Happy Goat Horror

In the darkness of a vast cave system, cut off from the world for millennia, blind creatures hunt by sound. Then there is light, there are voices, and they feed… Swarming from their prison, they multiply and thrive. To scream, even to whisper, is to summon death.

Deaf for many years, Ally knows how to live in silence. Now, it is her family’s only chance of survival. To leave their home, to shun others, to find a remote haven where they can sit out the plague. But will it ever end? And what kind of world will be left?

Dark bleetings everyone! I’ve got a bone to pick with you… why did none of you get me reading this fantastic book earlier?! You know how much I love the apocalypse. I’ve been on a bit of a Tim Lebbon binge this year – my love for his books was re-ignited last year at ChillerCon. I really enjoyed the movie adaptation and decided to dive into the book recently and I was not disappointed.

What a great plot set up, first of all. Explorers get into a hitherto uncharted caving system but there’s something down there in the dark… something that, thanks to us, gets out. A species that travels and breeds rapidly. The world could well be doomed.

I loved the characters, especially the dual protagonists – a deaf teenage girl and her dad. The chapters switched between the two of them and it was great to see the same scenario playing out from differing outlooks and banks of knowledge. I really loved this family and was pretty obsessed and concerned with their wellbeing with each page I turned.

It definitely doesn’t need a sequel as I think the ending was a perfect tie-up to the story, however, there is room for one, should Lebbon ever decide to revisit the world he’s created. The hideous, terrifying, quiet world in which stubbing your toe could be the end of you. This grisly world in which one move could get you and everyone you love torn to pieces. This post-apocalyptic terror in which regular people have gone rogue and you can’t trust a single other survivor you might see. God…. I LOVE THE APOCALYPSE. I don’t know why I love this subgenre so much but I do, and this is such a great book that it has to go in my Top 5, along with Dave Jeffery’s ‘A Quiet Apocalypse’, Richard Matheson’s ‘I Am Legend‘, and Stephen King’s ‘The Stand’.

If you’d like your own copy (I can’t recommend it highly enough), or you’d like to check out the author, you can find the links you need below:

THE SILENCE (Affiliate Amazon Link)

TIM LEBBON’S SUPER DUPER AWESOME WEBSITE