The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling

The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling (Harper Voyager, 2019)

★★★★☆

Horror/sci-fi psychological thriller, in which a solo caver who’s locked into an exoskeleton-suit must navigate the motivations of her remote handler as much as the cave.

Interesting to read this after just taking a horror workshop with Nino Cipri (where this title got bumped up on my list). It hits a lot of my personal fears re: bodily autonomy, rock climbing mishaps, and not at all related to the current crisis losing my mind in a small, confined space. I most appreciated how many types of fear and psychological distress Starling was able to explore given the setting, and how deeply. Beyond that, I find this book a tightly-drawn character study, but I did wish the main character was a bit more competent/complex, even if the motive is (as in The Vanished Birds) to tell a story about queer resilience.

Proxy by Alex London

Proxy by Alex London (Philomel Books, 2013)

★★☆☆☆

YA dystopian sci-fi thriller about a rich one-percenter and the Proxy who, by virtue of being a debt slave, is his whipping boy.

Interesting premise, with some dark moments, a queer MC, and fair character arcs, but the technical issues in this one killed me. Once the two main characters meet up, POV switches between them (and a third character) at will, sometimes in the same paragraph or sentence. Could not get over the tell-y writing. And, as previously mentioned, I’m not fond of Long Camping Trips.