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The Quiet
‘Riveting. Martin weaves an inspired premise into an engrossing and wholly original adventure’ – Ernest Cline, author of Ready Player One
A mother's love can be deafening . . .
Isaac is Hannah’s entire world. If she lets her guard down, he will be taken from her.
When the Soundfield arrived twenty years ago, the world changed with it. Now, people are forced to live at night due to the deadly heat, food and water are scarce, and everyday life is punctuated by a constant and disconcerting hum.
Hannah spent her early career working on the enigma of the Soundfield, looking for answers; now, she focuses all her energy on keeping Isaac living, not just alive.
To do so, she will have to lie to the people she knows and hope she can trust the ones she doesn't.
The only thing more dangerous than her lies, is the truth of what she has done.
‘As fascinating as it was terrifying’ – Holly Seddon, author of The Woman on the Bridge
‘The Quiet took my breath away. gripping, fiercely intelligent and quietly heartbreaking. I will think of Isaac for a long time to come’ – Emma Kavanagh, author of To Catch A Killer
‘A clever and unique dystopian premise, this was spare and tense, gripping and heartbreaking’ – Louise Swanson, author of End of Story
A mother's love can be deafening . . .
Isaac is Hannah’s entire world. If she lets her guard down, he will be taken from her.
When the Soundfield arrived twenty years ago, the world changed with it. Now, people are forced to live at night due to the deadly heat, food and water are scarce, and everyday life is punctuated by a constant and disconcerting hum.
Hannah spent her early career working on the enigma of the Soundfield, looking for answers; now, she focuses all her energy on keeping Isaac living, not just alive.
To do so, she will have to lie to the people she knows and hope she can trust the ones she doesn't.
The only thing more dangerous than her lies, is the truth of what she has done.
‘As fascinating as it was terrifying’ – Holly Seddon, author of The Woman on the Bridge
‘The Quiet took my breath away. gripping, fiercely intelligent and quietly heartbreaking. I will think of Isaac for a long time to come’ – Emma Kavanagh, author of To Catch A Killer
‘A clever and unique dystopian premise, this was spare and tense, gripping and heartbreaking’ – Louise Swanson, author of End of Story
349 pages, Kindle Edition
Published May 15, 2025
3 people are currently reading
16 people want to read
About the author
Barnaby Martin
2 books10 followersBarnaby Martin is a multi-talented storyteller and creator. Besides his writing, he is an award-winning and self-taught composer, video essayist and teacher. His music has been performed widely in the UK and internationally by groups including the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestra of Opera North and Westminster Cathedral Choir. His YouTube channel, Listening In, which he began in 2019 and for which he makes videos that explore the cross-section between pop culture and classical music, has garnered over 200,000 subscribers and 10 million views. He studied natural sciences at Cambridge and now teaches in London, where he lives with his husband.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
July 26, 2025
Read Completed 7/26/25 | 2 stars | Book #110 of 2025
This book wasn't terrible, but sadly, I can't give it more than 2 stars because of how much was lacking in plot and world-building. I'm not sure I understand what the point of the book was because we don't learn much about this world, and we don't get much plot to drive things forward. This felt like an episode of a TV show in the middle of a series. What happened to set up this world? How will this story resolve? I just didn't get enough answers in any way.
The story-telling was actually enjoyable. I had a fine time follow Hannah and Isaac, and I clicked well enough with the author's writing style. Some of the science may be a bit much for some readers, but it actually really excited me and drew me in. The problem with that is that it never quite went anywhere either.
THE QUIET just felt incomplete, which was so disappointing because this sounded so unique and interesting. The "Soundfield" was never explained in any way, shape, or form. We were told that it makes sounds -- hums, music, etc -- and it is in fact a field that has affected everyone's way of life. It's heated up the planet (country? Was it all of the planet?) so that residents can't go out during the day without intense sunburns and UV exposure so great that it immediately starts causing melanoma from minimal exposure. Because of this, everyone now sleeps during the day and goes about their daily life at night. But where did the Soundfield come from? Why does it make noise and music? Is it alien?
There's a group that is taking children who have musical abilities to try to communicate with the Soundfield, and this is a bad thing, but is never really proven to be one. They call it being "adopted" and the children are taken away. But why are they never allowed to see their families again? What are they doing to the kids that's so bad? They could easily have the families work with them and everyone work toward a common goal to understand what's going on. Obviously it's a common theme in dystopian novels that government = bad, but I do need some explanation as to why and how it got that way for the world-building stand point.
