Starling, Caitlin
Entry updated 18 March 2024. Tagged: Author.
(? - ) US interactive game designer and author who is of sf interest for her first novel, The Luminous Dead (2019), is set mostly Underground on a planet exploited primarily for its mineral deposits (see Colonization of Other Worlds); the protagonist, contracted to explore yet unknown cave systems for further resources, finds herself caught between the chthonic "Monsters" she discovers, and the ruthless corporation that employs her. Her subsequent realization that others have preceded her into the planet vividly intensifies (see Horror in SF) the claustrophobia that naturally threatens her as she penetrates further and further through darkness into a possessed world. A similar play on the interface between above and below also marks her third novel, Last to Leave the Room (2023), whose protagonist, attempting to understand in engineering terms why a City is sinking into the earth, finds a Doppelganger encysted within. [JC]
Caitlin Starling
born
works
- The Luminous Dead (New York: Harper Voyager, 2019) [pb/Alejandro Colucci]
- The Death of Jane Lawrence (New York: St Martin's Press, 2021) [hb/]
- Last to Leave the Room (New York: St Martin's Press, 2023) [hb/]
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