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A review by zare_i
Ten Low by Stark Holborn
4.0
Well this was quite a ride. Set in the the future where humans have colonized the space we follow our hero, named Ten Low, as she struggles to save lives on the prison planet.... strike that, remote frontier moon, with very bad climate (deserts all over), some colonials but mostly people trying to hide from their past (large number are former convicts, Ten Low included), government that is not interested in this moon except for having it marked as territory and whole bunch of roaming bands, some more crazy than others (imagine more technically savvy but equal brutal gangs from Mad Max) that follow their own rules, live in their own worlds and see everyone else as prey.
Ten Low is trying to redeem herself from the latest intergalactic war where she played important but ... lets say, bad (?!) role and caused lots of casualties. Now she tries to save lives so she can live with herself. She witnesses a starship falling down and manages to save the sole surviving passenger. This act of kindness will bring her into problems she could not even fathom and throw her into the events related to the mystery of the remote wasteland parts of the moon. I wont go more into the details because of the spoilers but story is very fast, with lots of action and characters that get good exposition. I have a feeling that sequel might be in the making but even if not book ends up in the only way possible.
This is not a feel-good book, people die (some in a very gruesome way), and to the very end you are not sure who is going to end up dead. It is a very humorless and deadly universe here, where victor of the war shows absolutely no mercy to the defeated party - it makes you think how they plan to normalize the life after what seems to be the conflict that ran for decades. Nobody trusts anybody and at the first opportunity everyone gets betrayed by somebody around them.
Few things did not sit well with me. First, I guess to be inline with modern times there is a part of the book that treats the [now absolutely omnipresent] racial issues. You will see the passage, cannot miss it, and for me it was so cringy ..... unbelievable ..... but I guess it goes with ever present goal to be contemporary. Second thing is, I dont know if this was because of editing [or errors during the edit process] but some of the characters would go [for no reason whatsoever] from singular to plural. at first I though it was related to the moon's mystery, like warped view of people and their actions but I do not think so, because in some singular is used, while in others plural is used. Weird. again not a showstopper but can break the concentration.
All in all, excellent SF action adventure. If you are looking for pages and pages of characters, their relations, histories, explanations etc you wont find it here. This is not a thousand plus pages space opera but an old fashioned action adventure, think of it as space western, that will grip you from the start to the end and leave you wanting more.
Recommended.
Ten Low is trying to redeem herself from the latest intergalactic war where she played important but ... lets say, bad (?!) role and caused lots of casualties. Now she tries to save lives so she can live with herself. She witnesses a starship falling down and manages to save the sole surviving passenger. This act of kindness will bring her into problems she could not even fathom and throw her into the events related to the mystery of the remote wasteland parts of the moon. I wont go more into the details because of the spoilers but story is very fast, with lots of action and characters that get good exposition. I have a feeling that sequel might be in the making but even if not book ends up in the only way possible.
This is not a feel-good book, people die (some in a very gruesome way), and to the very end you are not sure who is going to end up dead. It is a very humorless and deadly universe here, where victor of the war shows absolutely no mercy to the defeated party - it makes you think how they plan to normalize the life after what seems to be the conflict that ran for decades. Nobody trusts anybody and at the first opportunity everyone gets betrayed by somebody around them.
Few things did not sit well with me. First, I guess to be inline with modern times there is a part of the book that treats the [now absolutely omnipresent] racial issues. You will see the passage, cannot miss it, and for me it was so cringy ..... unbelievable ..... but I guess it goes with ever present goal to be contemporary. Second thing is, I dont know if this was because of editing [or errors during the edit process] but some of the characters would go [for no reason whatsoever] from singular to plural. at first I though it was related to the moon's mystery, like warped view of people and their actions but I do not think so, because in some singular is used, while in others plural is used. Weird. again not a showstopper but can break the concentration.
All in all, excellent SF action adventure. If you are looking for pages and pages of characters, their relations, histories, explanations etc you wont find it here. This is not a thousand plus pages space opera but an old fashioned action adventure, think of it as space western, that will grip you from the start to the end and leave you wanting more.
Recommended.