This claustrophobic, horror-leaning tour de force is highly recommended for fans of Jeff VanderMeer’s Annihilation and Andy Weir’s The Martian." -- Publishers Weekly (starred review) We learn of it late, but the cave in the novel is called Lethe. As readers of fantasy and legal documents, we know the power of names. Lethe belongs to Greek myth, a river whose waters effect a forgetting of the past; in Christian retellings, it is where Dante washes his earthly sins. For philosophers, the name carries the weight of a related word: alethia, or truth. Lethe is concealment, and truth is an encounter with what is no longer concealed. Em is a handler. That means being a comple reading this was a helluva ride. it’s been a while since a horror story enraptured me to the point of staying up all night to finish it. i was fascinated, i was disgusted, and i got spooked by The Clothes Chair in my bedroom when i finally turned in.

The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling: a claustrophobic The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling: a claustrophobic

Gyre reluctantly agrees to continue on when she finds this out, only because she has her own motivations to find her own Mother. What follows is an epic and terrifying journey through this barely explored cave system.

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Live today is a review by @ Elysium1313 who's chatting about the latest Grady Hendrix novel (which is freakin' INCRE… https://t.co/boAnutHsLw Mar 29, 2023, 3:20 PM The book centers around main character Gyre, a caver, who is desperate to earn money to find her missing mother. Gyre is hired by a private mining company to map mineral deposits in a cave off planet and thus the story begins. A thrilling, atmospheric debut with the intensive drive of The Martianand Gravityand the creeping dread of Annihilation,in which a caver on a foreign planet finds herself on a terrifying psychological and emotional journey for survival. This cave is an appropriate topos for horror, and TLD has enough ethereal ghosts to be shelved within this genre—it was nominated for a Bram Stoker Award in 2019. However, the novel is set in an indeterminate future, a distance that readers note not in terms of time but through an apparent technological advancement. We learn that interplanetary travel from one planet to another is expensive for those living on colony planets, but it is common enough. We learn that body-modifying suits are so intricate that they can invasively replace organs. The protagonist of TLD is Gyre, a young woman from the colony who is promised a significant sum to explore Lethe while wearing one of these exo-suits. In a limited third-person narrative, Gyre takes the readers into the cave through crevices, falls, and underwater crags. What she sees through the algorithmically-encoded helmet of her suit is all that we have access to.

The Luminous Dead - Spooky Reads! — Horror Bound The Luminous Dead - Spooky Reads! — Horror Bound

Gyre’s questions are much the same: how much of this is memory and how much machine? How many have had to die for her to end this, and how few have escaped? What does she have left—with a voice trailing in her ear, betraying her constantly, and an aspiration that seems insignificant now? It took reading to around the 61 percent mark for anything decent to happen and even then, it was lame. This novel is full of fluff and events that are flat-out boring. I thought this was supposed to be a horror novel? There is absolutely nothing scary, creepy, or horrific in “The Luminous Dead” at all as I’m not even sure how this was even classified as a part of the horror genre in the first place. The overall writing and dialogue between Gyre and Em are very repetitive and stagnant throughout this novel. Gyre has accepted a one time job with a company that will send her deep down into a mine. It’s all very secretive and she doesn’t really have any idea what the mission is. She’s also never officially gone cave diving professionally before and lied to get this job. Gyre’s Mother left when she was younger and she’s determined to leave this horrible planet and find her. This one job will pay her enough that she’ll be able to accomplish that. As long as she survives, of course. Jane Shoringfield sees the world in numbers, patterns, and logical projections, and by her math, she needs one thing above all else: a husband who wants a marriage of convenience. At the top of her list is Augustine Lawrence, a young, reclusive doctor. He agrees to her proposal, with only one requirement: she must never visit Lindridge Hall, his ancestral, crumbling house several miles out of town. He is compelled to return there each time the sun sets, despite night calls and ailing patients, but Jane must never accompany him. He says it's just because of disrepair brought on by a country doctor's salary, but on their wedding night, an accident brings her to his door past sundown and she finds him changed. Gone is the bold, courageous surgeon, and in his place is a confused, fearful man. A lethal virus is awoken on an abandoned spaceship in this incredibly fast-paced, claustrophobic thriller.Queer Moon Rising / The Love of a Good Woman Won’t Save You: Queer Narratives in An American Werewolf in London (1981) Do not read the GR book blurb, as it does give far too much away, including one plot point that happens two-thirds of the way in. I read an early copy--hopefully very early--so I look forward to re-reading a print copy that might have even more polish. Just for me--for heaven's sake, do not read the spoilers if you intend to read-- Warning! Do not attempt to read this book if you are claustrophobic. Do not attempt to read it if your skin crawls in terror from being trapped in small places. Both in its setting and thematically, the Luminous Dead is a narrowly-focused tightly-drawn Story. From Jules Verne to Burroughs to numerous modern writers, there has been an endless fascination with tunneling into the center of the earth, a focus on what lies within the labyrinth of underground spaces. Luminous Dead, with its beautiful cover art and image-provoking title, continues that tradition.

