A Letter to the Luminous Deep by Sylvie Cathrall
| A Letter to the Luminous Deep by Sylvie Cathrall | |
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| Category: Science Fiction | |
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Reviewer: Stephen Leach
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| Summary: Masterful and unique, this epistolary novel set in a futuristic undersea world is both a richly-drawn love story and a compelling mystery too. | |
| Buy? Yes | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 368 | Date: April 2024 |
| Publisher: Orbit | |
| External links: Author's website | |
| ISBN: 978-0356522777 | |
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There are few greater joys than a book which lives up to a compelling premise. And this is one of them.
What's initially striking about A Letter to the Luminous Deep is that it's an epistolary novel: told entirely through letters from one character to another. It's a form of storytelling that I feel like I don't see enough, so I bought into the idea with great enthusiasm. And of course it's a style which is well-suited to romance: the act of letter-writing – something readers today possibly do associate more with literature than real life – does evoke a certain sense of longing and nostalgia. Perhaps that's a result of epistolary novels being popular during the 18th and 19th centuries – and that historical quality is well-suited to this novel, which grounds itself in a strange time period which feels both old and new at the same time.
The setting is perhaps the most fascinating element to the story. It could quite easily have been left unexplained, but Cathrall gradually threads in details about the world: an undersea civilisation formerly located in the sky until a great catastrophe (literally) brought it down. It's a richly compelling and intriguing backstory which reveals itself little by little as the novel slowly also builds the burgeoning friendship and evolving love affair between two marine scholars, identified only as E. and Henerey, before the novel shifts its focus to their siblings Sophie and Vyerin.
When such a story is told solely through letters, you need a compelling reason to buy into the premise, and the bond that develops between E. and Henerey is skilfully communicated with small but knowing detail. You get the sense they're both reserved, lonely individuals but both fiercely intelligent, undaunted by the often-crushing isolation of the strange undersea world they inhabit. Once their perspective disappears from the novel, Sophie and Vyerin's shared grief at their unexplained disappearance forms a natural connection between then, and it's a canny choice because their sense of loss is shared with you, the reader, since you're longing to know what happened to them too. This is a fascinating and incredibly singular book, rich with evocative detail and characterisation – but it ends so suddenly, so abruptly, that I was left tremendously disappointed. That's not this book's fault, though, because I was totally unaware it was the first in a series. And in this, Cathrall succeeds once again – because A Letter to the Luminous Deep ends on a truly excellent cliffhanger. I can't wait to see what happens next.
I was reminded peculiarly of M R Carey's Infinity Gate reading this, another book I reviewed for Bookbag last year: another hefty science-fiction epic, with a unique and sublimely detailed setting, and ending on an unexpected cliffhanger. It's another top-shelf example of genre fiction done exquisitely well.
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