The Luminous Dead: A Novel

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There’s so much to unpack in this novel, including whether you believe that the cave is alive or not. i can see the comparisons with books like the martian and gravity (according to the blurb) more clearly in that regard. My only complaint is that since the entire book took place in caves the details of the environment was mostly unchanging and made the book feel looooongggggger than it really was. Gyre is hired by a private mining company to map mineral deposits in a cave off planet and thus the story begins. In a limited third-person narrative, Gyre takes the readers into the cave through crevices, falls, and underwater crags.

The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling | Waterstones

but even though its creepy elements are fantastic, what really lies at the heart of this book is the relationship between gyre and em. There were so many little moments throughout where I felt aligned with Gyre in not knowing what to believe or trusting anything that was being seen. I must qualify this classification of genre: what is it that induces the “shudder” a canny reader may ask? Starling has written a tightly-focused novel, part psychological thriller, part deep character study.The actual extraction of material and its commodification are not at the heart of the novel; instead, the focus is on the production of a repository of data or an archive. The Luminous Dead is definitely worth reading for Starling’s excellent atmospheric writing and character development. Her handler, Em, appears to have hidden motivations regarding the mission and things don't always go as planned. Though the blurb compares to The Martian, I'd say that book did a far better job integrating world-building (biology, geology, physics, etc) than this did. It could be the disembodied voice that is tethering Gyre or the control it exercises over her; it could be the ghosts that flicker and fragment like bits of remnant code or the debris of previous expeditions.

War of Images, Images of War: Technology and Labor in Caitlin

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.

All the while complaining about her powered suit that prevents her from touching her own skin, but, more importantly, protects her from an alien environment and a tunneler that'd sooner see her dead than complete her mission. If you had the skill for it, then why wouldn’t you trade a little bit of bodily autonomy for enough money to feed your family or to start a new life? The F/F relationship was also not very satisfying, and considering so much of it was developed under mental and physical strain or was fueled by desperate need and duress, I just couldn’t see it as either healthy or sustainable.