Billed as Mad Max: Fury Road meets Becky Chambers, Ten Low follows the story of an ex-convict medic attempting to atone for the sins she committed during a recent interstellar war.
We chat with author Stark Holborn about Ten Low, which releases on June 1st in the UK and June 8th in the US, as well as writing, book recommendations, and so much more!
Ten Low is available from Amazon, Bookshop.org, Forbidden Planet, and Portal Bookshop. Pre-orders placed for Ten Low before June 1st can request a free and exclusive signed, stamped and numbered postcard and themed sticker here.
Hi, Stark! Tell our readers a bit about yourself!
Hi, I’m a novelist and a games writer, and occasional film reviewer. I write westerns, primarily, from a feminist, non-traditional standpoint. My first novel, Nunslinger was Hodder’s first ever digital serial – published in instalments as I was writing it! I’ve carried this on with my Triggernometry series, and now made a leap into SF with Ten Low. (I do write things without pun titles sometimes…) I live in Bristol in the UK with my partner.
Quick lightning round! Tell us the first book you ever remember reading, the one that made you want to become an author, and one that you can’t stop thinking about!
The first book I remember clearly is The Lord of the Rings; my dad read it to me and my sister when we were very young, I think I was about two and she was four. It took him two years to read the whole thing to us, but I still vividly remember feeling sorry for Gollum at the end.
I’m not sure any one book made me want to be an author, but I was definitely inspired to write Nunslinger by Patrick de Witt’s The Sisters Brothers. More generally, a book I find myself coming back to is The Owl Service by Alan Garner. I read it long before I even dreamed about being a writer, but its brilliance and strangeness has stuck with me over the years. Tamora Pierce’s books had a big influence on me as a young reader, too.
A book that’s currently wedged in my mind is How Much of These Hills Is Gold by C Pam Zhang. I finished it a while ago, but I keep revolving over its structure and the visceral, heady descriptions of land. I loved it.
Your latest novel, Ten Low, is out June 1st 2021! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Mad Max meets Halo Jones
What can readers expect?
A barren desert moon, fighting beetles, mescal, train heists, incorporeal beings, augury, bandits and a woman just trying to get by…
But in seriousness, it’s a fast-paced, action-filled space western narrated by a first-person female protagonist with an inclusive cast of characters and a dose of strangeness thrown in.
Were there any favourite moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
I loved writing the chapters set in the Edge (a strange, no-place). It was an opportunity to be weird and abstract. I was worried those sections might get cut in editorial for being too odd, but I have a brilliant editor, and they were some of his favourite parts, too.
Other than that – writing the G’hals, my female and non-binary road gang. They’re so much fun. I wanted my world to be colourful and chaotic; people being creative and alive despite the bleakness of the setting and the G’hals really encapsulate that.
What’s the best and the worst writing advice you have received?
The best was to get up from writing occasionally and do back stretches, ha! I’ve never read much writing advice to be honest; what works for me might not work for someone else and vice versa. The worst was probably to research the market obsessively before you start a book or something like that. I try my hardest to write without publishing in mind: it’s too easy to get stuck in other people’s expectations that way.
What’s next for you?
Another thing set in the Ten Low universe… can’t say too much more about it yet. Other than that, I have something big and weird and ambitious on the backburner for later in the year.
Lastly, do you have any book recommendations for our readers?
- How Much of These Hill is Gold – C Pam Zhang
- Hard to be a God – Arkady & Boris Strugatsky
- Radiance – Catherynne M. Valente
- Do You Dream of Terra-Two? – Temi Oh
- The Ballad of Halo Jones – Alan Moore
