This is a standalone book but also the third book in The Factus Sequence series. It's different in style from the other two books. It's a dossier on Gabriella Ortiz filled with the accounts of Havemercy 'Hav' Grey, whom Ortiz told her story to, but also with interview transcripts and other mixed media.

I liked the dossier-style of the novel. It's easy to follow, has great pacing and I was looking forward to finding out more about Ortiz and Hav. The style allowed for the two timelines to flow seamlessly alongside each other - the timeline of Ortiz's backstory and the timeline of Hav trying to cash in the bounty on Ortiz's head.

I don't normally like space westerns but this one really worked for me.

Ninth Life is a return to the universe of Ten Low and of Hel's Eight - a future dominated by the militaristic Accord, which ruthlessly exploits its colony planets for raw materials, assisted by various warlords, gangster capitalist federations and oligarchs. Opposition has arisen on the mysterious but especially harsh world of Factus with its spirits, the probability-bending Ifs, who are able - sometimes - to turn likelihood on its head. Also featuring are the Seekers, with their semi-religious trade in organs and blood.

Ninth Life follows the career of ex General Gabriella Ortiz, originally a child soldier and a former hero of the Accord. Gabi featured in the earlier books, and her arrival, dragged from the wreck of a crashed spacecraft, nods to that. Here, though, her story is given in full - although it's contradictory to say that because as the narrator of Ninth Life makes clear, he has limited, uncertain sources and somebody is trying to erase his work.

Military Proctor Idrisi Blake himself is as much a character here as Gabi. We see his understanding of, and sympathy with, the former general turned pirate and rebel develop as his researches proceed. The framing is complex, with at least two different timelines for Gabi and numerous witnesses and accounts used to substantiate her career, but it's made more so by a fourth wall breaking effect where she seems at times to be directly addressing Blake. Failing to heed the often repeated instruction not to listen to her, Blake falls more and more under Gabi's spell, as do most of those she encounters and as, I am sure, will most readers.

Yet Gabi remains something of a mystery. Through a series of battles, fights, escapes, downfalls, injuries and betrayals we learn a lot about her origins, motivation and fears - but less about her intentions. Hers has been a life with loss (you'll know that if you've read the previous books) and she's suffered both betrayal and failure, but even so, everywhere she goes, everything she does, seems to align with some unstated purpose. It's less than clear how far she knows and understands this herself (the asides to Blake suggest that she does) and how far she is is actively cooperating with it or how much she is being drawn along. The best I can put it is, the Ifs, who are an important part of this story, will offer their help but only on their own terms, and there is a cost. Gabi is clearly paying that price, but we don't know - and I don't think she does - how far she is being given fair weight in exchange for her coin.

All in all a heart-pounding and exciting story with a core of steel. As ever Stark Holborn is superlative in bringing alive these actively hostile, dead-end-of-the-galaxy locations, places which make each day's survival a heroic act and every character, therefore, a hero. They're like the desert environs of the typical Western raised to the power 100. That will be familiar from the earlier books, but the story has now expanded beyond that Western-in-Space metaphor to a whole new level of weird, anarchic, punkiness that is just a glory to read.

I'm not sure if there will be more in this series - the ending is I think deliberately unclear - but if there are I will be delighted. Holborn's books provide something - a spice, a feistiness - which, while impossible to pin down, is I think unique in current SF and which I just can't get enough of.

**Thank you to NetGalley and Titan books for the eARC of this thrilling title!**

I adored Ten Low and Hel's Eight so much, and knew that Ninth Life was going to have a hard time living up to the hype (and my feelings) on those books. The first two books in the Factus series felt like they thrust me into the world of Factus, along with all of its politics and zany characters - but gave me just enough information to keep up.

Ninth Life was structured differently than the first two books and left me grasping for information for the first 30% of the book, to the point that I had difficulties with the pacing that I didn't experience in the first two books.

While this book was still epic, and I enjoyed unfurling the layers of Gabi's lives - I kept finding myself wishing for a return to the style of the first two books in the series. I think this is a solid 4.5 for me, but I am rating at a 4 while I digest a bit longer.

An exhilarating finale to a fantastic trilogy, Ninth Life is as bold and unflinching as its main character.

What’s really cool about the novel is how it’s told. We have a researcher convinced Gabi is still alive recounting the clues they found, Havemercy’s story of when they rescued Gabi and which is written in second person (directed at Gabi, not the reader) wherein there are long sections where Gabi recounts her stories to Hav, and some ads and news clippings here and there. It was very immersive in a found-text sort of way that didn't go that far.

When it comes to second person, it's really hard to pull but Holborn nails it. You understand why it’s told this way (it's kind of like a confession) and it makes sense for the plot. In a way, the format leaves Gabi as lofty and interesting a character as she’s always been, because so much of her story is how others see her. Gabi has always been my favourite character in the series, so this book based on her was such a joy to read. She’s a consummate badass too.

Havemercy is an interesting character as well, because they’re conflicted and we aren’t entirely sure why they make the choices they do - until the end. There’s a big if not “ah ha” moment but definitely an “oooh, I see.” The other characters are fun, though we only get the see the G'hals from Factus for a little bit. One thing I thought was great was how this book reverses the tired sci-fi trope of there being one or two women and everyone else is a dude. This book is like 95% women with a few dudes and non-binary folk sprinkled here and there. It’s also very queer-positive, but unlike a lot of queer novels that tend towards the cozy, this book is rough and raw and violent.

