I love the Silent Hill series, especially the original Team Silent games. I consider the story and the dark themes it explores one of the best examples of supernatural horror, that goes beyond the gore and the jump scares. This book is clearly written by someone with deep passion for the series, it is well-researched, and I found that dividing it in sections, individually exploring each game, worked really well. I enjoyed reading it, I wanted to love it, but I did find some setbacks that prevented it from fully living up to my hopes for a deeper analysis of the mythology of Silent Hill.
First and foremost, this is a book written exclusively for someone who has played the games, remembers the lore, and is fully familiar with the events. I wouldn't recommend the book to anyone who is looking for an alternative way to experience the story, otherwise you will miss out on a lot of the nuance. My second nitpick would be the structure of the chapters. I feel that if the 'Plot' section came first with the characters, enemies, endings, and development sections following it, the flow of the book would be better, as the author references events and details that require you to have each game's story fresh in your mind to follow. Reading scattered info on a game's development and characters, and then reading the full plot, makes the overall experience feel a bit disjointed. Especially if it's been a few years since you played the games.
It is a detailed retelling of what took part in each game, but most of the time the book feels like talking to a friend who knows you are both on the same page talking about a specific subject you both enjoy, rather than a deeper analysis of the symbolism of each individual title. Not every detail is analysed, and not every term is explained, just mentioned. Furthermore, while I think the addition of screenshots from each game helped with the immersion of revisiting those settings, in many cases what the screenshot shows is totally irrelevant to what the text describes, showing different locations and characters next to a description of a totally different part of the plot, which feels a bit random.
Perhaps I was hoping for a different perspective, or something more complex than a recap of the events of each game. I did like how there was specific focus on certain characters, as I do agree with the author that the protagonists are not the only important figures in the grand plot of Silent Hill. The focus on Angela Orosco, for example, was spot-on. Angela is a character that doesn't get much screen time, but her story is one of the most impactful, dark, and memorable of the entire series. What draws her to Silent Hill isn't her guilt, but the unbearable burden of the monstrous things that were done to her that she carries with her, and that she cannot escape.
On the other hand, I really couldn't get behind the book's take on Lisa Garland. For me Lisa was always a tragic character, a young woman of 23, manipulated, abused, coerced into actions she didn't fully consent to by an older man in power who weaponised her addiction and withheld her drugs unless she did his bidding. There is a lot of complexity in her story, and on why Alessa treated her differently than all other figures trapped in Silent Hill. I feel that the book painting her as a junkie who selfishly helped Alessa just to get her next fix and assuming Alessa had no affection for Lisa, nor Lisa for Alessa, strips away that particular part of the plot from all its depth. That said, this is not something that I can hold against the book, as the kind of horror themes that Silent Hill explores are very open to interpretation, and each of us experienced the games differently. So this is not a flaw, it's just a perspective I disagree with.
Admittedly, in most other cases the book approaches characters with a lot of empathy and understanding of their trauma, especially for both Alessa and Heather later in the Silent Hill 3 section. I think approaching the Silent Hill series in any capacity requires a certain level of sensitivity and understanding of very darks subjects, and props to the author here for the way the book handles this. 'The History of Silent Hill' may not be the definitive super-complex analysis of the mythology, symbolism, and psychology of those games, but it is certainly a solid revisiting to the town of Silent Hill, written by someone with an undeniable love for the franchise.
Thank you to Pen & Sword / White Owl for providing me with an advance copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.
The book is coming out January 30, 2026.
