skygiants | (no subject)

The 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!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

snickfic

I think I wanted this book to be a very different book than it was. I wanted the SF stuff to be more than window dressing, for one thing. I kept waiting for some aspect of the plot to resolve in some kind of interesting reveal, but the only reveal we ever get is about the previous caver, whom we never actually meet and who presumably dies off-screen, with little fanfare. I also felt like it was at least 100 pages too long.

Also, as someone who adores the Hatchet wilderness survival genre, this felt very different to me, between the high-techness of it, the fact that she had human communication the whole, and her ongoing relationship with another person being so much of the drama. Also there's the whole cave aspect, but that might be my personal claustrophobic biases showing.

I was disappointed, basically, so I hope you don't mind me taking the opportunity to vent a little.

From:

skygiants

I don't mind at all! I think my perspective was definitely shifted by having a conversation about the wilderness survival genre right in the middle of reading the book -- for me, the parts that really worked and kept me turning pages were all the tension and calculations around food caches and potentially dangerous currents and danger levels of various routes, and so I was like 'oh, that's what this is! okay!' and locked my expectations in there. But you're absolutely right that the sci-fi plot goes hilariously nowhere, like, it's genuinely almost completely irrelevant that the cave is infested by alien worm monsters...

From:

snickfic

LOL I was like "at least we'd better see a Tunneler!!" and then it showed up and it turned out to just be a sandworm except incredibly stupid and hilariously bad at keeping itself alive.

I also wanted a reason for why this particular caving system had killed so many people, when it didn't seem any worse than any other caving system (which Gyre herself comments on!). Was it ghosts? Some kind of weird alien critter?? And then it turned out that apparently the reason all those people died was just bad luck. It felt very anti-climactic.

From:

skygiants

I'm pretty sure we're intended to think 'just bad luck' but uh my actual opinion on why so many people died is 'Em's methods of solo sleep-deprived navigational support, which she inexplicably believes are safer for her spelunkers, are in fact SIGNIFICANTLY LESS SAFE and everyone would have been more or less fine if they'd had a proper rotational support team of people getting eight hours of sleep.'

From:

snickfic

Very fair! And considering how interested the book was in Em's fallibility and obsessiveness, it's weird that it didn't investigate that angle. It seems a lot more in keeping with the themes than "nope, just bad luck!"

Honestly, I was never really convinced by Em as a character. Like, she just flat didn't make sense to me. Her swings between humanity and cold-blooded obsession didn't feel organic, or like a human being would actually act. I also wish the book had portrayed Gyre's eventual sympathy for her as a kind of Stockholm Syndrome, rather than raising the possibility a few times and then abandoning it. It's possible I was still meant to read the relationship that way and interpret Gyre's feelings at the end of the book as being from an unreliable narrator, but if that was the intent, it didn't come across for me.

From:

kore

Ooh, maybe Em could have been a hallucination (I know that's cheesey but I love it). //has not read the book

From:

snickfic

Ha ha, the book actually plays with hallucinations a lot, but Em doesn't make much sense as one, I don't think.

From:

kore

....man I really don't think I should read this book, altho it sounds interesting!

$cyphomandra: fractured brooding landscape (Default)$

From:

cyphomandra

I did find this very readable but felt the ending fell apart - have commented below, but yes, I also wanted more from Eli once he showed up (was he on the rope that Gyre cuts? Why is he stalking round stealing supplies and being creepy only to die conveniently off-stage?).

I actually quite like the idea of being able to communicate but not reach someone in a survival horror situation, and I did enjoy those aspects (plus the early bits where Em takes over Gyre's suit and lies to her about it); really wish there'd been a better payoff.

From:

shadaras

It's a beautiful terrifying book! I read it in pretty much one sitting and that is probably the only way I could've read it, because if I'd walked away from it I don't know if I would've picked it up again. (Because it's scary.)

I don't tend to like wilderness survival as a genre, tbh. I do like person vs environment, though, which is definitely what this was. Like. It wasn't about 'can I find food and shelter' so much as 'I know food should be here but is it okay' and 'can I trust what I see and hear?', y'know?

I found the epilogue/final bit oddly unsatisfying, because the tension of the book didn't feel like it was paid off quite enough once Gyre and Em met face-to-face. I'm not really sure why. Maybe it just wasn't as intense as the rest and so I wasn't as invested? Who knows.

From:

skygiants

I guess I don't really distinguish between 'wilderness survival' and 'person vs. environment' as a genre, but you're right, it's definitely the latter more than the former! I also thought the Gyre vs. Environment plot resolved much more successfully than the Gyre/Em plot, which is maybe why I focused on it so much more ...

From:

sovay

Weird unhealthy psychological tension and codependence ahoy!

I feel like the tension of solo wilderness survival and the tension of wilderness survival with an untrustworthy guide are different genres, but I am glad it does its thing well!

