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Silent Hill #1
Silent Hill: The Novel
Silent Hill (サイレントヒル) is an official novelization of Silent Hill, written by Sadamu Yamashita and illustrated by Masahiro Ito.
Fan Translation by Wyntr
Fan Translation by Wyntr
- GenresHorrorVideo GamesFiction
282 pages, ebook
First published January 1, 2006
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
November 4, 2019
Doesn't give the game justice at all
January 27, 2025
I'm a huge fan of this saga, and the first one is, by far, my favorite. Having even named my daughter Alessa, it's no surprise that my rating is deeply sentimental.
Good complement, fills certain gaps and allows us to delve deeper into Harry, Cheryl, Jodie and their lives prior to arriving in Silent Hill. It has good descriptions of the creatures and their sounds, the atmosphere is not as oppressive, rushes some events and there are some contradictions in its lore. But it's clear that the complete experience lies in hearing the soundtrack, environmental sounds and the constant radio murmur as we explore the city in the video game.
ENDING GOOD+
★★★★★
Good complement, fills certain gaps and allows us to delve deeper into Harry, Cheryl, Jodie and their lives prior to arriving in Silent Hill. It has good descriptions of the creatures and their sounds, the atmosphere is not as oppressive, rushes some events and there are some contradictions in its lore. But it's clear that the complete experience lies in hearing the soundtrack, environmental sounds and the constant radio murmur as we explore the city in the video game.
ENDING GOOD+
★★★★★
May 6, 2025
(Note 1: I read Wyntr's translation, for I do not know Japanese.)
(Note 2: Looking back at it a few months later, I was far, far too generous in my review of this novel, perhaps because I based that on its best one or two paragraphs and my expectations were far too low. Yeah... I've updated my review to better reflect my thoughts on the novel.)
The first book I finish in 2025. Well, either Mr Yamashita isn't a very good writer, or Wyntr isn't a very good translator, or both. The novel is shockingly bad, and reads much more like amateur, badly-written online fanfiction rather than an official novelisation of a massive IP like Silent Hill.
Usually I talk about the plot of the book here, but let's be honest: if you're reading this, you've most likely already finished playing Silent Hill and know what it is about. Hence, this review shall be different from my other reviews and will focus on other aspects of the book.
The biggest thing this book does is expand Harry's characterisation. Harry does not really have a personality aside from being a loving, determined father in the video game. Here we see how downright paranoid he is about Cheryl, and we learn that he is a non-fiction writer (Cybil has read his book, in fact) and a proponent of gun ownership amongst other things. It also condenses a lot of the events from the game (Harry's passage through the sewers, for example, is only limited to a few paragraphs) and removes many of the puzzles. It also seemed to elaborate on the lore and backstory a bit more than the game, but I cannot comment much upon that because I went into this after reading about both of them online.
You would expect a novelisation like this to expand and add depth to the characters. We get a few more backstory tidbits aside from the expansion of Harry's character, but every character, including Harry, is incredibly shallow and poorly written. One does not need to know anything about Silent Hill to know how especially problematic that is in a psychological horror story. Again, such sort of writing is passable in online fanfiction, not in an official novelisation. Who is to blame for this, I'm not certain. And the story is just plain illogical at times. The writer or the translator or both especially bungled the boss fight in the carousel and the final battle. The ending was horribly anticlimactic.
The prose was rather simple, and the descriptions were very sparse (I need not say anything about the quality -- you can guess from the tone of my review what I think about it). The dialogue was... serviceable, if we're being generous. The illustrations were average - not bad by any means on their own, but they did not particularly appeal to me either.
Would I recommend this to someone? No, not really. Read this if you're familiar with Silent Hill (definitely finish the game first), but keep your expectations very, very low.
(Note 2: Looking back at it a few months later, I was far, far too generous in my review of this novel, perhaps because I based that on its best one or two paragraphs and my expectations were far too low. Yeah... I've updated my review to better reflect my thoughts on the novel.)
The first book I finish in 2025. Well, either Mr Yamashita isn't a very good writer, or Wyntr isn't a very good translator, or both. The novel is shockingly bad, and reads much more like amateur, badly-written online fanfiction rather than an official novelisation of a massive IP like Silent Hill.
Usually I talk about the plot of the book here, but let's be honest: if you're reading this, you've most likely already finished playing Silent Hill and know what it is about. Hence, this review shall be different from my other reviews and will focus on other aspects of the book.
