The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A very surprising read. Half horror and half SF with high-tech suits on an alien world, this novel is rife with obsession, spelunking, and a ton of the little inconsistencies that would drive any normal cave diver insane.

And then there's all the dead down below.

Nearly thirty, all spelunkers like Gyre, sent down to be eaten by this horrid, horrid cave. And it's a rigged game. The lies, the obsession of the woman underwriting each one of these expeditions is the half the novel. The other half is the horror adventure.

I don't know what I expected. Perhaps a bunch of undead at the bottom of the pit? But no, this is entirely a survival novel with tons of scares, mistrust, insane amounts of bravery, accidents, and misgivings. Interestingly, it's also a kind of a f***ed-up love story. Abusive, sure, but also rich and honest and desperate.

Put it all together and the novel is highly entertaining and sometimes quite scary. I'm happy. :)



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