The action scenes in this novel are as exciting as those of the other two books. There’s even a boat chase scene, which I was not expecting and loved. Gabi is put through the wringer both physically and mentally, yet her fortitude and strength never waver.

The novel also touches on the power of sharing stories, on listening to other people, and listening to women. Gabi, in telling her stories, tends ot convince people to take her side. Of course, the powers than be are telling everyone not to let her speak, which is clearly because she tells truth to power, in a way, and does not sugarcoating things or deny her own choices often got others hurt.

This novel also explains more fully what the “ifs” are and how they work. I’d love to go back to re-read Ten Low now that I understand that more.

The novel also, despite spreading to different planets and places than Factus, still retains its gritty, isolated, Western feel. It’s different from Ten Low but not disparate - it simply expands on the worldbuilding.

If you’ve read both Ten low and Hel’s Eight, yes, this book is just as great as those two. This is a series that should be getting way more attention!

I was so excited to finally turn all our attention on Gabi, but honestly it felt like the structure worked against us in this case. The story is layered like an onion, with one layer containing the one beneath it - the outer skin is Idrisi Blake’s collection of accounts and their descent into rampant paranoia; next is Havemercy Grey’s testimony (which, when did this happen? How was it presented? We never really get an answer there); and then buried within Hav’s sections are bits of “firsthand accounts” from Gabi herself.

I ended up getting so wrapped up in “how is this information preserved with such fine detail when everything else is in fragments” and really nitpicky things like that that I found it very difficult to actually enjoy the story. I didn’t care about Blake; they were a bit of a distraction given that Gabi was already telling her story directly to Hav (we could have cut Blake entirely and honestly not lost much).

The things I liked were the same things I liked about the previous two books: cool fight sequences, the Ifs, and a cast of interesting characters.

Gabriella Ortiz: child experiment-turned-soldier, teenage General, holder of a half-dozen noms de guerre, spent several decades causing chaos across the galaxy. Now her final appellation, ‘Nine Lives’, is going to be put to the test. She once more crash lands into someone’s life, this time Deputy Havemercy Grey (Hav), and when the pair end up running for their lives she tells him the tales of her previous eight.

No one can die nine times, though? But Gaby isn’t just anyone, and she’s already dabbled with the strange forces on Factus, the things that prey on chance and luck and probabilities. How far will her luck stretch now?

We first met ‘The General’, Gaby, in the wonderful Ten Low, and the glimpses of her backstory make for an obvious focal instalment. So we now circle back to find out more about her life before she met ‘The Traitor’, Ten, and indeed the mysterious Hel the Converter (Hel’s Eight). This isn’t a straight forward flashback, though, as it also fills in all the time since, as she weaves her tales of each time she faced death. Along the way, this instalment fills in so much more about the worlds of the Factus series, giving us a much broader look at the different places and factions across the galaxy.

The story telling is done in several formats. Mainly we have ‘the testimony of Havemercy Grey’, which I confess threw me a little at first as it’s in second person (eep!), with Hav recanting his time with Gaby as if directly to her. I thought this was going to be awful, but even though I’m not sure I understand the choice, it ends up working much better than I’d feared and certainly not the ‘omg second person is horrible!’ at all – it’s more like reading a letter addressed to someone else, a sliver of the shall we say respect that forms between the two unlikely travelling companions?

We also have intermission-like snippets of relevant military reports, contrasted with far more casual transcripts from a radio broadcast of the ‘celeb’-type of news excitedly adding to the outlaw mythos. Then there’s a side plot in diary-like entries from a military proctor tasked with investigating the legend that is General Gaby Ortiz. To say that takes a dark tone would only suggest that you’re not already aware of the blood-soaked universe we find ourselves in!

Gaby is fascinating, as her life. The focus here is more on her deaths, though, and that does sometimes feel like it shifts the character out of being in control and more to reacting. Her goal(s) – flowing through all nine lives – are often quite subsumed by the struggle to just survive. I have slightly mixed feelings about this, but also it humanises an almost ‘super-powered’ character, and is actually really good juxtaposition against the whole ‘legend’ theme.

Talking of legends, it’s great to get ‘cameos’ from Ten and Hel, as well as see just a little of the events from the previous two books from a slightly different angle – never at a repetitive level, though, although that does mean you’ll get a lot more from those bits if you’ve read the previous books. In fact, while theoretically you could start here, I think the explanations of the ‘Ifs’ and Factus, and the whole luck/chance thing will work much better with the back story. Besides, Ten Low and Hel’s Eight are both excellent, so definitely go back and start at the beginning! In fact, I wouldn’t say this is my favourite of the three books, but it also adds so much to the series that I’m not complaining!

I wish I could come up with something as descriptive as I did in reviewing the first book (“Recommended for fans of Mad Max, perhaps a bit of Stephen King’s Dark Tower but sci-fi, and yes of course Firefly”) – all of those still apply, for me: this is a western, in space, playing with the laws of physics. Love it all!