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Gyre explores the tunnels of an alien world in a mechanical suit, her only connection to the outside world the voice of Em, her handler who she’s never met, who may or may not have her welfare in mind, and who definitely has boundary issues.
Gyre has less experience caving than she claimed, and caving is extremely difficult. There are sandworm-like creatures called Tunnelers that will kill multiple parties of cavers for unknown reasons, so cavers go in alone, unable to take off their suit for weeks on end, with their handler as their only link with the outside world. Em can literally take control of Gyre’s suit/body, can inject her with drugs, etc - and not only has little compunction about doing so, but won't tell Gyre what the actual purpose of the mission is.
Spoilers!
Gyre took the mission to raise money to find her mother, who ran off when Gyre was a child. It turns out that Em is running the mission, which has so far killed 27 cavers, to find the bodies of her parents who died in the cave system before it was understood that only solo cavers can explore in anything even resembling safety.
The mommy issues didn't really work for me, and it felt like not enough was happening for long stretches - most of the actual plot happens in the first half.
This is a type of story I don’t see very often, in which there’s one main science fiction element – in this case, the mechanical caving suit – which is explored in depth and is essential to the story, and it’s also set on a (very lightly sketched-in) other planet. Generally the “one science fiction element” stories are set on Earth. Apart from the Tunnelers, this novel actually could take place on an Earth where the suit exists.
The Luminous Dead, like The Starving Saints, has a small cast of sapphic women and takes place almost entirely in the same claustrophobic space; if it was on TV, we’d call it a bottle episode. I normally like that sort of thing but unlike The Starving Saints, it outstays its welcome. It has about a novella’s worth of story, and while it’s very atmospheric and any given portion is well-written and interesting, considered alone, as a whole it’s very repetitive and over-long. I would mostly recommend it if you like complicated lesbians with bad boundaries.
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(but genuinely, probably just gaining judgement & experience. Not that The Luminous Dead is bad, far from it, but I raced through it in one sitting and always kind of expected it would not hold up to more studied engagement)
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Also I hated that the Tunneler was kind of the villain and had that convenient-feeling karmic death at the end. It was an animal in its territory, responding to an intrusive stimulus that was very agitating to it. It wasn't evil :(
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