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Oct. 12th, 2019 11:14 amThe Luminous Dead is a book that takes place entirely in a cave, featuring one (1) spelunker and one (1) untrustworthy disembodied guide-voice in the spelunker's ear, and I'm both impressed and frankly astonished that Caitlin Starling manages to keep this compelling for 400 pages. 400 pages of spelunking is so many pages!
The book is marketed as sci-fi/horror, and there's definitely some sci-fi in there -- it takes place on an alien planet, the caves are mysterious haunted alien caves, the heroine has her intestines spliced into fancy future spelunking suit technology so she never has to take it off to eat -- but to be honest the alien cave creatures are not a huge deal and the science fiction stuff is mostly window dressing. The plot's tension really runs on the basic survival elements of Human V. Cave: will Gyre run out of food, will she run out of power, can she trust her maps, can she trust her guide, can she trust her sense of her own body's capabilities, how long can she cope in the darkness before the oppressive atmosphere starts to wear her down?
And then there is Em, who's running the spelunking gig for mysterious and possibly sinister reasons, and who's certainly more invested in Gyre's success than in her safety or indeed her bodily autonomy -- but is, nonetheless, deeply invested and is going be a constant presence in her ear over the course of the entire mission with no breaks. Weird unhealthy psychological tension and codependence ahoy!
Basically, if you like the Hatchet wilderness survival genre, this is a great example of that starring complicated lesbians, and almost certainly a book you will enjoy; it's not doing much besides that thing but it's doing that thing extremely well!
The book is marketed as sci-fi/horror, and there's definitely some sci-fi in there -- it takes place on an alien planet, the caves are mysterious haunted alien caves, the heroine has her intestines spliced into fancy future spelunking suit technology so she never has to take it off to eat -- but to be honest the alien cave creatures are not a huge deal and the science fiction stuff is mostly window dressing. The plot's tension really runs on the basic survival elements of Human V. Cave: will Gyre run out of food, will she run out of power, can she trust her maps, can she trust her guide, can she trust her sense of her own body's capabilities, how long can she cope in the darkness before the oppressive atmosphere starts to wear her down?
And then there is Em, who's running the spelunking gig for mysterious and possibly sinister reasons, and who's certainly more invested in Gyre's success than in her safety or indeed her bodily autonomy -- but is, nonetheless, deeply invested and is going be a constant presence in her ear over the course of the entire mission with no breaks. Weird unhealthy psychological tension and codependence ahoy!
Basically, if you like the Hatchet wilderness survival genre, this is a great example of that starring complicated lesbians, and almost certainly a book you will enjoy; it's not doing much besides that thing but it's doing that thing extremely well!
