'Who controls the future, controls it all…
'Ten 'Doc' Low is a medic with a dark past, riding the wastes of the desert moon Factus, dispensing medicine to the needy and death to those who cross the laws of the mysterious Seekers. Cursed by otherworldly forces, she stays alone to keep herself safe, and to keep others safe from her… But when she experiences a terrifying vision of conflict, and foresees the deaths of those she once called friends, she must drag herself back to the land of living to stop a war before it begins.
'With a rebellion brewing, the Accord’s grip on the Outer Moons weakening and a sinister tycoon buying up all the land in sight, Ten must find allies where she can and face the past, in order to save the future. Even if the cost might be greater than she could ever have imagined…'
Ten Low was one of my favourite reads of 2021. It blended together dystopia, science fiction, western aesthetics, gritty action, and mystery into this wonderful creation that left you wanting more. Luckily, we now get more, as Stark Holborn takes readers back to the desolate moon of Factus as war is about to break out.
It's been several years since the events of the first book, and Ten Low has been living away from society, on the Edge, where she can avoid people and try to make up for the things that she's done in her past. However, when a nearby settlement she's visiting comes under attack from a roving gang that is being backed by Lutho-Plex, a huge off-world corporation that's trying to take over the satellite. Having to give up on staying out of things, and taking several lives, Ten realises that she's not going to be able to wait out what's happening on Factus.
Meeting up with several of her friends from the first book, she takes part in the mission to try to save Factus from falling into the hands of the villainous Lutho Xoon. However, she soon starts to learn that there's more going on than she first realises, and that the Ifs are a big part of it. Delving into the history of Factus, Ten will learn ore than she ever imagined about the true nature of the Ifs, and the path that she will have to take.
Ten Low was a wonderful sci-fi western story with a grizzled older lead protecting a kid as they fought to get them through a dangerous area to a place of safety. It's a popular genre, and the book did it extremely well. It crafted an incredibly interesting setting in the form of Factus; and a large part of that was down to the otherworldly elements that it included. Factus isn't just a desert moon home to raiders, gangs, and outposts. It also holds a dark, unknowable form of life. The Ifs.
The Ifs weren't explained in any great detail in the first novel. They were this ghostly presence that almost bordered on cosmic horror. They were this thing that existed on the edges of the story, with rules that the reader would learn along the way, but we never found out much about them. Hel's Eight is the book where the spotlight very much shifts to focus on the Ifs. And it makes it such a good follow-up.
Holborn could have easily copied the style of the first book, could have focused on the human elements of Factus, the warring clans, the struggle to survive; and the book would have been great. But, rather than doing that, this time round we get a deep dive into the history of the moon, the first people that came to call it home, and those people's connections to the Ifs. This shift away from the more grounded elements in order to lean into the fantastical makes this feel like more than just a simple sequel. Holborn isn't just retreading the same ground, but is instead creating whole new ground. This includes going backwards in time, and providing us with interesting and at times really creepy, history as we get diary entries from one of the moons first inhabitants, Esterhazy.
Hel's Eight manages to weave the stories from these two time periods very well, and both move at a decent pace, encouraging you to keep reading. The book has plenty of mystery, action, and character moments in each time period that both feel like fully realised, fleshed out stories in their own rights. Speaking of characters, the sections in the present does introduce a new character into the narrative that was particularly enjoyable to read. Rouf Cinque is a gang member that Ten picks up along the way. At first they're something of an antagonist, forced to work with our protagonist against their will; but over time they slowly start to integrate into the main team, and eventually feel like a part of it. They're also referred to with they/them pronouns, so it's great to have a gender non-conforming character as part of the core group.
I had a really good time with Hel's Eight, and it's a fantastic follow-up to the first novel. I'm excited to go back and read both of them again, and can't wait to see how well they work going straight from one to the other. Much like the first book, the ending does feel like an end. In a lot of ways it feels like Ten's character has been put to bed; but, I thought that come the end of book one, and then she came back in a new and exciting way. So, I guess I'm hoping that happens again, that perhaps we might get a trilogy or more out of this character and her story. But, if this is the end then it's a fantastic end.
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