Picked this one up seeing it listed as sci-fi horror with an interesting premise, woman goes into caving expedition and things get rather sinister.
For the first act I really enjoyed it. I loved the caving, the mangled corpses, Em being as dubious as it gets and the standoff between the two characters at first.
But I have to say, as soon as Em’s motivation became clear and Gyre started excusing all her behaviour, it went steadily downhill for me though I kept reading hoping for a twist to breathe life back into it, for the great mystery of the cave itself to result into a centre point of it, like an entity a la The Crawler, but alas. I was also hoping for an emotionally gratifying conclusion where Gyre would outgrow the trauma bonding with Em and see through the toxic bond they formed. Wasn’t a fan of where their story ended.
Overall, I thought the physical cave horror was great, so were the doomed expedition logs. Wish the other plotlines had enjoyed the same quality
by ErisianMoon
1 Comment
There is a secret to the cave that’s not explicitly explained – the >!fungus Gyre’s water is contaminated with is controlling her mind to make her want to die in the cave so it can reproduce, which is why Em’s mother returned to die there and why Gyre inevitably will too. Her thinking constantly gets twisted towards courses of action that are likely to kill her from the midpoint of the book, to the point of hallucinating that she belongs with the other fungus-infected corpses. It’s also why Gyre faces down the cave worm – not courage, but the fungus trying to get her killed.!<
>!It’s inspired by the real life fungal organism toxoplasma gondii, which infects rats and is thought to make them suicidal to aid its reproduction.!< I thought it was really cool, but it’s a pretty subtle twist.