I could go on, but you get the point. I just didn't have enough world-building to explain how things got here and what the goal was. Some of it just didn't make sense -- if the UV radiation is that high, crops and animals can't be surviving out there. There was a shortage of food but I feel like that would mean NO food.
I also just didn't really get where the plot was going. Hannah was trying to prevent Issac from getting "adopted" and protect him, but was the winning moment in this story? Forever saving him, but we learn nothing more about the Soundfield? The story was leading up to be able to communicate with it and see what it was, but we never even got there. It just felt unfinished.
This book wasn't terrible, but sadly, I can't give it more than 2 stars because of how much was lacking in plot and world-building. I'm not sure I understand what the point of the book was because we don't learn much about this world, and we don't get much plot to drive things forward. This felt like an episode of a TV show in the middle of a series. What happened to set up this world? How will this story resolve? I just didn't get enough answers in any way.
The story-telling was actually enjoyable. I had a fine time follow Hannah and Isaac, and I clicked well enough with the author's writing style. Some of the science may be a bit much for some readers, but it actually really excited me and drew me in. The problem with that is that it never quite went anywhere either.
THE QUIET just felt incomplete, which was so disappointing because this sounded so unique and interesting. The "Soundfield" was never explained in any way, shape, or form. We were told that it makes sounds -- hums, music, etc -- and it is in fact a field that has affected everyone's way of life. It's heated up the planet (country? Was it all of the planet?) so that residents can't go out during the day without intense sunburns and UV exposure so great that it immediately starts causing melanoma from minimal exposure. Because of this, everyone now sleeps during the day and goes about their daily life at night. But where did the Soundfield come from? Why does it make noise and music? Is it alien?
There's a group that is taking children who have musical abilities to try to communicate with the Soundfield, and this is a bad thing, but is never really proven to be one. They call it being "adopted" and the children are taken away. But why are they never allowed to see their families again? What are they doing to the kids that's so bad? They could easily have the families work with them and everyone work toward a common goal to understand what's going on. Obviously it's a common theme in dystopian novels that government = bad, but I do need some explanation as to why and how it got that way for the world-building stand point.
I could go on, but you get the point. I just didn't have enough world-building to explain how things got here and what the goal was. Some of it just didn't make sense -- if the UV radiation is that high, crops and animals can't be surviving out there. There was a shortage of food but I feel like that would mean NO food.
I also just didn't really get where the plot was going. Hannah was trying to prevent Issac from getting "adopted" and protect him, but was the winning moment in this story? Forever saving him, but we learn nothing more about the Soundfield? The story was leading up to be able to communicate with it and see what it was, but we never even got there. It just felt unfinished.
Review of advance copy
Reading club read [EOTWRC]: In this dystopian future we have an inhospitable climate that has meant night becomes day - this I can get with. Then there's the Soundfield, a mysterious melody-emitting atmospheric something that doesn't seem to do anything except sit up there making sounds.
In this world we follow Hannah while her world falls apart. She's trying to protect a young aphasic boy from the people that would steal him away because he is musical - it's never really explained what they want the musical children for, there's a lot that's not really explained.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with the writing, Hannah is fairly believable and the small cast of characters around her are also fine. It could have been a DNF but Isaac was enough to keep me reading.
it definitely left me with more questions than answers. I also would have liked a bit more detail on how they were surviving, I feel it would have been a bit more hand to mouth than was implied.
In this world we follow Hannah while her world falls apart. She's trying to protect a young aphasic boy from the people that would steal him away because he is musical - it's never really explained what they want the musical children for, there's a lot that's not really explained.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with the writing, Hannah is fairly believable and the small cast of characters around her are also fine. It could have been a DNF but Isaac was enough to keep me reading.
it definitely left me with more questions than answers. I also would have liked a bit more detail on how they were surviving, I feel it would have been a bit more hand to mouth than was implied.
September 21, 2025
I’ll have to write a proper review when I’m not tired, but to summarise - I enjoyed this. I liked that there wasn’t a resolution to the Soundfield, or the research undertaken on it.
Most of the characters were interesting, with one or two inconsistent people (that were also fairly two-dimensional), that I found myself confused by.
Isaac and his wonder at the world will stick with me, I think.
Most of the characters were interesting, with one or two inconsistent people (that were also fairly two-dimensional), that I found myself confused by.
Isaac and his wonder at the world will stick with me, I think.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 15, 2025
I just really did not get it. It felt like we didn’t get any answers and it was so long and drawn out with stupid details. I didn’t understand the dystopian world they were trying to create and how the sound field had anything to do with anything.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews