Because this is the bone-tacular, sci-fi fantasy book of my dreams. Necromancy…in…spaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaace! I’m probably the millionth person to make that joke and honestly I don’t care. But her surface team-and in particular Em, who is in control of the body suit-is keeping secrets, and the deeper Gyre descends into the caves the more she is forced to depend on someone she does not even know if she can trust. It was supposed to be safe, just a less-than-easy way to earn the money she needs to change her life. Sadly for Gyre Price it is her, not me, who ends up deep underground wearing a suit that gives someone else total control of her body. For which I deserve to be dropped down a scary mine shaft on a remote planet. I have heard nothing but good things about this book and I still haven’t read it. Starling’s The Luminous Dead has been up and down lists like this since it was released. By signing up you agree to our terms of use The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling Thank you for signing up! Keep an eye on your inbox. The rest, for you sticklers out there, do in fact take place out in that horrifying black void we call space. But you couldn’t get farther from earth if you tried. So a few of these books do take place on solid ground. But one of the best parts of space exploration is the possibility of strange new planets, and unknown life forms.

If you want to get really picky you could claim that space horror books only count as space horror if they take place in the vacuum of, you guessed it, space. Space horror books are a little subset of sci-fi horror, but where as sci-fi horror can take place here on Mother Earth, space horror takes place out there, beyond the ordinary. But which is worse-thinking that there might be something up there, or believing that we are completely alone in the entire universe? And that, I guess, is why we keep returning to the idea of space-even when it’s absolutely horrifying. Look at the big scary sky thing, mom, let’s poke it with a rocket and see what happens. The idea of discovery, of what might be out there, is as frightening as it is compelling. It’s full of potential, and it can fill us in turn with hope for the future, and the horror of the unseen.

On a planet that is increasingly bereft of unknown places on the map marked with “here there be monsters,” space remains a great unknown.

Pitch dark by courtney alameda