The Luminous Dead: A Novel

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Since the novel deals with images in terms of algorithmic data—all Gyre’s perceptions are provided by this data—I prefer to see it as technological horror. Gyre is a wondrous creation; she is an orphan who seeks the mother who abandoned her for a better life. Gyre, the protagonist of TLD, lives on a planetary colony, Cassandra IV, which is ravaged and devastated by mining companies and technological tycoons.

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

The Luminous Dead is the perfect combination of spooky and gay, wound up in a psychological thriller investigating the traumas of two young women and the ties that bind them. It's just so boring and it sucks because this book has a cool premise and I like the female/female banter-y relationship that is starting but I just don't care enough to finish this, the middle of this is dragging so badly and I don't care enough about the characters or the cave to finish it. At one point, I actually had to put the book down because I was becoming too anxious by the situation that was unfolding on page. There is always something to extract, and this very circuitous lack of closure means that no one ever escapes the cave.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. Gyre knew better than to let Em come with her to find her mother, but she did it anyway, and now they're both trapped in a shrinking gyre, drawn always back to Cassandra-V. It’s part science fiction, part psychological thriller with a hint of horror but at the heart of it, it’s a story of two people who are looking for answers. I just can’t emphasize enough the slowness of this book, even though, in all fairness, I have no doubt the measured pacing here was entirely intentional.

The Luminous Dead: A gripping thriller - Fantasy Literature The Luminous Dead: A gripping thriller - Fantasy Literature

Also the author is a noted Hannibal fan, so do you really need any more reason to read this or check out the book if you haven't already?This claustrophobic, horror-leaning tour de force is highly recommended for fans of Jeff VanderMeer’s Annihilation and Andy Weir’s The Martian. That means being an inexperienced cave climber/diver who lied on her resume, prone to fits of hysteria and not listening to anybody and also swearing a lot.