The Luminous Dead

To earn a life-changing payday, Gyre Price lies her way onto a solo caving expedition on a remote planet, sealed into a high-tech suit she cannot remove for weeks as she maps a treacherous, half-flooded system that is home to the Tunnelers—vast, unknowable creatures that kill anything they sense. Her only lifeline is Em, the handler speaking into her ear, controlling her suit, her drugs, and much of what she sees and feels.

But Em has lied too, and as the descent grows more harrowing, Gyre can no longer tell whether the greatest danger is the cave, the creatures, her own fraying mind, or the woman who claims to be keeping her alive. Caitlin Starling's The Luminous Dead is a claustrophobic, two-hander sci-fi horror—a psychological pressure-cooker about trust, control, and obsession in the dark.