Reviews

The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling

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anactoroflife's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

tishywishy's review against another edition

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3.0

Luminous Dead has some really great qualities - it only has two central characters to follow (Gyre and her above ground handler, Em), giving you time to get to know each of them a bit more intimately than you would a regular novel. You're only experiencing Gyre's side of the exploration through the caves and the world building is really well done. Starling knows how to build suspense and I can't tell you how many times my anxiety spiked reading this novel.

The book could have also been 100 pages shorter and been a much better, tighter storyline. I get that Starling is trying to get us just as paranoid as Gyre, but I wanted to toss the book down around page 260. I eventually skimmed the rest of the book to finish it off. It was too disorienting after the hell sump and the build up (while great) was disappointing in its reveal.

stuffhanreads's review against another edition

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2.0

Rating: 2 Stars

”That was the look of somebody resigned to being the monster they knew they were.”

The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling follows our main character Gyre and her ‘handler’ Em. Now, I saw a review on this that had it at a solid 4 stars, so I thought what the hell, let’s see what that reviewer was thinking. And I have zero idea what they were thinking. While this book is obviously Sci-Fi, I fail to see where in this book it’s supposed to be classified as Horror. I didn’t find a single part of this book creepy. Sure it was tense in some parts but that doesn’t classify it as a Horror.

It took until around 80% for me to actually find anything worth mentioning while reading this book. The last 20% was intense, with a lot of variables at play. It seemed like the first 80% were boring, repeated lines. Especially between Em and Gyre. It became so repetitive that when the comms were off I felt a sense of relief that I didn’t have to deal with this monster of a character who manipulated Gyre and sent 27 other cavers to their deaths just to follow a whisper of her mother!

I wouldn’t recommend this unless you want to drag yourself through hell. It took me 4 days to read this. More than it would’ve taken if I’d actually found anything to enjoy. So many things felt under-utilised. The Tunneler for one. Like what was that? Why was it only mentioned lightly! That could’ve been a major plot point. The fungi and spores too! For all it’s worth I just feel underwhelmed and frustrated after finishing this.