The Luminous Dead - Caitlin Starling - Archive of Our Own The Luminous Dead - Caitlin Starling - Archive of Our Own

Yeah.” Gyre smiled unthinkingly, her lips twisting up into a bitter, unhappy grimace. “I just thought it was different, you and me. Stupid. I thought you gave a shit - that I was different. That you'd changed.” NASA may have marketed the film based on The Martian, but mining monopolies like Glencore or BHP are unlikely to ever sponsor Starling. The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling is a sci-fi horror nightmare! Think The Descent meets Prometheus vibes, only two characters, and a terrifyingly complex and evil cave system.

Data beget ghosts. Old code, caches of information left unattended, glitches, remnants of a virtual life, perpetual self-replication. As Gyre goes deeper into the cave, she has more encounters with history. She meets Em’s long lost-family, a bereaved mother, and cavers who have died before her. She reads their files and watches videos of them to keep her isolation at bay, and they begin to float at the edges of her vision. This claustrophobic, horror-leaning tour de force is highly recommended for fans of Jeff VanderMeer’s Annihilation and Andy Weir’s The Martian." -- Publishers Weekly (starred review) Em takes Gyre on a holiday. (Well, it's also a business trip, but close enough.) Language: English Words: 1,720 Chapters: 1/1 Collections: 1 Comments: 4 Kudos: 31 Hits: 173 After some reflection; I can see how this evoked some body horror and definitely some environmental horror on many levels. The main character volunteered for a dangerous (but high-paying) job, previously failed to the detriment of others. She is left in the hands of one person; a stranger, not a team as is usual, and that person she must trust with her life. She isn't told the truth and does not tell her employer the truth either. There are two monsters within the cave, one named as such, the other insulted with this epithet. The Tunneler is a creature that bores through the cave, creating new paths and killing everything in its wake. This monster is organic and ancient, with many eyes and an uncanny ability to sense other forms of life. It represents natural disasters, an occupational hazard that all cavers deal with.

The Luminous Dead – HarperCollins The Luminous Dead – HarperCollins

Caitlin Starling’s The Luminous Dead ( TLD) is a novel set entirely within a cave. Published in 2019, the science fiction and horror novel trails a gig worker, Gyre, as she follows the directives of her employer deep into a cave on a colonized planet. The passage and the job grows deadlier with each step Gyre takes into the cave; ghosts, monsters, malice, and betrayals continually threaten her. It is this mysterious passage, made for money and on her employer’s whims, that forms the narrative of TLD. Everything outside the cave in TLD exists only as images—clips of videos and references to memories—and everything within requires the abdication of perception. One semi-gross note: There are several bodily-function mentions in this, as the high-tech suit Gyre is wearing has adapted sections of Gyre's body to leave no trace in the caves. If you don't like discussions of body parts, fair warning. As Gyre descends, little inconsistencies—missing supplies, unexpected changes in the route, and, worst of all, shifts in Em’s motivations—drive her out of her depths. Lost and disoriented, Gyre finds her sense of control giving way to paranoia and anger. On her own in this mysterious, deadly place, surrounded by darkness and the unknown, Gyre must overcome more than just the dangerous terrain and the Tunneler which calls underground its home if she wants to make it out alive—she must confront the ghosts in her own head.I’m Kal, a thirty-something California gal who loves reading, travel, hiking, tea, video games, & unicorns.