I read and reviewed Sunbathers by Lindz McLeod as part of the SFINCS3 novella contest. My review is honest, and my opinions are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my team (Team TBR).
Sunbathers is an erotic horror novella based around an interesting climate change concept.
Two years before the novella takes place, solar flares became so bad that humans were unable to tolerate them without their skin blistering and burning to the extent that most of them died.
A small percentage were able to withstand the blistering and burning and found themselves growing new skin, luxuriant hair, and more powerful muscles. These “Sunbathers” became godlike, craving the heat and light of the sun and finding that darkness and shadow give them pain. They began sleeping in tanning beds to avoid the dark and worshipping the sun. I found this ‘opposite vampire’ concept really interesting. They no longer need to eat or drink, but are cruel and enjoy hunting humans for sport, tearing them limb from limb, roasting and eating them when they catch them.
In contrast, the remaining humans cannot tolerate the sun and must hide from the Sunbathers, digging burrows and keeping their water supplies hidden so as not to give away their locations.
The story is compelling, although violent, and told from the perspective of an unlikeable, brutal protagonist, a queer human named Soph who is sick of living in a burrow and sick of her girlfriend and other burrow-mates. She has cheated on her partner in the past and is cruel and uncaring towards an injured, older burrow-mate. She obsesses about being free to walk in the sun and is developing cannibalistic tendencies. She barely has any humanity left and finds herself questioning her future.
Would it be so bad to become a Sunbather?
Would she survive the Burn?
Would it give her the freedom she longs for?
Before long, she gets caught by a hunting party, and her only chance for survival is to beg them to let her attempt to survive the Burn. The Sunbathers’ solar doctrine states that:
“Those who accept the sun will never die,”
However, Soph soon discovers that any queer sexual tendencies are unacceptable to these gods. They undertake a weekly heterosexual ritual in which everyone must take part. Anyone showing any other sexual tendencies is brutally murdered, left out of the sunbeds at night to die from a painful lack of sunshine.
I could not help but draw comparisons between the Sunbathers and Hitler’s regime, in which strong, blond, blue-eyed Arians were considered the superior race. There is no one specific, recognised leader of the Sunbathers, but their Fascist doctrine is well-defined and brutally policed.
There are also comparisons to be drawn between some of the Sunbathers’ intolerant beliefs about sexuality and those of the extreme right in American society today.
Soph’s conclusion is that her sacrifices to become a Sunbather were not worth it after all:
“What use is being all-powerful if you can’t do whatever you want?”
Sunbathers has explicit sex scenes and graphic horror. I did not like the protagonist or the terrible fate of humanity depicted in this climate cautionary tale. But I did enjoy reading this strangely compelling and imaginative novella.
