Stark Holborn is the author of Nunslinger – the first ever digital serial published by Hodder & Stoughton – as well as the Triggernometry series and new space opera, Ten Low. As well as writing about westerns for Pornokitsch and Screen Queens, Stark works as a games writer and is currently a lead writer on the SF-noir detective game Shadows of Doubt.
I was lucky enough to have Holborn stop by the site today for a chat about Ten Low, that new space opera (I love space operas!) recently published by Titan Books.
First, the blurb…
Ten Low (her name is her sentence) 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. Trouble, however, 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 Ortiz dead…
Although at odds in every way, the pair strike an uneasy deal to smuggle the General offworld. 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.
And now, the questions…
I love to know about the places in a story, the ways that setting isn’t just a location but a character in its own right, influencing the rest of the story. Tell me about the world of Ten Low?
Ten Low is in many ways a space-western, and so includes a mash-up of high and low tech. The book is set on the desert moon of Factus at the very edge of a star system. Factus is a wind-swept, hardscrabble place neglected by the system’s authorities, and so the objects, foods and vehicles had to reflect that. For example, it made sense that people would try to grow things that thrive in arid climates – like agave – and so forms of mescal are popular. Wildlife, too: instead of cattle, people farm snakes and use vultures and buzzards as work animals. Insects are prized as both entertainment and food; in a place where there’s little amusement, a beetle fight can be an exciting thing.
Continue reading “Writer Wednesday: Stark Holborn”
