PUBLISHER: Titan Books
PUBLISHED: July 2024
“Space cowboy fate-defying cosmic action, Ninth Life jumps the Factus series to a whole new level. Holborn’s superb structure and deftly crafted narrative will draw you into a tale of violence, destiny, and connection… lovingly crafted and utterly compulsive reading.”
Ian Green, author of The Gauntlet and the Fist Beneath and Extremophile
The Ballad of Halo Jones meets Becky Chambers’ Wayfarers by way of 3:10 to Yuma; a clash of law and lawlessness, storytelling and truth in a headlong romp across the stars.
After forty years of wreaking havoc across the galaxy, the outlaw Nine Lives – AKA Former General Gabriella Ortiz – has finally run out of lives. Shot down into a backwater at the system’s edge, she is rescued by deputy marshall Havemercy Grey.
Hav is a true soul, trying to uphold what is right in the heedless wastes. Hav is determined to see justice done. And Hav could sure use that 20-million bounty…
But escorting the most dangerous fugitive in the system across the stars is no easy task, especially when decades of fire and destruction are catching up with her, and every gutspill with a pistol wants that bounty. So when Ortiz offers a deal – to keep them both alive, as long as Hav listens to the stories of Gabi’s lives – Hav can’t refuse.
There’s just one catch: everywhere they go, during every brawl and gunfight and explosive escape, people say the same thing – don’t let her talk…
“If I had to sum it up in one word, I’d be havering between choosing intense or relentless. Dialogue is suitably taut and sharp, the frontier culture is casually inclusive and diverse, and its worldlets are imaginatively various and richly evoked” – Interzone
“A tour de force. A taut and gripping narrative, it’s a unique work as breathless and relentless as it is beautifully crafted.” – The BookBeard
“An extraordinary conclusion to The Factus Sequence. Ninth Life is an explosion of action and imagination. This epic finale takes risks and, in doing so, honors its amazing characters and world.” – Grimdark Magazine
“If Ninth Life doesn’t qualify as an instant classic and the best space western you’ll ever read, then I’ll eat my robot cowboy hat. Stark Holborn hasn’t just knocked it out of the park, she’s obliterated the field” – FanFiAddict