Spooky scary reading post
Aug. 27th, 2025 07:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lucymonsterThe Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling is lesbian sci-fi survival horror about a climber, Gyre, who falsifies her credentials to secure a suspiciously well-paid cave exploration job. She ends up being sent down completely on her own, with her handler Em supervising her from the surface via a link to her high-tech suit. The suit is designed to meet all her survival needs while completely locking in all heat, sound, smells and other signs of life, since a known major risk of caving on Gyre's planet is attracting the notice of giant rock-eating worms called Tunnelers. She is enclosed in the suit 24/7, unable to touch her own skin or feel air on her face; her digestive tract has had to be surgically modified so that, for the approximately month-long duration of the mission, all her meals will be injected straight into her stomach from one port in the suit and the waste extracted automatically from another.
Alone in the dark, Gyre quickly learns that she's far from the first to attempt this cave - Em has been sending down dozens of cavers, none of whom have made it to the objective and a horrific number of whom have died in the attempt. Em is dangerously obsessed with the mission and willing to use any means at her disposal - manipulating Gyre's perception of reality through the suit controls, remotely administering drugs, blackmailing Gyre over the fake credentials - to force Gyre to continue. Trapped together by the mission and with no one else to talk to, a toxic, paranoid, codependent romance starts to blossom between Em and Gyre. Meanwhile, it's becoming increasingly clear that something is badly wrong down in the cave, but Gyre can't tell whether it's malicious sabotage, paranormal activity or her own sanity giving out on her due to stress and isolation. All she knows is that terrifying accidents keep happening and that with each one, her chances of surviving the mission are dropping lower and lower.
I loved this. The highest-impact horror came from the sheer claustrophobia, both inside the cave and inside the suit; it was so intense that if I read for too long in one go I started feeling physically squeezed. Both characters were fantastic, and I loved how the necessary minimalism of the premise forced me deep inside their heads, in much the same way they were forced inside each others. The unhealthy romantic chemistry really worked for me. If I have one complaint, it's that the amount of technical detail about caving sometimes got too much. For someone whose entire knowledge of climbing as a pastime has been conferred across maybe half a dozen bouldering gym visits in my life, there were places where the descriptions of Gyre's gear and techniques, and the specific kinds of climbing obstacles she faced, got kind of confusing. But I think to a point that was unavoidable, given the close third POV and the fact that Gyre has virtually nothing else to focus on besides those details, that her survival depends on getting them all exactly correct. Once I got into the swing of the novel I found that if I found my mind starting to wander on a technical passage, it was fine to just skim it instead of trying to absorb every detail; I may not understand the specifics of what Gyre was up to at a given point with her lines and anchors and camming devices, but the implications would generally become crystal clear within another paragraph or so.
We Live Here Now by Sarah Pinborough is a Gothic-flavoured paranormal thriller about a troubled het couple, Emily and Freddie, who move to a spooky old house in the English countryside. Emily immediately detects something horrible and supernatural going on within the house, but Freddie is skeptical; and in addition to clashing over whether or not their new home is haunted, they've both got their hands full keeping secrets from each other about their past potentially marriage-ending misdeeds. I don't want to say too much about the plot of this, because all the pleasure is in the suspense; unlike The Luminous Dead, which luxuriates in atmospheric creepiness, We Live Here Now clips along at a pace that prioritises action and takes a fairly impressionistic approach to its Gothic setting. But I will say that it's compulsively readable, pleasantly scary throughout, and that the final twist was a lot of fun. These characters are really not likeable, at all, and the whole thing manages to sit in a very relaxing place where I don't exactly want either of them to come to harm but I'm also not about to cry if they do. They're just kind of shitty people who don't deserve to be living in a supernatural horror story because no one deserves that, but they've very much brought the more mundane disintegration of their lives upon themselves. (Especially Freddie. Emily has her redeeming features but Freddie just straight up belongs in the fucking trash, sorry not sorry.)
