2026-02-10 -- "The Luminous Dead" (Caitlin Starling)
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(Some spoilers ahead.)

Oof!

This was advertised as SciFi horror, which isn't wrong: The main charac-
ter  explores a deep cave on an alien planet, but for various reasons --
one of the main ones being that she must not give off any scent and must
remain mostly quiet, i.e. her voice must not be audible --  she's  in  a
suit with lots of sensors and gadgets and a *feeding tube*.  Without the
connection to the main computer, she'd be completely lost.

But then there's also the woman on the other end of the comm line, who's
supposed  to  tell her where to go and what to do. Buuuuut is she trust-
worthy? ;-) And why is it only *one* person in that control  center  in-
stead of a whole team?

What  I  didn't  expect was that it would turn into a romance. I usually
don't like that at all, but in this book, it worked really well for  me.
They're  (almost)  never  in the same room, they only talk over the comm
line and a video feed, which makes this thing way more interesting.  The
weird  power  imbalance (the suit can be controlled remotely) is eventu-
ally overcome to some degree and actual trust is established -- I think.
It's certainly not the most healthy relationship, shall we say.  But  it
was great to read.

The  book  comes  with a map and that is sorely needed. I mean, it's all
caves, so it would be hard to not get lost without a map.

Towards the end, there's a lot of paranoia and panic, running low on re-
sources. There are quite a few moments of "oh my god, no, please don't".
Then again, there aren't that many "scary entities" in the caves (or are
there?), so I'd rather classify this as "terror" instead of "horror", if
that makes sense.

It was one of the best stories I read these past few months, if not  the
best. I'll certainly have a look at Caitlin Starling's other books.

This is a nice interview (only watch this after reading the book):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lui6zspzHts