Draft:Stark Holborn

Stark Fairweather Holborn is a pseudonymous British writer of Westerns and western-inspired science fiction, best known for the 2014 digital serial, Nunslinger, and the British Fantasy Award-shortlisted Triggernometry series.

Early life
Holborn says of her childhood: 'When I was a kid my dad – who took a lot of acid when he was young, and used to play bass for Dr. Feelgood before they were famous – read to me a lot, usually whatever he was reading at the time, everything from Aldiss to Burroughs.' Holborn cites as early influences Tamora Pierce, as well as Tolkien and Alan Garner, Philip K. Dick, Halo Jones and classic sci-fi movies like Aliens and The Thing.

Career
Holborn says in interview that she first considered a career as an author when she was nineteen and visiting Australia. After writing one unpublished novel, she sold the idea for Nunslinger to Hodder 'based on the first installment.'

Holborn's first published novel, Nunslinger, was Hodder's first digital serial – consisting of twelve novella-sized installments and 180,000 words - and was published as a series over two years, then republished as a single volume. The Guardian praised it in 2014 as: 'Witty and atmospheric, with a cliffhanger every few chapters.'

This was followed by Triggernometry and Advanced Triggernometry, which were both self-published, Holborn having commissioned Philip Harris, who created the original Nunslinger artwork, for the book jackets. Triggernometry subsequently earned a British Fantasy Award nomination for Best Novella in 2021. Also in 2021 came Ten Low, described by FanFiAddict as: 'the definitive sci-fi spaghetti western, setting the bar for genre-bending speculative fiction,' with the sequel, Hel's Eight, in 2023, and the third volume in the Factus series, Ninth Life, in 2024.

Holborn is also a games writer for the BBC, Cartoon Network and Adult Swim, and is currently a lead writer on the science fiction detective game, Shadows of Doubt.

Holborn has spoken in interview about coming to 'writing interactive fiction via a prose background', and the challenges of worldbuilding in this medium. She has also spoken of the importance of ambiences and soundscapes during her writing process, and says that Ten Low was written to a soundtrack of 'desert wind through trees.'

In 2024 Holborn was one of the judges for the Arthur C. Clarke Award.

Themes
Themes in Holborn's work include: choices, guilt and redemption, and how decision making becomes harder under duress, as well as the issues of free will and the 'importance of atonement'. There is a strong feminist theme to her work, and a challenging of traditional gender roles. On this topic she says: 'Maybe it's because the concept of the frontier has, for so long, been portrayed as a male-dominated space.... Female characters have also been used in the past as shorthand in the concept of manifest destiny: men deal with threats, often violently, clearing the way for women to bring the "civilising" concept of home and procreation to establish the future of a community.'

Reception
Holborn's novels have been variously described as space westerns, weird fiction, horror, fantasy, and with literary elements. They have been praised for their experimental structure, strong writing and fast-paced style. Publishers Weekly describes Triggernometry as: 'a crisply written space western brimming with hard living, villainy, and the search for redemption,' and praises Holborn's ability to create 'an immersive world.' Author Joanne Harris described Hel's Eight as: 'a wonderful fusion of Firefly and Joanna Russ, with an Ennio Morricone soundtrack'.

Identity
Since the publication of Nunslinger, Holborn's true identity has remained elusive. In 2014, The Guardian speculated that the author was probably male. The Herald makes the same assumption. The Irish Times commented on Holborn's mysterious identity, saying: 'What is it with creatives from Bristol...? First Banksy, now Stark, hiding their true identities? Mind you, with work this good, who cares?'

Personal life
Holborn lives in Bristol with her partner.

Nunslinger

 * Omnibus Edition
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Triggernometry



Factus Sequence