The biggest thing this book does is expand Harry's characterisation. Harry does not really have a personality aside from being a loving, determined father in the video game. Here we see how downright paranoid he is about Cheryl, and we learn that he is a non-fiction writer (Cybil has read his book, in fact) and a proponent of gun ownership amongst other things. It also condenses a lot of the events from the game (Harry's passage through the sewers, for example, is only limited to a few paragraphs) and removes many of the puzzles. It also seemed to elaborate on the lore and backstory a bit more than the game, but I cannot comment much upon that because I went into this after reading about both of them online.
You would expect a novelisation like this to expand and add depth to the characters. We get a few more backstory tidbits aside from the expansion of Harry's character, but every character, including Harry, is incredibly shallow and poorly written. One does not need to know anything about Silent Hill to know how especially problematic that is in a psychological horror story. Again, such sort of writing is passable in online fanfiction, not in an official novelisation. Who is to blame for this, I'm not certain. And the story is just plain illogical at times. The writer or the translator or both especially bungled the boss fight in the carousel and the final battle. The ending was horribly anticlimactic.
The prose was rather simple, and the descriptions were very sparse (I need not say anything about the quality -- you can guess from the tone of my review what I think about it). The dialogue was... serviceable, if we're being generous. The illustrations were average - not bad by any means on their own, but they did not particularly appeal to me either.
Would I recommend this to someone? No, not really. Read this if you're familiar with Silent Hill (definitely finish the game first), but keep your expectations very, very low.
July 11, 2024
I don't consider this a replacement to the game, but I do think this game in particular was the most lacking in terms of actually understanding its main character, and this book fills those gaps in a way I enjoy
We learn about Cheryl and her hatred for cows. We see exactly the extent of paranoia Harry has trying to find her in the town. It's fun to see this blank slate character FINALLY get characterization other than "Have you seen a little girl around here?", like the way he speculates the happenings of the town as a government conspiracy, or the way he ransacks the "'Doghouse' House", downing the beer first and stuffing himself with meats and cheese AND more beer, AND presumably going on to solve the puzzle at the school (even if they omitted the piano puzzle....) after downing 2-3 beers on a (previously) empty stomach
We learn about Cheryl and her hatred for cows. We see exactly the extent of paranoia Harry has trying to find her in the town. It's fun to see this blank slate character FINALLY get characterization other than "Have you seen a little girl around here?", like the way he speculates the happenings of the town as a government conspiracy, or the way he ransacks the "'Doghouse' House", downing the beer first and stuffing himself with meats and cheese AND more beer, AND presumably going on to solve the puzzle at the school (even if they omitted the piano puzzle....) after downing 2-3 beers on a (previously) empty stomach
September 12, 2025
Pretty decent adaptation, it’s just too “straight” in my opinion. It’s just literally describing what happens in the game without a lot of the nuance and specificity of the game, but not bad by any means
December 22, 2025
I have to confess, to start with, that I did not come into this in good faith; I assumed it would be terrible, and read it only out of a vague curiosity to kill time in an airport. I don’t like doing that, because once you’ve decided something will be bad, it’s easy to start picking it apart unfairly. But also … I was right, this is terrible.
I won’t poke too much at the translation, because it was a fan project, and anyone who will translate an entire book for no recompense has my gratitude. Still, proofread your work; this sometimes borders on incoherent: “… [a] place Cheryl had been eager to see for reasons he couldn’t quite figure out or know where it was.” In fairness to the translator, I’m going to assume the original prose was also pretty poor.
In fairness to the writer, Silent Hill was never the most coherent story, and was not crying out for a novelization, because things you’ll tolerate out of “video game logic” become intensely weird in other mediums. Kaufmann has the key to his hotel room apparently lying on a bar, so you can pick it up after he leaves? Who among us doesn’t take one of their keys off their key ring and put it on the bar when they’re getting a drink! Fine in a PSX-era video game, bizarre in any other context.
But also … the decision to essentially narrate a play-through of the game, with some of the puzzles edited out, was an artistic choice that we can criticize. “A man is looking for his daughter in a monster-ridden town; he teams up with a policewoman sent to investigate why the town has gone dark. Together, they must uncover the secret history of Silent Hill, and how it relates to the missing girl, while crossing paths with a suspicious-seeming doctor and a cultist who knows more than she's letting on.” That’s a novel; you can tell the plot of Silent Hill as a novel. You just need to have some vision. What works in what medium? Do the boss fights need to be there? If so, how can the extremely clunky fights of the game be developed into something tenser and more exciting for the novel? How can the extremely sparse conversations from the game be expanded into naturalistic dialogue that develops the characters to a level acceptable for a book, where such things are expected? How can you guide the protagonist along the same basic path of the game without clunky nonsense like I discussed in the previous paragraph? How does a book need to be paced contra a video game? Would, for example, the strangeness of Cheryl suddenly wanting to visit a resort town “for reasons he couldn’t quite figure out or know where it was” not have been better expanded into a prologue, rather than treated in a single sentence?
