Ninth Life by Stark Holborn

Book Review

Martin Willoughby

An evocative dystopian novel that will stay in your mind for some time afterwards.

The book is written as a historical tract, compiled by Military Proctor Idris Blake, who uses as her main source a work titled ‘The Testimony of Havemercy Grey’, as well as various other sources such as military reports and newspaper articles. As a writing style it is pleasant and varied, giving a level of interest that can be missing from the average novel.

Gabriella Ortiz was trained to be a soldier while a child, given various enhancements to enable her to fight and survive. One of only a few to be trained and treated this way she survived far beyond expectations, being given the nickname Nine Lives.

Her final known journey is recalled by a local law enforcement officer called Havemercy Grey in a book mostly lost in time. During this journey to jail and a likely execution, Ortiz tells Grey about her life and several of her many military actions. Through this story Ortiz shows her ability as a military officer and leader, and why she was feared by the very people who created her when she turned against them.

For Blake the story is a revelation about a past she knew little about. But the most disconcerting aspect is that the documentation, physical and digital, disappears soon after her discovery of it. Is there a conspiracy behind the research she was ordered to undertake? Do the leaders want the life of Ortiz expunged from History?

A constant refrain in Grey’s testimony is people telling her ‘don’t let her talk’ while she was guarding Ortiz. But Grey has already made a deal to listen and record, one that she fulfils right to the end. It’s a tale of deceit, violence, and survival.

Arthur C Clarke once wrote that ‘Science Fiction seldom attempts to predict the future. More often than not, it tries to prevent the future’. The older I get and the more I read, the more truthful this is becoming. Ninth Life, like other dystopian books, is a warning.

Holborn’s creation shows worlds divided and ruled by elites whose aim is to stay in power. While there are decent places to live, outside of those areas are worlds where the civilised are told not to go. Those places are ruled through fear and violence by people who themselves only survive rather than live.

There are reflections here of parts of our own world. The backwaters where the law is represented but ignored. Other places where the entertainment is violent and where nature itself infects and kills the people whom live there. Life is nasty, brutish, and short.

It is a skill that writers such as Holborn have in evoking our own times through worlds and situations far away. The ex-military people who have dangerous dreams. A desire in the leadership to cover up its own crimes, they say to themselves, as a necessity.

When viewed through that lens this is not a comfortable read. That being said, it’s still a very good book and well worth reading, even just for the story and its method of telling.