The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling

Formats: Print, audio, digital

Publisher: Harper Voyager

Genre: Psychological Horror, Sci-Fi Horror, Thriller

Audience: Adult/Mature

Diversity: Lesbian/queer characters and author, Biracial Black character 

Takes Place in: Fictional city on a distant planet

Content Warnings: Death, Drug Use/Abuse, Forced Captivity, Gaslighting, Medical Torture/Abuse, Medical Procedures, Mental Illness,  Self-Harm, Attempted Suicide, Verbal/Emotional Abuse (Highlight to view)

Blurb:

"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) *** A thrilling, atmospheric debut with the intensive drive of The Martian and Gravity and the creeping dread of Annihilation, in which a caver on a foreign planet finds herself on a terrifying psychological and emotional journey for survival. When Gyre Price lied her way into this expedition, she thought she’d be mapping mineral deposits, and that her biggest problems would be cave collapses and gear malfunctions. She also thought that the fat paycheck—enough to get her off-planet and on the trail of her mother—meant she’d get a skilled surface team, monitoring her suit and environment, keeping her safe. Keeping her sane. Instead, she got Em. Em sees nothing wrong with controlling Gyre’s body with drugs or withholding critical information to “ensure the smooth operation” of her expedition. Em knows all about Gyre’s falsified credentials, and has no qualms using them as a leash—and a lash. And Em has secrets, too . . . 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. But how come she can’t shake the feeling she’s being followed?

The Luminous Dead is a survival horror story with only two characters, one location, and no antagonist. It's also one of the most stressful horror stories I've ever read. Starling is a master of playing with the reader's paranoia, building up the suspense and atmosphere until you're jumping at every sound and shadow. Ironically, The Luminous Dead also managed to calm me down considerably when I was dealing with my own stressful situation (horror is great for anxiety): spending the night in the ER awaiting an emergency cholecystectomy (after my wife told me it was nothing and we weren't spending $4,000 at the ER just because I had stomach cramps that were probably just from drinking milk, and why hadn't I just taken the Lactaid tablets she bought me). After managing to survive a severely infected gallbladder, I assumed that 2020 could only be uphill from there. Poor, naïve past me.  

Well at least none of my organs exploded in 2020, so there's that...

In the future, humanity has spread out across the stars, but sadly it's not the socialist utopia dreamed of in Star Trek. Gyre lives on a barren, back-water mining planet where poverty is rampant and the only escape is to take a job as a caver for wealthy mining companies. It's not a pleasant job. On top of spending days or even weeks in a self-contained suit with little human interaction, breathing recycled air, and being fed through a stomach stoma, these subterranean explorers have to contend with falls, cave-ins, and underground flooding. Worst of all are the Tunnelers - giant alien worms that burrow through solid stone. Not many cavers survive, but those who do can expect a huge payout. In Gyre's case, it's enough to get her off-world to find the mother who abandoned her as a child. Desperate, uncertified, and inexperienced, she accepts an especially sketchy caving job that doesn't ask too many questions. It's not until Gyre has already begun her descent into the subterranean labyrinth she's been hired to explore that she discovers she may have made a grave mistake. Instead of having an entire team topside to monitor her vitals, feed her info, and watch her while she sleeps, which is the standard, she has only one woman, Em. Cold, efficient, controlling, and stingy with details, Em is not above obfuscating data and manipulating her cavers to get the job done. Not exactly someone you want to trust with your life. Em seems to genuinely want to protect Gyre even if her methods are questionable, but that hardly excuses the lying and manipulation which only serve to exacerbate the young caver's trust issues. Not that Gyre is much better. Her desperation means she's willing to make some morally questionable decisions, and her stubbornness leads to her making bad ones.

The background is from a cave in the Dominican Republic I visited back in February 2020. There weren't any skulls in it though. *sigh* I miss travel. 

As if paranoia, isolation, and giant monsters aren't scary enough, Starling adds another twist: there may or may not be something sinister going on in the cave as Gyre's senses start to play tricks on her. Maybe it's another one of Em's deceptions. For most of the book, you're genuinely unsure of where the biggest threat is coming from: the cave, Em, or Gyre's own mindknowing she's all alone in the dark unknown (or is she?) with only one less-than-trustworthy guide. Although Gyre never fully trusts Em, the two begin to form a distrustful, dysfunctional relationship over time as they reveal and struggle with past traumas. And yes, their trauma bond is just as maladjusted as it sounds. It's both fascinating and horrifying to watch these two deeply flawed, fucked up people grow closer. Part of me was rooting for Gyre and Em because, when everything is awful, people deserve every bit of happiness they can get. But the more rational part of me was horrified. Shared suffering does not mean two people will be compatible and without trust issues, and on top of Em's willingness to put Gyre in danger, there are the hallmarks of a toxic relationship. To Starling's credit, she doesn't try to create an idealized romance, or even imply that their bond is healthy like certain romance books that will remain nameless tend to do *cough*Twilight*cough*. Instead she aims to create two realistic, flawed characters who are doing their best in a bad situation. I'm a huge fan of antiheroes and morally gray characters in fiction (in real life they're just assholes) because they're rarely bland or boring, and Gyre and Em are anything but dull. Watching a caver with trust issues put her life in the hands of a woman who lies just makes the story all the more suspenseful.

Part of the reason Gyre acts the way she does is because she grew up in survival mode. Living in a barren, capitalist hellhole will do that to a person. Like any good work of science fiction, The Luminous Dead uses fictional characters in a fictional setting to draw attention to some very real-world ethical dilemmas. In this case, it's the exploitation of the poor and vulnerable in a Capitalist society. Dubbed 3K jobs in Japan (kitanai, kiken, kitsui or dirty, dangerous, and difficult in English) this sort of work has traditionally been given to immigrants, migrant workers, and other vulnerable populations who have few options available to earn a living and are less likely to complain about unsafe working environments. Dangerous jobs that require specialized skills and training, such as construction and steel working jobs, pay better salaries and are more likely to be OSHA compliant, but rarely pay enough to offset the risk. Sex work can be a 3K job that pays well, but leaves sex workers open to arrest, abuse, and disease without legal protections in place. While workers aren't being forced into these jobs per se (as opposed to victims of trafficking, domestic servitude, debt bondage, and other forms of slavery) they're not usually done by people who have other options available. In The Luminous Dead, caver jobs are only ever taken by those in poverty (the wealthy would never risk their lives doing such dangerous work) and no one continues caving after they've made enough to escape. So is it really a choice when you're between Scylla and Charybdis?

Scylla wasn't that big but she's also not real so I can draw her however I want lol

I can't describe much more of the plot, as spoilers would ruin the suspense Starling worked so hard to create, but suffice it to say that The Luminous Dead is, at its core, about the trauma of losing a mother, whether from abandonment or death, and how anger and grief can destroy you. If you love isolation horror, definitely pick up a copy of your own.