The plot of Horizon draws on the “lost world” literary trope, a popular subgenre of adventure and science fiction that involves the discovery of a land isolated from the outside world. This tradition, popularized in the late 19th and early 20th centuries during an age of global exploration, often features protagonists who become stranded in a mysterious and hostile environment after a disaster. A classic example is Jules Verne’s The Mysterious Island (1875), in which Union prisoners escape the Civil War in a balloon and crash-land on an uncharted island, where they must use their scientific and engineering knowledge to survive and build a new society. More contemporary parallels include Andy Weir’s The Martian (2011), which begins with the crash of a spaceship that maroons an astronaut on Mars, where he must quickly figure out how to survive until a rescue can be affected, and The Blighted Stars (2023) by Megan E. O’Keefe, in which two bitter enemies are stranded on a dead planet and must work together to survive and uncover the conspiracy that led to their situation.

Horizon utilizes key elements from this castaway framework. It opens with the transcript of a disastrous plane crash, immediately stranding its young protagonists in an inexplicable jungle that is clearly not the Arctic or their destination in Japan. Like Verne’s castaways and Weir’s scientist-engineer, the members of Team Killbot must rely on their specialized skills to survive, as when Anna explains the biological priorities of survival to prevent panic. However, similar to the environment of The Blighted Stars, the jungle in Horizon is a place of deep mystery, filled with bizarre creatures like “shredder birds” and impossible technology that alters the laws of physics.