Ten Low by Stark Holborn
I would like to thank the author and Titan for an advance copy of this novel in exchange for affair and honest review
Publisher – Titan
Published – Out now
Price – £8.99 paperback £4.74 Kindle eBook
Ten Low is an ex-army medic, one of many convicts eking out a living at the universe's edge. She's desperate to escape her memories of the interstellar war, and the crimes she committed, but trouble seems to follow wherever she goes. One night, attempting to atone for her sins, she pulls a teenage girl - the sole survivor - from the wreck of a spaceship. But Gabriella Ortiz is no ordinary girl. The result of a military genetics programme, she is a decorated Army General, from the opposing side of the war to Ten. Worse, Ten realises the crash was an assassination attempt, and that someone wants the Ortiz dead...
The pair bury their hatreds and strike an uneasy deal to smuggle the General off-world. Their road won't be easy: they must cross the moon's lawless wastes, facing military hit squads, bandits and the one-eyed leader of an all-female road gang, in a frantic race to get the General to safety. But something else waits in the darkness at the universe's edge. Something that threatens to reveal Ten's worst nightmare: the truth of who she really is and what she is running from.
Space as we know is a final frontier. A lot of SF has seen analogies with exploring strange new worlds and exploring the Wild West. Be that Star Trek’s wagon trains to the stars or more recently Firefly or Mad Max. Places where the establishment isn’t established, rules are broken with smugglers and never do wells in abundance. The Frontiers of space offer new lives, adventure and sometimes a reckoning and in Stark Holborn’s new exhilarating science fiction novel Ten Low we are taken on a fast-paced character driven trip into hell and seeking of redemption.
Ten Low is a convict turned wandering medic on the frontier moon of Factus that has barely recovered over a system wide civil war. A place of smugglers, bandits, murderers and even a cult of body harvesters named Cults you do not want to cross in the desert plains. Ten arrives at a crash scene and finds a teenage girl badly injured. Deciding to do the right thing she picks the child up and escapes from the hands of the seekers. The complications then begin as the child is actually a genetically modified representative of the Accords none other than General Gabriella Ortiz who despite her youthful appearance is actually a trained warrior and strategist. What should be a simple handover to the authorities goes quickly south and both Low and The General find themselves on the run with prices on their heads and many wanting them both dead. To try and find an escape means Low has to do deals with some of the most notorious gangs and visit some of the most dangerous places. Worst of all Low has to come to terms with her past and future.
What I love most about this story is the versatility Holborn adds to the tale. A grizzled mercenary with a child may remind some of True Grit but this story is filled of great characters and unusual set pieces veering from action, science fiction, war, fantasy, and horror. It’s not simply a western set in space it multiple types of stories combine giving it a whole lot of oomph that power the story. At the heart is the double act of Low and The General. The General is a fine catalyst for the story someone who looks and doesn’t mind acting like a child to get their way but she is also a old before their time adult who has experienced the horror of war, bloodthirsty practical and sarcastic. You can both at times be amused, scared, and saddened by her. Low though is our main character and narrator of the story and fascinating. It’s quite unusual for a story to have a healer as the main character especially caught up in these violent situations and her desire to save life (and atone for her past) gives us a different vibe to your standard mercenary happy to kill all in her way and so when Low has to act it takes us with surprise. As the story progresses finding out Low’s backstory gives her a huge amount of poignance and as a reader we continually have to reassess her as a hero or anti-hero. Watching how The General and Low start to understand each other is a major highlight of the tale.
Alongside this is Factos and it’s a magnificently weird world. We are used to frontier space towns, but these feels pleasantly different. Not just the usual bustling black market and cruel authorities but now mixed with lots of little sects and gangs crossing paths or double crossing each other. Adding to this are stranger places known as the Edge where you can enter and many never are seen again. When the story moves into these places, we feel that we have moved from a simple action tale into something stranger, bigger, and epic. Holborn throws mystique, magic, and a feeling of the other that help build a sense of a world that is haunted not just by the main character’s pasts but something else that is very hard to fully comprehend.
Lastly the plotting and action is terrific. This is a tale with brilliantly constructed movement never staying in one place too long and throwing every few chapters some new potential ally or adversary (and sometimes both) to face. We get an excellent crime boss in Malady Falco and her all woman gang of enforcers and even a pilot people refer to as Flyboy. The story never gets hung up on anything for long giving it a sense of life but also making you appreciate Factos is a complex eco system of groups all ticking it along but never safely. You feel there is tonnes to discover about this world and the wider universe it sits in and despite the tale neatly pulling its threads together at the end I would not object to more tales in this universe.
Ten Low is the kind of action-packed science fiction tale you can enjoy not just for the action but the great characters and their relationships that pull the story along. Frenetic, poignant, and imaginative meant I had both a lot of fun and just enjoyed the w0riting skills being displayed. Very much a book I think lots of science fiction (plus fantasy and horror fans should give some time to. Delicious reading awaits you and highly recommended!