This book is brutally dull. The author's absolute refusal to show any vision or make any allowances for different mediums has produced a Prima strategy guide in narrative form. The only real allowance the author of this novelization made was to try to flesh out Harry a little, but he did it in a strange way--see, Harry wrote a book on serial killers, and now he's super worried about his daughter, because "every year, sixteen children had been raped or murdered. Twenty-seven had been beaten and dismembered. A hundred boys and girls had been killed and eaten like steaks." My dude, his daughter is lost in an abandoned, monster-infested town, the one thing you *didn't* need to flesh out was why the protagonist is worried about that!
Perhaps, if the author had made the changes necessary for this to function as a novel, other readers would be complaining about faithlessness to the original. Or maybe not; I think a lot of Silent Hill fans have at least some affection for the first movie, which was developed around similar principles. In any case, it's hard to imagine a different writing philosophy producing something worse than this.
I won’t poke too much at the translation, because it was a fan project, and anyone who will translate an entire book for no recompense has my gratitude. Still, proofread your work; this sometimes borders on incoherent: “… [a] place Cheryl had been eager to see for reasons he couldn’t quite figure out or know where it was.” In fairness to the translator, I’m going to assume the original prose was also pretty poor.
In fairness to the writer, Silent Hill was never the most coherent story, and was not crying out for a novelization, because things you’ll tolerate out of “video game logic” become intensely weird in other mediums. Kaufmann has the key to his hotel room apparently lying on a bar, so you can pick it up after he leaves? Who among us doesn’t take one of their keys off their key ring and put it on the bar when they’re getting a drink! Fine in a PSX-era video game, bizarre in any other context.
But also … the decision to essentially narrate a play-through of the game, with some of the puzzles edited out, was an artistic choice that we can criticize. “A man is looking for his daughter in a monster-ridden town; he teams up with a policewoman sent to investigate why the town has gone dark. Together, they must uncover the secret history of Silent Hill, and how it relates to the missing girl, while crossing paths with a suspicious-seeming doctor and a cultist who knows more than she's letting on.” That’s a novel; you can tell the plot of Silent Hill as a novel. You just need to have some vision. What works in what medium? Do the boss fights need to be there? If so, how can the extremely clunky fights of the game be developed into something tenser and more exciting for the novel? How can the extremely sparse conversations from the game be expanded into naturalistic dialogue that develops the characters to a level acceptable for a book, where such things are expected? How can you guide the protagonist along the same basic path of the game without clunky nonsense like I discussed in the previous paragraph? How does a book need to be paced contra a video game? Would, for example, the strangeness of Cheryl suddenly wanting to visit a resort town “for reasons he couldn’t quite figure out or know where it was” not have been better expanded into a prologue, rather than treated in a single sentence?
This book is brutally dull. The author's absolute refusal to show any vision or make any allowances for different mediums has produced a Prima strategy guide in narrative form. The only real allowance the author of this novelization made was to try to flesh out Harry a little, but he did it in a strange way--see, Harry wrote a book on serial killers, and now he's super worried about his daughter, because "every year, sixteen children had been raped or murdered. Twenty-seven had been beaten and dismembered. A hundred boys and girls had been killed and eaten like steaks." My dude, his daughter is lost in an abandoned, monster-infested town, the one thing you *didn't* need to flesh out was why the protagonist is worried about that!
Perhaps, if the author had made the changes necessary for this to function as a novel, other readers would be complaining about faithlessness to the original. Or maybe not; I think a lot of Silent Hill fans have at least some affection for the first movie, which was developed around similar principles. In any case, it's hard to imagine a different writing philosophy producing something worse than this.
January 19, 2025
After the awful Silent Hill 2 novel, I wasn't actually planning to read this. However, when I picked out an e-book for a long bus ride, I figured: Why not? It's not terribly long, anyway.
Silent Hill: The Novel was completely translated into English last year. And boy, the translation is ROUGH. It clearly wasn't translated by a native English speaker, nor was it edited by anyone. It's filled with grammar mistakes, missing words, and sometimes even straight-up incomprehensible sentences. It was plain annoying to read in the middle and I hope I'll never read a novel again where the protagonist "steels himself" every 20 pages.
