 4-5 years.’ So reading a story like this, I knew a vague ending would come, but I wondered just how long humanity would survive with an invasive species such as the vesps launched into our lives.

Overall for me, this was a fun read, with a defined beginning and middle which worked great to set up the chaos of what occurs ¾ of the way through the book. I should have read this far sooner but I’m glad I finally got to it.

There was a surreal feeling to reading an apocalyptic book during a pandemic. The two worlds kind of blurred together. I wasn’t expecting the characters to social distance (although they did in a few scenes) nor did I expect vesps (the creatures in THE SILENCE) to attack me when I went outside. However, the emotions from both built on each other; I immediately identified with the new world in the book and then was more paranoid than usual in real life. The result was a very enjoyable reading experience.

The story alternates between the point of view of Hugh and Ally Andrews. Hugh is the dad, wanting to protect his wife, kids, and mother-in-law and to get them somewhere safe. Ally is his daughter, struck deaf in a car accident years before. The previously mentioned vesps are blind, bat-like creatures the size of cats and with tentacles and razor teeth that have escaped from a cave in Moldova and who hunt by sound. Hugh and his family are in the United Kingdom and trying to escape to the family home in Scotland.

There are a ton of elements that makes the story and characters incredibly real. Lifestyles that have been sacrificed for the kids. Neighbors in denial about the threat. The imperfections of every character. One thing which I thought was great was the way Ally continually got news updates from the Internet and social media. It’s exactly what so many people would do in real life. It also heightened the pressure and tension significantly. The family wasn’t just running away from a threat but they were constantly finding out how dangerous and deadly the threat was. Figuratively, the vesps were in the rear-view mirror, always getting closer until they finally overtook them. At that point, the novel adds the tension of monsters constantly around, waiting to strike at any moment. About the only negative thing that I can say is that the book seemed to end rather quickly. I wasn’t upset about how it ended because realistically there are only a few ways an end-of-the-world book can end. I was more disappointed because I could have easily gone another 200-300 pages. I wanted more! I suppose that is the best way to end a review: I want more.

I loved the movie A Quiet Place so this was right up my alley. A great horror book to read on a rainy night.