TBR Pile Review: Ten Low, by Stark Holborn

Blurb

Ten Low is eking out a living at the universe’s edge. An ex-medic, ex-con, desperate to escape her memories of the war, she still hasn’t learnt that no good deed goes unpunished.

Attempting to atone for her sins, she pulls a teenage girl from a crashed lifecraft. But Gabriella Ortiz is no ordinary girl—she is a genetically-engineered super soldier and decorated General, part of the army that kept Ten prisoner. Worse, Ten realises the crash was an assassination attempt, and that someone wants Ortiz dead…

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My Review

I’m on a bit of a space western kick at the moment after reading Frontier last week. I’m reading Hel’s Eight next.

There are spoilers below, don’t read if you don’t want to know what happens.

Summary: I enjoyed this one. going to read Hel’s Eight now, as soon as I finish writing this review.

The moon Factus is barely habitable, the Accord barely bothers to keep it supplied, the inhabitants are mostly freed convicts and a few migrants tricked by propaganda. Ten Low, or Doc, is a medic, who fought on the wrong side in a war between the imperialist Accord and the anarchistic Free Limits, was caught and imprisoned on a hulk. She escaped and has made a life of sorts in the Barrens of Factus, then she helps the wrong person, General Gabrielle Ortiz.

Destiny comes calling in the form of the Ifs, spirits or beings that call Factus home. Everyone can feel them, but they’re particularly attached to some people, and Doc is one of them. When it becomes clear that something is not right with the situation, and that Gabi is in danger from her own side, Doc enlists the help of Malady and her G’hals, a criminal kingpin on Factus, to get her off the moon and away to another planet.

Things don’t go to plan, they’re betrayed and chased across the moon, kidnapped by bandits who want the bounty on them and then attacked by Seekers, a group that does organ removal and salvage out in the Barrens. They end up in the Edge, a place that’s home to the Ifs and the Seekers, and nothing else.

It changes Doc, as she becomes more aware of the Ifs and the potential futures she can see at times of choice. The Doc and Gabi somehow survive their time in the Edge and meet up with Malady again. The group now includes the pilot of the craft they sort of hijacked, except he was betraying them to the original bandits who kidnapped them, named Silas. Eventually they end up in an out of the way port and in the tavern of Pac Esterhazy, one of the oldest humans, and one of the first, on Factus. Who may or may not be Hel the Converter, leader of the Seekers. There’s a gunfight with a mad marshal and a dash across the moon to rescue Gabi, another gunfight and then peace.

That’s just the plot outline. The characters are fun, especially Malady and Pegeen. Ten Low (the character, Doc) is a mystery that slowly unfolds with the plot, and in doing so we get an idea of what the society of the Accord is like, the history of the civilisation that only left Earth relatively recently but has spread across several star systems (Pac Esterhazy was born on Earth nearly 80 years before the book setting). There are other planets and moons that have their own societies which are mentioned in passing in the novel, and political factions with their own agendas.

I enjoyed this book, I found it a gripping adventure. I don’t read westerns, but I watched a lot of them as a child (my dad liked John Wayne and Clint Eastwood movies) so the atmosphere was familiar immediately. Desert winds and dying ranches desperate for any help, a lone stranger appearing from the dust storm, bandits attacking trains and out of the way stations. All that fun stuff. But with mechanical creatures, snake meat and bugs for protein, a thin atmosphere, and ray guns.

There’s some good Queer representation in Malady and her G’hals. The relationship between Ten and Silas is tentative and forged in desperate times, although there’s a hint that at least on his part, Silas is serious. He has something of Mal Reynolds (Firefly) about him, a charming smuggler who’s always running into trouble.

The almost parental relationship that develops between Ten and Gabi is contentious, although the ending shows that they are actually developing affection for each other. The big shocker, that the Accord allowed Ten to steal a disease and the Free Limits to engage in germ warfare in order to destroy the Limiters’ backing and end the war quickly, clearly has something to do with this. Gabi has been brainwashed from a very young age, to believe all the Accord propaganda, which allowed her to kill indiscriminately, so this clearly upsets her equilibrium, which is already a mess after discovering all of her cohort have been murdered by their commander and that she might be dying because of all the modifications to her body.

Something Ten says to the Commander, before Gabi shoots her, is quite significant. She tells the Commander the Accord want all the child super soldiers dead because they are their shame and the Accord wants everyone to forget that they used child soldiers, and children that were orphans at that – the poorest, the outcasts.

The use of child soldiers is unfortunately common even today. In some places children are kidnapped and forced to fight, in other places armed forces representatives go to schools in poor communities and represent themselves as a way to escape poverty. The recruits are to all intents and purposes, still children, the brain doesn’t finish developing until we’re 25. It’s manipulative propaganda. Poor people being forced to choose between possibly dying in battle and living in poverty is nothing new: ‘the freedom to starve is no freedom at all’. I can see where Holborn got her inspiration.

Look, I warned you there would be spoilers, don’t complain.

Anyway. I liked the plot, the worldbuilding and the characters. I recommend it. Now, I’m off to bed to read Hel’s Eight. I want to see what the Doc does next.

Night night.