This is the second novel I've read by this author and I liked it enormously better than the first. Behind Her Eyes hit some of the same notes - unlikeable, unprincipled characters being boiled alive in the soup of their own secrets seem to be Pinborough's thing, and her command of pacing is rock solid - but the shock! twist! ending annoyed the snot out of me. While trying once more to avoid spoilers, let's just say that Behind Her Eyes genre-hops in a way that felt to me like cheating. We Live Here Now is thankfully more upfront about and true to its genre, and starting from a place of properly calibrated expectations made for a much more enjoyable reading experience. It's not a must-read, but if you enjoy fast-paced thrillers and spooky haunted(?) houses, it's well worth the time.
Alone in the dark, Gyre quickly learns that she's far from the first to attempt this cave - Em has been sending down dozens of cavers, none of whom have made it to the objective and a horrific number of whom have died in the attempt. Em is dangerously obsessed with the mission and willing to use any means at her disposal - manipulating Gyre's perception of reality through the suit controls, remotely administering drugs, blackmailing Gyre over the fake credentials - to force Gyre to continue. Trapped together by the mission and with no one else to talk to, a toxic, paranoid, codependent romance starts to blossom between Em and Gyre. Meanwhile, it's becoming increasingly clear that something is badly wrong down in the cave, but Gyre can't tell whether it's malicious sabotage, paranormal activity or her own sanity giving out on her due to stress and isolation. All she knows is that terrifying accidents keep happening and that with each one, her chances of surviving the mission are dropping lower and lower.
I loved this. The highest-impact horror came from the sheer claustrophobia, both inside the cave and inside the suit; it was so intense that if I read for too long in one go I started feeling physically squeezed. Both characters were fantastic, and I loved how the necessary minimalism of the premise forced me deep inside their heads, in much the same way they were forced inside each others. The unhealthy romantic chemistry really worked for me. If I have one complaint, it's that the amount of technical detail about caving sometimes got too much. For someone whose entire knowledge of climbing as a pastime has been conferred across maybe half a dozen bouldering gym visits in my life, there were places where the descriptions of Gyre's gear and techniques, and the specific kinds of climbing obstacles she faced, got kind of confusing. But I think to a point that was unavoidable, given the close third POV and the fact that Gyre has virtually nothing else to focus on besides those details, that her survival depends on getting them all exactly correct. Once I got into the swing of the novel I found that if I found my mind starting to wander on a technical passage, it was fine to just skim it instead of trying to absorb every detail; I may not understand the specifics of what Gyre was up to at a given point with her lines and anchors and camming devices, but the implications would generally become crystal clear within another paragraph or so.
We Live Here Now by Sarah Pinborough is a Gothic-flavoured paranormal thriller about a troubled het couple, Emily and Freddie, who move to a spooky old house in the English countryside. Emily immediately detects something horrible and supernatural going on within the house, but Freddie is skeptical; and in addition to clashing over whether or not their new home is haunted, they've both got their hands full keeping secrets from each other about their past potentially marriage-ending misdeeds. I don't want to say too much about the plot of this, because all the pleasure is in the suspense; unlike The Luminous Dead, which luxuriates in atmospheric creepiness, We Live Here Now clips along at a pace that prioritises action and takes a fairly impressionistic approach to its Gothic setting. But I will say that it's compulsively readable, pleasantly scary throughout, and that the final twist was a lot of fun. These characters are really not likeable, at all, and the whole thing manages to sit in a very relaxing place where I don't exactly want either of them to come to harm but I'm also not about to cry if they do. They're just kind of shitty people who don't deserve to be living in a supernatural horror story because no one deserves that, but they've very much brought the more mundane disintegration of their lives upon themselves. (Especially Freddie. Emily has her redeeming features but Freddie just straight up belongs in the fucking trash, sorry not sorry.)
This is the second novel I've read by this author and I liked it enormously better than the first. Behind Her Eyes hit some of the same notes - unlikeable, unprincipled characters being boiled alive in the soup of their own secrets seem to be Pinborough's thing, and her command of pacing is rock solid - but the shock! twist! ending annoyed the snot out of me. While trying once more to avoid spoilers, let's just say that Behind Her Eyes genre-hops in a way that felt to me like cheating. We Live Here Now is thankfully more upfront about and true to its genre, and starting from a place of properly calibrated expectations made for a much more enjoyable reading experience. It's not a must-read, but if you enjoy fast-paced thrillers and spooky haunted(?) houses, it's well worth the time.
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Date: 2025-08-28 01:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-08-29 11:32 am (UTC)