(Shouldn't Em care about safety insofar as if Gyre dies, it's hard to count the run as a success, or is it the kind of book where there are ulterior motives than the exploration of the caves?)

From:

skygiants

The improv-survival genres overlap in my head, but I also have not personally spent a great deal of time in the wilderness so while I do often enjoy this kind of thing I don't have a very refined palate for it ...

(Em certainly does want Gyre to make it all the way in and out of the caves, but given the fact that by the point the book begins she's already lost mumblety-large number of spelunkers attempting the same run, and she spends quite a lot of the book attempting to convince both herself and Gyre that this time is going to be the one that works, she definitely shouldn't turn back yet even though [x thing has already gone wrong], it's hard to say she makes safety a priority per se.)

From:

sovay

The improv-survival genres overlap in my head, but I also have not personally spent a great deal of time in the wilderness so while I do often enjoy this kind of thing I don't have a very refined palate for it ...

I don't think you need to defend your broad-spectrum liking for wilderness survival fiction! I just feel that the presence of any other person in the scenario fundamentally changes a lot of the emotional as well as logistical rules, so it interests me that this one sort of half-and-halfs it by having a guide who is not physically present and also may suck at their job.

$cyphomandra: fractured brooding landscape (Default)$

From:

cyphomandra

I just read this last night! (also coincidentally just after posting on someone else's FB about how just thinking about the cave scene in Alan Garner's Weirdstone of Brisingamen always gives me massive claustrophobia). I did find it effectively tense in terms of logistics (batteries, food, silt, light etc), I loved the tight set up (and the fact that it starts with Gyre already underground), and her symbiotic/dysfunctional relationship with her suit, and I pretty much read it in one massive gulp, but I really wish Starling had pulled it together at the ending.

[spoiler space]

Why not do something with Eli once you've revealed he's there? Why have a rescue route into Camp 4 that has apparently been there all along but couldn't be used to deliver supplies or drop down cavers? Who is the second figure in the rescue anyway? Why was every other more experienced caver so much less skilled than Gyre? (I could have bought maybe a dozen previous deaths, but over 20?)? Why not more sf worldbuilding within the cave (what does the tunneler eat, for a start, but also what about this ore that everyone's looking for? Em mentions that some of the previous candidates have tried to excavate deposits rather than do her mission, but Gyre never seems to come across any).

I will definitely read her next book, though.

Edited Date: 2019-10-12 11:22 pm (UTC)

From:

skygiants

Oh man I ALSO was so confused about the Camp 4 rescue route -- I kept thinking I'd missed something that explained why they couldn't just start from there? or use it to get her out earlier?? I'm glad to know it wasn't just me!

And yeah, I agree -- I was really expecting there to be at least some kind of confrontation with Eli the abandoned, and for that to throw an interesting wrench into the dynamic between Em and Gyre and also shed some light into what made their connection different from the past 20. But by the end I more or less came to terms with the fact that basically this was just a book about two people's very specific experiences with Spelunking and Sadness and the focus was never going to broaden out.

$cyphomandra: fractured brooding landscape (Default)$

From:

cyphomandra

Oh man I ALSO was so confused about the Camp 4 rescue route -- I kept thinking I'd missed something that explained why they couldn't just start from there? or use it to get her out earlier?? I'm glad to know it wasn't just me!

Not just you. I think there was a bit about why Gyre couldn't climb out of there - something about unreliable bolts - but nothing to explain why stuff couldn't be dropped down. I wanted something like a bit where Em had to blow something up to access the shaft and risk damaging access to later bits of the cave, but no.

I also thought there was going to be a reveal as to why Em wasn't going down there herself.

From:

skygiants

Yeah, around the time that she was down to like half an unreliable power canister for her suit was PROBABLY the time that Em and/or Em's hirelings should have gone down Shaft 4 and hauled her out. (I also expected that eventually Em was going to have to go down herself in person and ... I guess she did but so briefly that I'm not sure it counts?)

From:

kore

he heroine has her intestines spliced into fancy future spelunking suit technology so she never has to take it off to eat

! ! !

....!!!

From:

skygiants

IT'S GROSS AND IT SOUNDS GROSS but, like, very compellingly gross (not only is there the 'is she going to run out of rations' survival challenge but the 'will she run out of suit power and be stuck forever because she's literally spliced into it!' challenge!)

From:

brownbetty

Agree with the commenters who say the SF angle was weirdly peripheral, and the justification for the whole expedition was kinda whack, but I loved it and didn't care because I was into the Intense and Weird and for Each Other and Also Claustrophobic Ladies.

But also I would be interested in another book by the author where an editor could say "wait, no, you can't do that. Or at least you need to justify it."

From:

skygiants

Yeah, it was compelling enough for me, especially in the back half, that I didn't mind all these bugs too much particularly although they are definitely existent as bugs! But I also agree that another round of editorial feedback probably would not have gone amiss, and I'm quite curious to see what she does next from here.