Ironically, it is still much better than the SH2 novel. Translation aside, it is much better written, it is more picturesque, it lets each scene properly breathe. It is mostly faithful to the game, which I consider incomprehensible without consulting the Silent Hill Wiki, and explains the plot and all of its nuances surprisingly well. Really, if you doubt that you fully understand the story of the game, skip the Wiki and read the novel. Several of the chapters are supported by Masahiro Ito's original concept art, some of which didn't make it into the game and make the scenes feel even creepier here.
And I'm wondering: What went wrong with the novelization of the sequel? Maybe the writer just didn't care enough. After all, despite its success in the West, Silent Hill 2 was a failure in Japan. Maybe the translator of SH1 is, despite English grammar deficiencies, much more literate than the translator of SH2. Or maybe SH2 is simply filled with so many audiovisual nuances that it is more difficult to reduce into pure text form. But even that doesn't explain why parts of its novelization are so utterly terrible.
Anyway, if you like Silent Hill, you will enjoy this novel. And in contrast with the SH2 novel, I think that you can enjoy this one even if you are not familiar with the series or want to experience the story without forcing yourself through the tank controls and horror.
Silent Hill: The Novel was completely translated into English last year. And boy, the translation is ROUGH. It clearly wasn't translated by a native English speaker, nor was it edited by anyone. It's filled with grammar mistakes, missing words, and sometimes even straight-up incomprehensible sentences. It was plain annoying to read in the middle and I hope I'll never read a novel again where the protagonist "steels himself" every 20 pages.
Ironically, it is still much better than the SH2 novel. Translation aside, it is much better written, it is more picturesque, it lets each scene properly breathe. It is mostly faithful to the game, which I consider incomprehensible without consulting the Silent Hill Wiki, and explains the plot and all of its nuances surprisingly well. Really, if you doubt that you fully understand the story of the game, skip the Wiki and read the novel. Several of the chapters are supported by Masahiro Ito's original concept art, some of which didn't make it into the game and make the scenes feel even creepier here.
And I'm wondering: What went wrong with the novelization of the sequel? Maybe the writer just didn't care enough. After all, despite its success in the West, Silent Hill 2 was a failure in Japan. Maybe the translator of SH1 is, despite English grammar deficiencies, much more literate than the translator of SH2. Or maybe SH2 is simply filled with so many audiovisual nuances that it is more difficult to reduce into pure text form. But even that doesn't explain why parts of its novelization are so utterly terrible.
Anyway, if you like Silent Hill, you will enjoy this novel. And in contrast with the SH2 novel, I think that you can enjoy this one even if you are not familiar with the series or want to experience the story without forcing yourself through the tank controls and horror.
January 20, 2026
Me parece un trabajo decente de manera general.
Como adaptación de la historia del primer juego, le agrega detalles interesantes a la historia de fondo, las modificaciones que hace en el viaje de Harry me parecen sensatas (y necesarias) y me la pasé bien leyendo diferentes puntos de vista, como el de Cybil o el del Doctor Kauffman. Aún con todo ello, debo de admitir que me encuentro algo decepcionado. Los personajes, pese a tener un vistazo a sus pensamientos, me parecen algo superficiales, la acción es dolorosamente corta (especialmente las batallas con los mini jefes y el jefe final) y las descripciones son muy vagas, dependiendo casi enteramente de lo que ya viste del juego. Lo entiendo, es una novelización, no un trabajo independiente, pero eso no debería de ser excusa para entregar algo demasiado simple o no aprovechar a las criaturas para describir algo más grotesco.
Por otro lado, un punto positivo que debo remarcar es que me gustó lo que hizo el autor con Dahlia Gillespie. Al no mantener la fachada de benefactora misteriosa como en el juego, podemos tener un vistazo a su perspectiva y artimañas. Es fácil de odiar y admito que disfruté leyendola. El arte también me gustó.
En conclusión, si bien es una novela que no recomendaría, creo que los fanáticos de hueso colorado del primer juego encontrarán interesante de leer.
Como adaptación de la historia del primer juego, le agrega detalles interesantes a la historia de fondo, las modificaciones que hace en el viaje de Harry me parecen sensatas (y necesarias) y me la pasé bien leyendo diferentes puntos de vista, como el de Cybil o el del Doctor Kauffman. Aún con todo ello, debo de admitir que me encuentro algo decepcionado. Los personajes, pese a tener un vistazo a sus pensamientos, me parecen algo superficiales, la acción es dolorosamente corta (especialmente las batallas con los mini jefes y el jefe final) y las descripciones son muy vagas, dependiendo casi enteramente de lo que ya viste del juego. Lo entiendo, es una novelización, no un trabajo independiente, pero eso no debería de ser excusa para entregar algo demasiado simple o no aprovechar a las criaturas para describir algo más grotesco.
Por otro lado, un punto positivo que debo remarcar es que me gustó lo que hizo el autor con Dahlia Gillespie. Al no mantener la fachada de benefactora misteriosa como en el juego, podemos tener un vistazo a su perspectiva y artimañas. Es fácil de odiar y admito que disfruté leyendola. El arte también me gustó.
En conclusión, si bien es una novela que no recomendaría, creo que los fanáticos de hueso colorado del primer juego encontrarán interesante de leer.
March 3, 2023
The original 'silent hill' game was pretty solid with a bunch of spine-chilling silence (and fogs) and malice lurking in the pitch-dark and not like this novelization. Somehow, it didn't fulfill my expectations. The writing was plain and didn't capture the essence of 'thriller' nor 'horror'. I bet the author before writing the novelization of the game was never really into thriller genre, let alone write about it. Wish I could give it one star but the initial premise of the original game was good.
March 19, 2025
As a big fan of the Silent Hill series — especially the first installment — I was thrilled to discover there was an official novelization, one I simply couldn’t pass up.
Unfortunately, although the book starts off strong, the story quickly becomes chaotic due to the author’s decision to follow the game’s flow step by step.
Don’t get me wrong — I love the game; it’s probably my favorite video game of all time. But adaptations always need to adjust to the format they’re being adapted to, and I feel the author failed badly in that regard.
Unfortunately, although the book starts off strong, the story quickly becomes chaotic due to the author’s decision to follow the game’s flow step by step.
Don’t get me wrong — I love the game; it’s probably my favorite video game of all time. But adaptations always need to adjust to the format they’re being adapted to, and I feel the author failed badly in that regard.
August 28, 2025
I was so disappointed with this adaptation of the game. It reads like a bad fanfiction written by someone who failed their English class multiple times.
Not sure if it's the author to blame or the translator, but this was a big nope for me. DNF
Not sure if it's the author to blame or the translator, but this was a big nope for me. DNF
January 15, 2026
«Her dream started to spill over.»
January 9, 2025
This book is only for people with good taste aka silent hill lovers who had played the game. I'd recommend you play the game before reading the book bc you'd get lost if not. It's literally a translation so don't expect good dialogue, narration or pacing of the story. And I liked more the second book, same with the game.
December 16, 2024
thank you to WYNTR for translating the book, This is a fabulous way to experience the story of Silent Hill. It’s a pretty straightforward retelling, the only thing i wish is they expanded on some of the descriptions for locations and creatures. If you haven’t played the games and only read the book, I could see it being slightly confusing.
The PS1 game is still great, but the more time we go without a remake or even remaster makes its less accessible. Praying Konami remakes this, 3, and 4: The Room the same way they just did with 2. These games have some of the best and most ominous stories, and it’s neat to experience them in a new format. I think I’ll try to play through the visual novel after reading 2 & 3.
Song on repeat while reading: EARTH KIT by SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE
The PS1 game is still great, but the more time we go without a remake or even remaster makes its less accessible. Praying Konami remakes this, 3, and 4: The Room the same way they just did with 2. These games have some of the best and most ominous stories, and it’s neat to experience them in a new format. I think I’ll try to play through the visual novel after reading 2 & 3.
Song on repeat while reading: EARTH KIT by SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE
December 28, 2025
la leí y mientras la leía iba rescatando el juego así que como estoy en mi época "silent hill" debo decir que esperaba que fuera menos directa y que divagara más a la hora de llevar a Harry a su destino, eso sin mencionar el echo de que no agregara gran cosa a la historia del juego, pensé que expandiría más la historia y me encontré con que en vez de eso la simplifica y evita narrar partes como por ejemplo los puzzles y si, yo sé que no serían tan orgánicos en una novela pero almenos uno que otro, pues seria lindo ver eso sin mencionar que agregaría más complejidad al trabajo del protagonista y no se sentiría tan simple, estás son mis opiniones y aclaro que aún así me divertí leyendo la novela y jugando el videojuego
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews