What do you think?
Rate this book
Some Desperate Glory
Goodreads Choice Award
Nominee for Readers' Favorite Science Fiction (2023)A thrillingly told queer space opera about the wreckage of war, the family you find, and who you must become when every choice is stripped from you, Some Desperate Glory is Astounding Award Winner Emily Tesh’s highly anticipated debut novel.
While we live, the enemy shall fear us.
Since she was born, Kyr has trained for the day she can avenge the murder of planet Earth. Raised in the bowels of Gaea Station alongside the last scraps of humanity, she readies herself to face the Wisdom, the powerful, reality-shaping weapon that gave the majoda their victory over humanity.
They are what’s left. They are what must survive. Kyr is one of the best warriors of her generation, the sword of a dead planet. When Command assigns her brother to certain death and relegates her to Nursery to bear sons until she dies trying, she knows she must take humanity's revenge into her own hands.
Alongside her brother’s brilliant but seditious friend and a lonely, captive alien, Kyr escapes from everything she’s known into a universe far more complicated than she was taught and far more wondrous than she could have imagined.
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
While we live, the enemy shall fear us.
Since she was born, Kyr has trained for the day she can avenge the murder of planet Earth. Raised in the bowels of Gaea Station alongside the last scraps of humanity, she readies herself to face the Wisdom, the powerful, reality-shaping weapon that gave the majoda their victory over humanity.
They are what’s left. They are what must survive. Kyr is one of the best warriors of her generation, the sword of a dead planet. When Command assigns her brother to certain death and relegates her to Nursery to bear sons until she dies trying, she knows she must take humanity's revenge into her own hands.
Alongside her brother’s brilliant but seditious friend and a lonely, captive alien, Kyr escapes from everything she’s known into a universe far more complicated than she was taught and far more wondrous than she could have imagined.
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
440 pages, Kindle Edition
First published April 11, 2023
About the author
Emily Tesh
7 books1,373 followersEmily Tesh is a winner of the Astounding Award and of the World Fantasy Award for Best Novella. She is the author of the Greenhollow Duology, which begins with Silver in the Wood and concludes with Drowned Country. Some Desperate Glory, her first novel, was released in April 2023.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 2,469 reviews
May 4, 2022
holy. god.
i mean--look, i know i hype a lot of books! that's because i read a lot of excellent books that deserve hype! i regret nothing! but this one is a goddamn barn burner. a deeply smart space opera with all the hyperactive energy of a vorkosigan book, the searing character arcs of the locked tomb series, and a moral clarity and scope all its own. you'll know you're at the halfway point when you start screaming and don't stop.
i mean--look, i know i hype a lot of books! that's because i read a lot of excellent books that deserve hype! i regret nothing! but this one is a goddamn barn burner. a deeply smart space opera with all the hyperactive energy of a vorkosigan book, the searing character arcs of the locked tomb series, and a moral clarity and scope all its own. you'll know you're at the halfway point when you start screaming and don't stop.
Read
February 18, 2023Another book that is hard to review. I've had a few of those lately where there's something interesting going on in the book, but I'm not sure it's successfully executed.
First, the good. It's generally well-written and an easy fast read. The space fantasy worldbuilding is interesting. There's a twist in the middle of the book that I did not see coming at all. When it happened, I was completely surprised. Very cool. (I suggest you avoid plot spoilers if you want the same reaction.)
The more critical. The book takes on some weighty and important topics, including, gender essentialism, fascism, and racism. I absolutely cheer it on for its ambition. But the problem with tackling such important topics is how to do it with nuance. For some readers, esp teen readers, I think a basic X=good, Y=bad can work fine, as this may be an introduction to these ideas and watching a character go through an awakening is effective. (Is this YA? I don't think it is marketed as YA, but it would be much more successful for me if it was.) For an adult reader, I think exploring these topics may require a level of sophistication that this book doesn't have. I think where this flaw shows the most is the last 1/3 of the book which really abandoned in-story believability to simply get the message across, and the ending that felt like an add-on demanded by an agent or editor and not the true ending of the story (as did the flimsy set up for this ending to happen.)
There is one scene that I have to mention, not in a good way, that I'm just baffled by. The MC, now enlightened, asks to touch an alien's "hair". The alien consents (the hair is "springy") and then asks to touch the MC's hair. I gasped. Is this an acknowledgement that the MC still has a long way to go to understand racism? Is this a neo-liberal cry that we are all curious about each other's hair, and that's what brings us together? Or is it something else I'm simply not getting? I have to assume that a white woman writing about fascism and racism specifically against Black people, is aware of the politics of Black hair, and deliberately chose to add an alien hair-touching scene. It was jarring, and I'm truly curious why it is there.
As you can see from my reaction to the hair touching scene, I think this book's success will depend a lot on the reader and their level of engagement and sophistication with the big topics. The overall story and world building were good, and although there are some glossed over tech moments that didn't quite make sense, I'm never a stickler over those, even in science fiction. Characters are a little thin on the ground, but I'm ok with that because this feels more like a plot-driven issues book than a character book.
The good news is that reviews are just my opinion, and you can read it and form your own.
First, the good. It's generally well-written and an easy fast read. The space fantasy worldbuilding is interesting. There's a twist in the middle of the book that I did not see coming at all. When it happened, I was completely surprised. Very cool. (I suggest you avoid plot spoilers if you want the same reaction.)
The more critical. The book takes on some weighty and important topics, including, gender essentialism, fascism, and racism. I absolutely cheer it on for its ambition. But the problem with tackling such important topics is how to do it with nuance. For some readers, esp teen readers, I think a basic X=good, Y=bad can work fine, as this may be an introduction to these ideas and watching a character go through an awakening is effective. (Is this YA? I don't think it is marketed as YA, but it would be much more successful for me if it was.) For an adult reader, I think exploring these topics may require a level of sophistication that this book doesn't have. I think where this flaw shows the most is the last 1/3 of the book which really abandoned in-story believability to simply get the message across, and the ending that felt like an add-on demanded by an agent or editor and not the true ending of the story (as did the flimsy set up for this ending to happen.)
There is one scene that I have to mention, not in a good way, that I'm just baffled by. The MC, now enlightened, asks to touch an alien's "hair". The alien consents (the hair is "springy") and then asks to touch the MC's hair. I gasped. Is this an acknowledgement that the MC still has a long way to go to understand racism? Is this a neo-liberal cry that we are all curious about each other's hair, and that's what brings us together? Or is it something else I'm simply not getting? I have to assume that a white woman writing about fascism and racism specifically against Black people, is aware of the politics of Black hair, and deliberately chose to add an alien hair-touching scene. It was jarring, and I'm truly curious why it is there.
As you can see from my reaction to the hair touching scene, I think this book's success will depend a lot on the reader and their level of engagement and sophistication with the big topics. The overall story and world building were good, and although there are some glossed over tech moments that didn't quite make sense, I'm never a stickler over those, even in science fiction. Characters are a little thin on the ground, but I'm ok with that because this feels more like a plot-driven issues book than a character book.
The good news is that reviews are just my opinion, and you can read it and form your own.
June 23, 2023
a difficult rate - the things that are marvelous about it are fully to the author's credit; the things that are frustrating or that turned me off were largely either preferential or genre issues. i felt the sum of reader experience across the course of the book - five-star emotions, three-star emotions, zero-star ones. it is the first book i have read beginning to end for pleasure in months. i think it will do very well. i think that's fine. i think it will also generate a series of conversations about frustrations that outstrip the book. i personally love to have conversations. let's dig in.
the good:
emily tesh is a genius of character. i haven't read her novellas but here even though everyone is very much working within their archetypes she can communicate vivid, layered personality inside of those established silhouettes. kyr begins the book unfussily and unsexily despicable - a narrow-minded, narrow-sighted bully - and the book takes care to excavates her protagonist heart of gold rather than forcing it externally. this arc feels sincere and, for the most part (the hand gets a bit heavy in the very last act), driven by story rather than didacticism.
she also balances the ability to write gripping, clear combat scenes with a precise ability to make violence, and specifically death, feel petty and small. i find a lot of violent stories about the worthlessness of violence to be projects of the author's desire to have their cake (pow kick smash) and eat it too (Under No Circmstances Do We Endorse The Pow Kick Smash Method). that's not the case here. every death is painful to read because it is wasteful, because it is small. i have a very strong stomach for violence but i often felt sort of sick reading this, not because it's gruesome but because it always gave you an unsparing sense of how wasteful it all was.
this is not precisely a virtue but i found this to be a strikingly british book, lmao. the perspective on military violence is recognizably informed by wwi-era literature (wilfred owen title hellooo); kyr's staunch, virtuous bullying at the start of the book is because she's a nightmare prefect. and while the world of literature, specifically genre literature, is never skint on British Representation, it's nonetheless always nice to have specifics.
the bad (personal):
putting it on the table: i am spaceship agnostic, i am raygun skeptical, and most of all, i don't give a single shit about aliens. so like. even if the book had been a total 10/10 i was never going to tattoo it onto my personality. readers who see aliens (and spaceships, and things of that nature) as a value add will come in inclined to be generous and be rewarded for it.
the bad (critical):
being Specifically, Ideologically British comes at a cost; namely, that - look, i am an american, i am aware about culturally poisoned wells, and with that in mind - white british cis women are drinking poison and even the most well-meaning, queer-affirming of them writes reproductive terror so god damn weird. the book is doing very entry level commentary on fascist gender roles, fine, but its hangups are so specifically ovarian and the worldbuilding around how bad the reproductive health is in space magic world (even a petty fascist cult in space magic world) is deeply stupid. 'they have so much sexism in space they have destroyed every form of babymaking gene tech and kill off a third of their mothers on a limited population ship that wants to grow their population' girl............okay.
it's also like, okay, space gender fascist cult has super strict cissexist gender binary, and we're otherwise in a queernorm pro-nb world, fine sure great, but now that you mention it, if we're hung up on specifically ovaries in the space cult, and almost everyone in the space cult is secretly gay, are we going to. Talk about trans people? Give a little nod to them in-world, in the crushing ovarian terror dystopia? i wasn't gonna ask i certainly wasn't going to demand but NOW THAT YOU MENTION IT: ?
also there's a ton of gay, great, but i do want to make it clear: there's no f/f romance in this. our protag gets a gay awakening, for sure, but the would-be LI is extremely offpage and the least developed person in the book, missing the depth underpinning everyone else's sketch. which is not a sin in and of itself buuuuut: there's a m/m dynamic that, while also not in any sense an on-page 'romance' is nonetheless - let's say a compelling yuletide prompt; it's chewy, it's thorny, and both characters have motivation and presence. there's an equivalent dynamic that could've been this for kyr and it's baffling that her foil is straight. like i GUESS it's fine to have a charged relationship between women that you the author believe is in no way sexually charged, and also the protagonist thinks 'oh wow the girl who's nice, who's not here, i would love to kiss her'. I GUESS. but when the f/f is so unflavored and distant and there's a m/m relationship that's visibly a sort of fandom-informed hook... let's generously call it insufficiently examined. it's lazy.
the ugly (genre 2022):
the book is poised to receive critical acclaim, which it will merit. the book is being positioned to generate a fandom for itself, which, sure. but it does feel designed-to-type in both of those things, as if it was built out of a 'how to succeed in sff 2022 (by really really trying)' handbook. checklist:
- space worldbuilt as an extension of present-day earth, with a goal to make intergalactic stories feel intimate, nay, cozy
- diverse, queernorm world
- 'found family'
- 'sapphic' marketing hook without much romance underpinning it
- m/m relationship that's big good guy/little bitch guy
- straightforward moral message that is politically reassuring to readers
- a little creature or child that is designed to consume the reader's sympathies (cozy fantasy is bringing back the classic morality pet in a big way)
- directly informed by movies/tv/dnd/video games as much as - or more than - current or previous books (this has sooooooO much mass effect Oh my goooOOdD)
none of these things are inherent sins; several of them are inherently good things and several are things that, even when often done poorly, this novel does well. i liked the little bitch boy. i admired the sensitivity and feeling of the author's stance on violence. i had a good time. i think it's as good an ambassador as any for 'representative novel of the genre in 2023' but in that representation it makes the genre feel small. is this all there is? is it going to be like this every time?
the real crime:
kyr is described SEVERAL times as 'built like a tank'. the cover artist is a clown and a coward.
the good:
emily tesh is a genius of character. i haven't read her novellas but here even though everyone is very much working within their archetypes she can communicate vivid, layered personality inside of those established silhouettes. kyr begins the book unfussily and unsexily despicable - a narrow-minded, narrow-sighted bully - and the book takes care to excavates her protagonist heart of gold rather than forcing it externally. this arc feels sincere and, for the most part (the hand gets a bit heavy in the very last act), driven by story rather than didacticism.
she also balances the ability to write gripping, clear combat scenes with a precise ability to make violence, and specifically death, feel petty and small. i find a lot of violent stories about the worthlessness of violence to be projects of the author's desire to have their cake (pow kick smash) and eat it too (Under No Circmstances Do We Endorse The Pow Kick Smash Method). that's not the case here. every death is painful to read because it is wasteful, because it is small. i have a very strong stomach for violence but i often felt sort of sick reading this, not because it's gruesome but because it always gave you an unsparing sense of how wasteful it all was.
this is not precisely a virtue but i found this to be a strikingly british book, lmao. the perspective on military violence is recognizably informed by wwi-era literature (wilfred owen title hellooo); kyr's staunch, virtuous bullying at the start of the book is because she's a nightmare prefect. and while the world of literature, specifically genre literature, is never skint on British Representation, it's nonetheless always nice to have specifics.
the bad (personal):
putting it on the table: i am spaceship agnostic, i am raygun skeptical, and most of all, i don't give a single shit about aliens. so like. even if the book had been a total 10/10 i was never going to tattoo it onto my personality. readers who see aliens (and spaceships, and things of that nature) as a value add will come in inclined to be generous and be rewarded for it.
the bad (critical):
being Specifically, Ideologically British comes at a cost; namely, that - look, i am an american, i am aware about culturally poisoned wells, and with that in mind - white british cis women are drinking poison and even the most well-meaning, queer-affirming of them writes reproductive terror so god damn weird. the book is doing very entry level commentary on fascist gender roles, fine, but its hangups are so specifically ovarian and the worldbuilding around how bad the reproductive health is in space magic world (even a petty fascist cult in space magic world) is deeply stupid. 'they have so much sexism in space they have destroyed every form of babymaking gene tech and kill off a third of their mothers on a limited population ship that wants to grow their population' girl............okay.
it's also like, okay, space gender fascist cult has super strict cissexist gender binary, and we're otherwise in a queernorm pro-nb world, fine sure great, but now that you mention it, if we're hung up on specifically ovaries in the space cult, and almost everyone in the space cult is secretly gay, are we going to. Talk about trans people? Give a little nod to them in-world, in the crushing ovarian terror dystopia? i wasn't gonna ask i certainly wasn't going to demand but NOW THAT YOU MENTION IT: ?
also there's a ton of gay, great, but i do want to make it clear: there's no f/f romance in this. our protag gets a gay awakening, for sure, but the would-be LI is extremely offpage and the least developed person in the book, missing the depth underpinning everyone else's sketch. which is not a sin in and of itself buuuuut: there's a m/m dynamic that, while also not in any sense an on-page 'romance' is nonetheless - let's say a compelling yuletide prompt; it's chewy, it's thorny, and both characters have motivation and presence. there's an equivalent dynamic that could've been this for kyr and it's baffling that her foil is straight. like i GUESS it's fine to have a charged relationship between women that you the author believe is in no way sexually charged, and also the protagonist thinks 'oh wow the girl who's nice, who's not here, i would love to kiss her'. I GUESS. but when the f/f is so unflavored and distant and there's a m/m relationship that's visibly a sort of fandom-informed hook... let's generously call it insufficiently examined. it's lazy.
the ugly (genre 2022):
the book is poised to receive critical acclaim, which it will merit. the book is being positioned to generate a fandom for itself, which, sure. but it does feel designed-to-type in both of those things, as if it was built out of a 'how to succeed in sff 2022 (by really really trying)' handbook. checklist:
- space worldbuilt as an extension of present-day earth, with a goal to make intergalactic stories feel intimate, nay, cozy
- diverse, queernorm world
- 'found family'
- 'sapphic' marketing hook without much romance underpinning it
- m/m relationship that's big good guy/little bitch guy
- straightforward moral message that is politically reassuring to readers
- a little creature or child that is designed to consume the reader's sympathies (cozy fantasy is bringing back the classic morality pet in a big way)
- directly informed by movies/tv/dnd/video games as much as - or more than - current or previous books (this has sooooooO much mass effect Oh my goooOOdD)
none of these things are inherent sins; several of them are inherently good things and several are things that, even when often done poorly, this novel does well. i liked the little bitch boy. i admired the sensitivity and feeling of the author's stance on violence. i had a good time. i think it's as good an ambassador as any for 'representative novel of the genre in 2023' but in that representation it makes the genre feel small. is this all there is? is it going to be like this every time?
the real crime:
kyr is described SEVERAL times as 'built like a tank'. the cover artist is a clown and a coward.
Read
July 16, 2021It blew me away. Teenage supersoldier Kyr is a revelatory hero: never have I so fervently wished the worst for someone, only to end up cheering for them—crying for them!—hard enough to risk injury. Tesh unpeels the known world from around her young militants with flawless control, revealing the lies and atrocities beneath—but also the possibility of choice, and compassion. Fierce and heart-breakingly humane, this book is for everyone who loved Ender’s Game, but Ender’s Game didn’t love them back.
September 24, 2024
Easily one of my favorite books of 2024.
Picked up because of the Hugo award, Locus nom, and a 4-5 point rating among my book-compatible friends. I found it deeply engrossing and occasionally uncomfortable, deeply satisfying story. I was curious what others thought, and noted a typical bell-curve reaction among readers at large, skewing towards very positive. I was expecting a space opera; what I didn't expect was the surprisingly ambitious layers that solidly connected the book to sci-fi traditions, current but sadly timeless politics, and Buddhist explorations of self. There are occasional touches of humor--not many--and fascinating stuff is done with character growth. Certainly, your experiences will vary.
"'Seriously?' said Kyr. 'I don't even know me.'
'I apologize. I am sure you are having a complicated time.'"
Tesh lists LeGuin as an influence, but I thought, quite honestly, it is written much more snappily than LeGuin. I would say I was reminded of--in no particular order--Dark Matter, The Hunger Games, The Gate to Women's Country, and The Handmaid’s Tale. It uses a touch of classic sci-fi framing with the first few pages of a section being taken from a historical book for cultural framing.
This is one book that I appreciated going into blind. Unfortunately, most of my quotes are spoilers. There is one quote that I can't help but resonate with, for so many reasons:
“''Fourteen billion people,' said Kyr.
'Yes,' said Leru. 'Set against the interests of trillions. I doubt that will sway you. Most humans are quite bad with numbers.'"
Side thoughts on self: this week's Buddhist teaching was on the impermanence of self, or depending on how you look at it, it's permanence. When a farmer plants a seed, while it is still a seed, he also sees the plants grown, he sees the harvest in the fall, he may even see the people fed. Is that plant not there because it is a seed?
Picked up because of the Hugo award, Locus nom, and a 4-5 point rating among my book-compatible friends. I found it deeply engrossing and occasionally uncomfortable, deeply satisfying story. I was curious what others thought, and noted a typical bell-curve reaction among readers at large, skewing towards very positive. I was expecting a space opera; what I didn't expect was the surprisingly ambitious layers that solidly connected the book to sci-fi traditions, current but sadly timeless politics, and Buddhist explorations of self. There are occasional touches of humor--not many--and fascinating stuff is done with character growth. Certainly, your experiences will vary.
"'Seriously?' said Kyr. 'I don't even know me.'
'I apologize. I am sure you are having a complicated time.'"
Tesh lists LeGuin as an influence, but I thought, quite honestly, it is written much more snappily than LeGuin. I would say I was reminded of--in no particular order--Dark Matter, The Hunger Games, The Gate to Women's Country, and The Handmaid’s Tale. It uses a touch of classic sci-fi framing with the first few pages of a section being taken from a historical book for cultural framing.
This is one book that I appreciated going into blind. Unfortunately, most of my quotes are spoilers. There is one quote that I can't help but resonate with, for so many reasons:
“''Fourteen billion people,' said Kyr.
'Yes,' said Leru. 'Set against the interests of trillions. I doubt that will sway you. Most humans are quite bad with numbers.'"
Side thoughts on self: this week's Buddhist teaching was on the impermanence of self, or depending on how you look at it, it's permanence. When a farmer plants a seed, while it is still a seed, he also sees the plants grown, he sees the harvest in the fall, he may even see the people fed. Is that plant not there because it is a seed?
April 6, 2023
I DNFed and then read some spoiler reviews and picked it back up to finish because i was too curious not to and it honestly got so much worse. the first 50% is pretty dreadful. the main character is not just unlikable, she’s cruel and awful and vile. She’s homophobic and transphobic and racist and a eugenicist and it’s such an unbearable POV to read from. The second 50% is more like 3 stars just because it was so action packed it was hard to not be moderately interesting. But Kyr’s “redemption arc” was so fantastically undeserved it was almost ludicrous. Some Desperate Glory tackles some extremely heavy topics (racism, homophobia, eugenics, resisting fascist governments) in an incredibly shallow way. There is so little characterization and the plot is basically just ex machina after ex machina. None of the “science” in this sci-fi is even remotely explained and the world building was very half-baked. So much of it just felt silly (world-ending darts, really?). It feels like the events of what could make up a trilogy were half baked and thrown into a single book.
There’s a particular scene at the very end of the book where Kyr asks Yiso (the alien she has spent the majority of the book being racist towards and purposefully misgendered constantly) to touch their hair and they say yes. And then Yiso asks Kyr if they can touch her hair and she says yes…. And it’s framed as this moment of connection where the two finally understand one another and Kyr sees Yiso for who they are. And like… what the fuck? Considering the exoticization of non-white hair and how frequently hair-related micro agression occur, it’s such a weird scene and entirely unnecessary??
There’s a particular scene at the very end of the book where Kyr asks Yiso (the alien she has spent the majority of the book being racist towards and purposefully misgendered constantly) to touch their hair and they say yes. And then Yiso asks Kyr if they can touch her hair and she says yes…. And it’s framed as this moment of connection where the two finally understand one another and Kyr sees Yiso for who they are. And like… what the fuck? Considering the exoticization of non-white hair and how frequently hair-related micro agression occur, it’s such a weird scene and entirely unnecessary??
April 24, 2023
4.5 stars
Some Desperate Glory took me on a space romp. And oh, did I have fun.
Emily Tesh’s queer space opera is all about Kyr, a young warrior who has trained her entire life on Gaea Station to fight an alien faction that destroyed planet Earth, called the majoda. Kyr is firm in her hatred of the majoda and patiently awaits her turn to come of age and enter combat. But when she is instead assigned to Gaea Station’s nursery to bear and raise children, Kyr gives herself a different mission, one that will fulfill what she considers to be her true purpose.
Some Desperate Glory is relentless in its storytelling and thrilling in its execution. Tesh sucks the reader into Kyr’s world on the very first page and, moving forward, dishes out nothing but non-stop action and excitement.
But it isn’t easy to like Kyr. She’s cold, unsympathetic, and prejudiced, her inner nature and belief system having been molded by Gaea Station.
What left me somewhat wanting, though, isn’t so much the character of Kyr as the depth of which Tesh addresses the heavy themes of the story. The novel is marketed as adult sci-fi and tackles racism, homophobia, sexism, suicide, and eugenics, but all with a simple, heavy-handed touch more suitable to a younger audience. As an adult reader, I would’ve appreciated a deeper dive.
Still, it’s a minor complaint about what is otherwise a fantastic read. I’m a huge fan of Some Desperate Glory and will sing its praises to all who will listen.
My sincerest appreciation to Emily Tesh, Tordotcom, and NetGalley for the digital review copy. All opinions included herein are my own.
Some Desperate Glory took me on a space romp. And oh, did I have fun.
Emily Tesh’s queer space opera is all about Kyr, a young warrior who has trained her entire life on Gaea Station to fight an alien faction that destroyed planet Earth, called the majoda. Kyr is firm in her hatred of the majoda and patiently awaits her turn to come of age and enter combat. But when she is instead assigned to Gaea Station’s nursery to bear and raise children, Kyr gives herself a different mission, one that will fulfill what she considers to be her true purpose.
Some Desperate Glory is relentless in its storytelling and thrilling in its execution. Tesh sucks the reader into Kyr’s world on the very first page and, moving forward, dishes out nothing but non-stop action and excitement.
But it isn’t easy to like Kyr. She’s cold, unsympathetic, and prejudiced, her inner nature and belief system having been molded by Gaea Station.
What left me somewhat wanting, though, isn’t so much the character of Kyr as the depth of which Tesh addresses the heavy themes of the story. The novel is marketed as adult sci-fi and tackles racism, homophobia, sexism, suicide, and eugenics, but all with a simple, heavy-handed touch more suitable to a younger audience. As an adult reader, I would’ve appreciated a deeper dive.
Still, it’s a minor complaint about what is otherwise a fantastic read. I’m a huge fan of Some Desperate Glory and will sing its praises to all who will listen.
My sincerest appreciation to Emily Tesh, Tordotcom, and NetGalley for the digital review copy. All opinions included herein are my own.
Read
December 19, 2022Hello everyone! This review contains some content notes for SOME DESPERATE GLORY. I hope it helps you to read with care.
Content notes are intended to inform people if this book is for them or contains things that might be dealbreakers. The short version of the content note is a brief summary of some things a reader might wish to be aware of in advance. The long (& spoilery) version goes into more detail about the setting, context, and outcome of some of these elements within the story, in case that information is useful to you.
Content note (short version)
SOME DESPERATE GLORY contains sexist, homophobic, transphobic, racist & ableist attitudes, sexual assault including discussion of forced pregnancy, violence, child abuse, radicalisation as child abuse, genocide, suicidal ideation, and suicide.
_
Content note (long version)
A final word: SOME DESPERATE GLORY takes place in a dark world but not - I think - a hopeless one. For what it's worth: survival, escape, and change are all possible.
Content notes are intended to inform people if this book is for them or contains things that might be dealbreakers. The short version of the content note is a brief summary of some things a reader might wish to be aware of in advance. The long (& spoilery) version goes into more detail about the setting, context, and outcome of some of these elements within the story, in case that information is useful to you.
Content note (short version)
SOME DESPERATE GLORY contains sexist, homophobic, transphobic, racist & ableist attitudes, sexual assault including discussion of forced pregnancy, violence, child abuse, radicalisation as child abuse, genocide, suicidal ideation, and suicide.
_
Content note (long version)
A final word: SOME DESPERATE GLORY takes place in a dark world but not - I think - a hopeless one. For what it's worth: survival, escape, and change are all possible.
December 28, 2022
There seems to be a lot of hype around this one, describing it as a queer space opera, and there are lots of reviews raving about it. My take is that it is a good story, well told. Nothing groundbreaking here.
However I did enjoy the story. The main character, Kyr, is not really likeable but she has been brainwashed into her opinions and her approval of the way things are on Gaea Station, and she acts accordingly. As the book progresses and her eyes are opened she changes. There is plenty of action and there are some very tense moments especially towards the end of the book.
Overall a nicely written book with an enjoyable story. Four stars
My thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this book.
However I did enjoy the story. The main character, Kyr, is not really likeable but she has been brainwashed into her opinions and her approval of the way things are on Gaea Station, and she acts accordingly. As the book progresses and her eyes are opened she changes. There is plenty of action and there are some very tense moments especially towards the end of the book.
Overall a nicely written book with an enjoyable story. Four stars
My thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this book.
April 13, 2023
3.0 Stars
Video Review: https://youtu.be/3N44yuQV08k
This was a fast paced engaging new science fiction novel. While marketed as adult fiction, this one felt like more of a YA crossover due to immaturity of the character and simplicity of the themes. The story attempts to address some serious issues but it does so in a rather basic way. The modern dialogue kept pulling me out of immersion. I wanted to love this but I was underwhelmed.
Disclaimer I received a copy of this book from the publisher.
Video Review: https://youtu.be/3N44yuQV08k
This was a fast paced engaging new science fiction novel. While marketed as adult fiction, this one felt like more of a YA crossover due to immaturity of the character and simplicity of the themes. The story attempts to address some serious issues but it does so in a rather basic way. The modern dialogue kept pulling me out of immersion. I wanted to love this but I was underwhelmed.
Disclaimer I received a copy of this book from the publisher.
December 20, 2023
TW: suicide; rape (off page); death of family; xenophobia; torture; sexism
This was such an interesting story and went in directions I was not expecting from the story. If you enjoy the idea of parallel universes, you’ll love this.
This was such an interesting story and went in directions I was not expecting from the story. If you enjoy the idea of parallel universes, you’ll love this.
March 14, 2023
2 stars
Let me start off with saying that I had been waiting for this book to come out ever since the publishing rights were sold and it was announced. Previously I had read Tesh's Greenhollow duology, which is among the list of my favourite books. I was so ready to love Some Desperate Glory, it sounded great just from the premise. Teenage supersoldier Kyr is born for battle at their militant planetoid community, but once her brother is assigned to be a suicide bomber and Kyr sent to breed soldier babies, she leaves behind the Atwood-ian life she has grown up in to save her brother.
That all sounds lovely and great, we have a brainwashed child soldier, hell-bent on revenge and everyone's excited to see Kyr realize all that brainwashing was just propaganda. I would say the plot is pretty enjoyable till the 30% or so mark which is how long it takes for the events mentioned in the blurb to take place. That should have been warning enough of the kind of book this would turn out to be, but I was an optimistic dumbass.
From that moment on, the plot unravels pretty fast, there is so much going on and the reader is just supposed to shut up and take it all in, because asking questions of how A worked or how B was possible will just be pointless because frankly enough none of it makes sense. I love the scifi genre and am able to suspend my disbelief for quite a lot of shenanigans. But sometimes, fantasy authors assume that scifi is not much different from fantasy except it's just set in space. But even in fantasy, you have to explain the magic system etc and how the world works. In Glory, however, some fancy mumbo jumbo like "shadow engines" and "reality distortions" are thrown around and the reader is supposed to just nod along and assume it makes perfect sense. The plot holes are so glaringly obvious that it all ends up being painful.
The debates and discussions on the nature of fascism and propaganda were interesting enough but were not enough to carry the weight of the novel. I didn't really care for any of the characters except maybe for Avi, though it was less liking his character and more being intrigued by what war crimes he would commit next. Another issue I had was with the mismarketing of this book. Just because T Muir was willing to blurb the book, and it has teenage soldiers in space and hints of sapphicness, does not make it the new Gideon the Ninth. Funnily enough, while GtN is termed as scifi and space opera, I would say it's way more fantasy. The science fiction aspects of GtN only serve as a background to the story and if tesh had taken that route with her world building it might have actually worked! But instead, Glory tries to ride along the multiverse rodeo which backfires because the science behind the plot just doesn't add up!
The wonky science, the absent yet forced romance, and the messy plotting made Some Desperate Glory to be a disappointing novel for me. Readers of YA sci-fi might like it if they like jarring plot twists and philosophising about the aspects of living under a dictatorship. Some Desperate Glory comes out 06/04/23.
Thank you to Netgalley and Orbit UK for sending me an advanced readers' copy in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
that was a waste of time and an insult to my intelligence. RTC
Let me start off with saying that I had been waiting for this book to come out ever since the publishing rights were sold and it was announced. Previously I had read Tesh's Greenhollow duology, which is among the list of my favourite books. I was so ready to love Some Desperate Glory, it sounded great just from the premise. Teenage supersoldier Kyr is born for battle at their militant planetoid community, but once her brother is assigned to be a suicide bomber and Kyr sent to breed soldier babies, she leaves behind the Atwood-ian life she has grown up in to save her brother.
That all sounds lovely and great, we have a brainwashed child soldier, hell-bent on revenge and everyone's excited to see Kyr realize all that brainwashing was just propaganda. I would say the plot is pretty enjoyable till the 30% or so mark which is how long it takes for the events mentioned in the blurb to take place. That should have been warning enough of the kind of book this would turn out to be, but I was an optimistic dumbass.
From that moment on, the plot unravels pretty fast, there is so much going on and the reader is just supposed to shut up and take it all in, because asking questions of how A worked or how B was possible will just be pointless because frankly enough none of it makes sense. I love the scifi genre and am able to suspend my disbelief for quite a lot of shenanigans. But sometimes, fantasy authors assume that scifi is not much different from fantasy except it's just set in space. But even in fantasy, you have to explain the magic system etc and how the world works. In Glory, however, some fancy mumbo jumbo like "shadow engines" and "reality distortions" are thrown around and the reader is supposed to just nod along and assume it makes perfect sense. The plot holes are so glaringly obvious that it all ends up being painful.
The debates and discussions on the nature of fascism and propaganda were interesting enough but were not enough to carry the weight of the novel. I didn't really care for any of the characters except maybe for Avi, though it was less liking his character and more being intrigued by what war crimes he would commit next. Another issue I had was with the mismarketing of this book. Just because T Muir was willing to blurb the book, and it has teenage soldiers in space and hints of sapphicness, does not make it the new Gideon the Ninth. Funnily enough, while GtN is termed as scifi and space opera, I would say it's way more fantasy. The science fiction aspects of GtN only serve as a background to the story and if tesh had taken that route with her world building it might have actually worked! But instead, Glory tries to ride along the multiverse rodeo which backfires because the science behind the plot just doesn't add up!
The wonky science, the absent yet forced romance, and the messy plotting made Some Desperate Glory to be a disappointing novel for me. Readers of YA sci-fi might like it if they like jarring plot twists and philosophising about the aspects of living under a dictatorship. Some Desperate Glory comes out 06/04/23.
Thank you to Netgalley and Orbit UK for sending me an advanced readers' copy in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
that was a waste of time and an insult to my intelligence. RTC
October 29, 2022
Update: I forgot to come back and edit this when I actually read it but HOLY MOTHER OF GOD I WAS NOT AT ALL PREPARED AND I AM ETERNALLY OBSESSED. And no matter what you think or feel during the first half of this book, trust Emily Tesh. I was very nervous that SDG wasn't what I'd hoped it would be for the first half or so and then BAM. I especially recommend this to my fellow Locked Tomb enjoyers!
June 2021: Dark queer space opera comped to Gideon the Ninth AND set in a Mass Effect inspired universe? THIS IS EVERYTHING I'VE EVER WANTED IN A BOOK, I NEED IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Love queer books, too? Let's be friends! Bookstagram | Booktube | Booktok | Book Blog | Twitter
June 2021: Dark queer space opera comped to Gideon the Ninth AND set in a Mass Effect inspired universe? THIS IS EVERYTHING I'VE EVER WANTED IN A BOOK, I NEED IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Love queer books, too? Let's be friends! Bookstagram | Booktube | Booktok | Book Blog | Twitter
September 15, 2024
Pride Month
Kyr has trained all her short life to avenge the murder of Planet Earth. When command assigns her to Nursery (yes, in a very The Handmaid’s Tale-esque manner), she starts to forge her own path.
I loved the beginning and end of this book much more than the middle. I enjoyed Kyr's character. While young, she makes less terrible decisions than other protagonists in the genre. I liked the aliens we interacted with.
Maybe controversial, but are all human starring space operas basically colonization on a grander scale?
🎧 Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio
Kyr has trained all her short life to avenge the murder of Planet Earth. When command assigns her to Nursery (yes, in a very The Handmaid’s Tale-esque manner), she starts to forge her own path.
I loved the beginning and end of this book much more than the middle. I enjoyed Kyr's character. While young, she makes less terrible decisions than other protagonists in the genre. I liked the aliens we interacted with.
Maybe controversial, but are all human starring space operas basically colonization on a grander scale?
🎧 Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio
August 26, 2024
I was struggling with my feelings on this book from as early as the first 12% of it, but I think everything I'm feeling really just boils down to the fact that this is a YA sci-fi novel playing dress up as an adult sci-fi novel.
I can understand 100% why many people have DNF'd this pretty early on. Kyr is a very hard character to be in the mind of; she is essentially born into what is a big fascist cult, and her every action is informed by that. She's a bully. She's homophobic. She's blinkered to the reality of her life. She never questions a single thing. It's not until she's given the assignment to basically be breeding stock for the rest of her life versus the military glory she was seeking that things feel off for her.
Now, once I realized that this was from the perspective of an indoctrinated teenager, I was able to shift my focus and give massive allowances for the story and the narrative. This had to be a novel about her breaking that indoctrination, obviously, so I was looking forward to that character arc. I wanted all the good meaty moments of the world falling apart and Kyr fracturing and putting herself back together.
But this novel just kind of...relies on plot to make any sort of character work for Kyr happen. Literally NONE of Kyr's character growth would happen without all the deus ex machinas that are used as plot points to move things forward.
AND THEN THE HALFWAY POINT OF THIS FUCKING BOOK HAPPENED AND I FELT BAFFLED. BAMBOOZLED. CONFUSED.
The sci-fi aspect of this novel just got fucking wild from there, and after that first massive tonal shift it lost me. I kept going because I wanted to follow Kyr's character journey, but what the fuuuuuck.
By the end I didn't feel like Kyr's redemption and character arc was earned at all. It felt like the plot beats and deus ex machinas were dragging her kicking and screaming to the other side.
I still read the whole thing. I was still intrigued. This just felt like it was 3 different books and ideas mashed up into poor world building, poor character work for everyone that wasn't Kyr, and every theme laid out neatly with long labels to describe exactly how to feel and why things were bad or good. This is why I felt like it was so YA. And I don't care how much it was lamp shaded by older characters groaning about teenagers who think they're gonna change the world - it felt YA in how simplistic the themes were, and how young the characters felt and acted.
I do have to say that despite how young Kyr felt and how much the plot drove the character forward, Tesh's character work was really great. But only for Kyr.
If you read this because you wanted a queer space opera, I'm so sorry. The "sapphic romance" and any and all mention of queerness that didn't come from grossly homophobic mouths could have taken up 3 whole pages of this entire novel. Or maybe 5, idk, I listened on audio. And if you came here for found family, LOL I'm sorry for your wasted time.
Who would I recommend this to? Readers who aren't too familiar with sci-fi, but still want something that is very sci-fi while also being super easy to process. Readers who are okay with being in the mind of a very complex and young feeling character that you'll hate at first. Readers who are looking for something a tiny step above a YA sci-fi.
I can understand 100% why many people have DNF'd this pretty early on. Kyr is a very hard character to be in the mind of; she is essentially born into what is a big fascist cult, and her every action is informed by that. She's a bully. She's homophobic. She's blinkered to the reality of her life. She never questions a single thing. It's not until she's given the assignment to basically be breeding stock for the rest of her life versus the military glory she was seeking that things feel off for her.
Now, once I realized that this was from the perspective of an indoctrinated teenager, I was able to shift my focus and give massive allowances for the story and the narrative. This had to be a novel about her breaking that indoctrination, obviously, so I was looking forward to that character arc. I wanted all the good meaty moments of the world falling apart and Kyr fracturing and putting herself back together.
But this novel just kind of...relies on plot to make any sort of character work for Kyr happen. Literally NONE of Kyr's character growth would happen without all the deus ex machinas that are used as plot points to move things forward.
AND THEN THE HALFWAY POINT OF THIS FUCKING BOOK HAPPENED AND I FELT BAFFLED. BAMBOOZLED. CONFUSED.
The sci-fi aspect of this novel just got fucking wild from there, and after that first massive tonal shift it lost me. I kept going because I wanted to follow Kyr's character journey, but what the fuuuuuck.
By the end I didn't feel like Kyr's redemption and character arc was earned at all. It felt like the plot beats and deus ex machinas were dragging her kicking and screaming to the other side.
I still read the whole thing. I was still intrigued. This just felt like it was 3 different books and ideas mashed up into poor world building, poor character work for everyone that wasn't Kyr, and every theme laid out neatly with long labels to describe exactly how to feel and why things were bad or good. This is why I felt like it was so YA. And I don't care how much it was lamp shaded by older characters groaning about teenagers who think they're gonna change the world - it felt YA in how simplistic the themes were, and how young the characters felt and acted.
I do have to say that despite how young Kyr felt and how much the plot drove the character forward, Tesh's character work was really great. But only for Kyr.
If you read this because you wanted a queer space opera, I'm so sorry. The "sapphic romance" and any and all mention of queerness that didn't come from grossly homophobic mouths could have taken up 3 whole pages of this entire novel. Or maybe 5, idk, I listened on audio. And if you came here for found family, LOL I'm sorry for your wasted time.
Who would I recommend this to? Readers who aren't too familiar with sci-fi, but still want something that is very sci-fi while also being super easy to process. Readers who are okay with being in the mind of a very complex and young feeling character that you'll hate at first. Readers who are looking for something a tiny step above a YA sci-fi.
April 1, 2023
This is an interesting one to review because if it had been sold as YA science fiction, I would be praising it. It has a young protagonist and really reads like YA, but much better than most YA science fiction on the market.
But Some Desperate Glory is being released as an adult title. And as a sci-fi novel for adult audiences, it's fine but rather simplistic and not super memorable. It's fairly engaging and fast paced, trying to tackle big themes like indoctrination, misogyny, and abuse but doing so in a fairly simple way. And while the scope of the premise is a large and interesting one, it's all told through a single perspective with a character who is not very self-aware or quick to pick up on things around her. The character work lacks the depth and nuance that I want from an adult title and while reasonably well-executed, the story is pretty straight-forward and not doing anything I haven't seen before. This concept could have been leveled up with a couple more character perspectives of different ages and personalities, deeper character work and world-building, and an ending that carries more emotional impact.
As it is, I would recommend this to readers of YA science fiction looking for something a bit more mature. It would work as a sort of crossover title. Not bad, but also not what I was hoping for. The audio narration is good though. I received a copy of this book for review from the publisher, all opinions are my own.
But Some Desperate Glory is being released as an adult title. And as a sci-fi novel for adult audiences, it's fine but rather simplistic and not super memorable. It's fairly engaging and fast paced, trying to tackle big themes like indoctrination, misogyny, and abuse but doing so in a fairly simple way. And while the scope of the premise is a large and interesting one, it's all told through a single perspective with a character who is not very self-aware or quick to pick up on things around her. The character work lacks the depth and nuance that I want from an adult title and while reasonably well-executed, the story is pretty straight-forward and not doing anything I haven't seen before. This concept could have been leveled up with a couple more character perspectives of different ages and personalities, deeper character work and world-building, and an ending that carries more emotional impact.
As it is, I would recommend this to readers of YA science fiction looking for something a bit more mature. It would work as a sort of crossover title. Not bad, but also not what I was hoping for. The audio narration is good though. I received a copy of this book for review from the publisher, all opinions are my own.
March 30, 2023
4.25/5
What a waste it was, what a terrible waste, to take a person who dreamed cities and gardens and enormous shining skies and teach him that the only answer to an unanswerable suffering was slaughter.
This book was incredible. I have been excitedly awaiting it ever since its announcement as I absolutely adored both Silver in the Wood and Drowned Country, Emily Tesh's novella duology. Some Desperate Glory is immensely different, but just as much fun to read.
Thank you Netgalley and Little, Brown Book Group UK for providing me with an e-arc in exchange for an honest review.
The worldbuilding was phenomenal. We exist in a universe with such a rich history, it's a history that flares to life and sparks invention throughout every aspect of the novel. Everything impacts everything, Tesh has complete control over her world and never forgets or releases her grasp over its execution.
We see beautiful worlds that exist within this universe, we see new species and complicated, thriving communities. We also see paralleling worlds, we see a poisonous human consumption—we see conquerors, we see predators, we see evils.
Gaea Station is a phenomenal setting for our characters, conflict thrives and breeds in every jagged crack that they have to show. They are humanity's last survivors, a brutal force of warriors intent on destroying the alien races—the majoda. They are a cult, a broken army. They are brainwashed soldiers.
It is here we first follow our main character, Kyr. Kyr believes in the cause, she is a loyal soldier, she is a child of the dead Earth and she will be its warrior. When her brother, Mags, is sent to die she leaves Gaea to save him, but she does not leave behind these beliefs. However, within this first decision, we witness her character as she faces the things she has been told are ultimate truths and begins to find the faults in them.
Kyr isn't a likeable character when we first meet her, but she is perfectly written. Her arc is done with such care and craft and, maybe most importantly, believability.
There are so many amazing characters within this story, I fell in love with Mags and Yiso at the very beginning, I adored the haunting iterations of Avi. It truly has a brilliant cast of supporting characters.
Just because she knew where she'd come from and what she was didn't mean she was safe from it.
I thought, when I'd read around a quarter of this book, that I knew where the story was heading. I could not have been more wrong!
This story takes us through twists and turns, and overwhelming loops, that I never would have imagined. It's phenomenally done and its social critiques are extremely poignant and thought-provoking.
In the acknowledgements, Tesh thanks Ursula K. Le Guin for teaching her the phrase 'social science fiction' and that is precisely what Tesh has achieved here. She questions Earth's society and the very cores of its structures, she questions Gaea's radicalisation and the morality of a monolith humanity, she questions the corrupt powers of dystopias and the erasure that is inevitable in utopias. She also questions who it is that we believe should be saved or given a second chance, what it is that defines a person's worth and who gets to decide.
It's a book that evokes such complex feelings as its emotional narratives delightfully pull at the corners of these questions to complicate them even further.
It's a book with a lot to say and I loved listening to all of its messages. I highly recommend picking this one up! It has such unique character dynamics that I loved exploring, such all-encompassing worldbuilding, such intriguing themes and moralities, such heart. Do yourself a favour and pick this book up when it comes out in April!
I leave it to the reader to decide whether such an obliteration of history, culture, ethnicity, and language aligns in any way with their understanding of utopia.
What a waste it was, what a terrible waste, to take a person who dreamed cities and gardens and enormous shining skies and teach him that the only answer to an unanswerable suffering was slaughter.
This book was incredible. I have been excitedly awaiting it ever since its announcement as I absolutely adored both Silver in the Wood and Drowned Country, Emily Tesh's novella duology. Some Desperate Glory is immensely different, but just as much fun to read.
Thank you Netgalley and Little, Brown Book Group UK for providing me with an e-arc in exchange for an honest review.
The worldbuilding was phenomenal. We exist in a universe with such a rich history, it's a history that flares to life and sparks invention throughout every aspect of the novel. Everything impacts everything, Tesh has complete control over her world and never forgets or releases her grasp over its execution.
We see beautiful worlds that exist within this universe, we see new species and complicated, thriving communities. We also see paralleling worlds, we see a poisonous human consumption—we see conquerors, we see predators, we see evils.
Gaea Station is a phenomenal setting for our characters, conflict thrives and breeds in every jagged crack that they have to show. They are humanity's last survivors, a brutal force of warriors intent on destroying the alien races—the majoda. They are a cult, a broken army. They are brainwashed soldiers.
It is here we first follow our main character, Kyr. Kyr believes in the cause, she is a loyal soldier, she is a child of the dead Earth and she will be its warrior. When her brother, Mags, is sent to die she leaves Gaea to save him, but she does not leave behind these beliefs. However, within this first decision, we witness her character as she faces the things she has been told are ultimate truths and begins to find the faults in them.
Kyr isn't a likeable character when we first meet her, but she is perfectly written. Her arc is done with such care and craft and, maybe most importantly, believability.
There are so many amazing characters within this story, I fell in love with Mags and Yiso at the very beginning, I adored the haunting iterations of Avi. It truly has a brilliant cast of supporting characters.
Just because she knew where she'd come from and what she was didn't mean she was safe from it.
I thought, when I'd read around a quarter of this book, that I knew where the story was heading. I could not have been more wrong!
This story takes us through twists and turns, and overwhelming loops, that I never would have imagined. It's phenomenally done and its social critiques are extremely poignant and thought-provoking.
In the acknowledgements, Tesh thanks Ursula K. Le Guin for teaching her the phrase 'social science fiction' and that is precisely what Tesh has achieved here. She questions Earth's society and the very cores of its structures, she questions Gaea's radicalisation and the morality of a monolith humanity, she questions the corrupt powers of dystopias and the erasure that is inevitable in utopias. She also questions who it is that we believe should be saved or given a second chance, what it is that defines a person's worth and who gets to decide.
It's a book that evokes such complex feelings as its emotional narratives delightfully pull at the corners of these questions to complicate them even further.
It's a book with a lot to say and I loved listening to all of its messages. I highly recommend picking this one up! It has such unique character dynamics that I loved exploring, such all-encompassing worldbuilding, such intriguing themes and moralities, such heart. Do yourself a favour and pick this book up when it comes out in April!
I leave it to the reader to decide whether such an obliteration of history, culture, ethnicity, and language aligns in any way with their understanding of utopia.
April 11, 2023
I've kind of been stalling on writing this review because I just don't have all that much to say about this novel. Some Desperate Glory is, to me, a perfectly middle-of-the-road book. The writing is capable, there is character development, there is world-building. All those things are present, to be sure, but to me this novel never really went above and beyond with any of those elements. It's a competent novel, but it wasn't a particularly impressive one. The basis of the plot is nothing groundbreaking, as a lot of other reviewers have done a much better job at pointing out--authoritarian regime, indoctrination, etc.--and I don't mind that necessarily, except that, like I said, the execution is not especially remarkable or distinct. I think the fact that I'm struggling to even say anything substantial about this novel already speaks to how little of an effect it had on me: I read it, and then I finished it, and then it was over and I never thought about it again...
Thanks so much to Tor for providing me with an eARC of this via NetGalley!
Thanks so much to Tor for providing me with an eARC of this via NetGalley!
April 15, 2023
Dystopic space opera basically about how to make a character grow from really really unlikeable "the very best space fascist girl scout of them all" to heroic and so caring. It works kind of, even if the plot and worldbuilding feel like an excuse to develop her character. (Section IV totally is all about giving Kyr more insight).
This might be just a prejudice of mine, but there is a category in my mind I call the AO3-school-of-writing - I do not mean all the authors who ever published anything there or hang around there, it is just mentally I see the same qualities and flaws in recent sf/f books by debut authors who all seem to have come from there. And while I liked this a lot better than a few other books of that coterie, it fits those qualities (good writing, good characterization, good pace) but ends up falling short on a lot of the same things like over-reliance on tropes, stereotypical antagonists, wtf plots, and a kind of wish fulfillment plot resolution. The worldbuilding was, while not perfect, a bit deeper than I expected, to be fair.
Incidentally this is very different in worldbuilding and plotting than the author's two previous novellas (though the second one does go a bit big in universe changing ambitions), but the writing is equally nice. I liked her previous novellas a lot, and I was really looking forward to this sf full length novel. But somehow this felt very much like an YA book really, dystopic universe, spunky teen girl with teen friends trying to save the world and things sorting themselves out so they can and everything really is spinning around our teen girl main character
The worldbuilding, earth has been destroyed, a cult like neo-fascist world survives and wants to avenge it is pretty grim, which I expected, but it is also not totally believable on many small details and that reduced the impact - I am giving the alien tech a wave, but small things often did not jive. The villain is a bit over the top and a trope is used which I thought cheapened it all out . I thought some characters needed a lot more development, namely Avi, oh yeah Avi, or even Sergeant Sif, at least as context.
I had seen this mentioned has having lgbt romance or romances, and just warning, you have to squint really hard to see any romance here. Maybe a few crushes are mentioned, one developed a bit more (but not enough, not for the fans or to make sense of who feels what . In fact if anything Kyr's most important relationship is a friendship growing with . I would have been fine with no romance at all (just people becoming friends and doing stuff together is just fine with me as a reader.But it might not be for all readers.
There is a big plot change around half way through, which serves the purposes of character development, but a lot of what happens afterwards just felt more trope-y and inconsequential. The ending I despised mostly because I kept thinking it felt cheap (literally, low cost), wildly rushed and very "that did not happen" on many small details.
Still it is interesting, the writing and the way characters are defined are really good, will keep reading what she writes.
This might be just a prejudice of mine, but there is a category in my mind I call the AO3-school-of-writing - I do not mean all the authors who ever published anything there or hang around there, it is just mentally I see the same qualities and flaws in recent sf/f books by debut authors who all seem to have come from there. And while I liked this a lot better than a few other books of that coterie, it fits those qualities (good writing, good characterization, good pace) but ends up falling short on a lot of the same things like over-reliance on tropes, stereotypical antagonists, wtf plots, and a kind of wish fulfillment plot resolution. The worldbuilding was, while not perfect, a bit deeper than I expected, to be fair.
Incidentally this is very different in worldbuilding and plotting than the author's two previous novellas (though the second one does go a bit big in universe changing ambitions), but the writing is equally nice. I liked her previous novellas a lot, and I was really looking forward to this sf full length novel. But somehow this felt very much like an YA book really, dystopic universe, spunky teen girl with teen friends trying to save the world and things sorting themselves out so they can and everything really is spinning around our teen girl main character
The worldbuilding, earth has been destroyed, a cult like neo-fascist world survives and wants to avenge it is pretty grim, which I expected, but it is also not totally believable on many small details and that reduced the impact - I am giving the alien tech a wave, but small things often did not jive. The villain is a bit over the top and a trope is used which I thought cheapened it all out . I thought some characters needed a lot more development, namely Avi, oh yeah Avi, or even Sergeant Sif, at least as context.
I had seen this mentioned has having lgbt romance or romances, and just warning, you have to squint really hard to see any romance here. Maybe a few crushes are mentioned, one developed a bit more (but not enough, not for the fans or to make sense of who feels what . In fact if anything Kyr's most important relationship is a friendship growing with . I would have been fine with no romance at all (just people becoming friends and doing stuff together is just fine with me as a reader.But it might not be for all readers.
There is a big plot change around half way through, which serves the purposes of character development, but a lot of what happens afterwards just felt more trope-y and inconsequential. The ending I despised mostly because I kept thinking it felt cheap (literally, low cost), wildly rushed and very "that did not happen" on many small details.
Still it is interesting, the writing and the way characters are defined are really good, will keep reading what she writes.
![Profile Image for laurel [the suspected bibliophile].](https://cdn.statically.io/img/i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/users/1645808644i/7494844._UX200_CR0,6,200,200_.jpg)
February 1, 2023
You know some books that you read that you know pretty much immediately is going to be a five-star read?
Yeah, this is the one.
Despite Kyr being a little fuckhead, I...really related to her. Because I was her once (and could very easily be again if I don't watch it). And yet despite Kyr being one of the most punchable protagonists I've read in a long time, I kept reading because I couldn't stop reading for some reason.
And like other reviewers here have said, just when you think you know where the book is going, it delivers an out of right field punch (yes I'm mixing sports, whatever) that hits you out of nowhere.
And then it does it again.
And again.
And again.
It's military-ish space opera at its best, and I really, really loved it. It's about the end of humanity and the end of the world, and revenge and growth and mostly just learning to be an empathetic human in a world determined to strip you of all empathy.
I think I'll be doing a longer review for this one a bit closer in.
I received an ARC from the publisher
Yeah, this is the one.
Despite Kyr being a little fuckhead, I...really related to her. Because I was her once (and could very easily be again if I don't watch it). And yet despite Kyr being one of the most punchable protagonists I've read in a long time, I kept reading because I couldn't stop reading for some reason.
And like other reviewers here have said, just when you think you know where the book is going, it delivers an out of right field punch (yes I'm mixing sports, whatever) that hits you out of nowhere.
And then it does it again.
And again.
And again.
It's military-ish space opera at its best, and I really, really loved it. It's about the end of humanity and the end of the world, and revenge and growth and mostly just learning to be an empathetic human in a world determined to strip you of all empathy.
I think I'll be doing a longer review for this one a bit closer in.
I received an ARC from the publisher
March 1, 2024
3.5
this was good if you are looking for a beginner novel into scifi. this had enjoyable characters but gotdamn was kyr annoying! it was so frustrating reading from her perspective as i found her to lack a lot of personality that other characters had. but it was still fun in the end and had a lot of good moments.
this was good if you are looking for a beginner novel into scifi. this had enjoyable characters but gotdamn was kyr annoying! it was so frustrating reading from her perspective as i found her to lack a lot of personality that other characters had. but it was still fun in the end and had a lot of good moments.
Read
June 22, 2023Okay, this book ruined me. I grew up in the church (just a regular Anglican church, not a cult or anything) and was taught a lot of stuff that I no longer believe (yes, the same old chestnuts, being gay is bad, sex outside of marriage is bad, you are a bad person if you do/are those things etc etc), and despite the fact that I escaped indoctrination and am a very different person now than I was in my teens, I still feel haunted by my teen self who absolutely believed in the church's teachings (except, weirdly, the gay thing. Even as a kid I being gay seemed fine to me. My one act of rebellion! I mean, God made gay people that way, right?). So, I saw a lot of my younger self in Kyr. The wrenching feeling of realizing your way of life is brutally effed up, and there are people are there living free and complete lives, perfectly happy even though they are "sinning." Whew, it's a trip!
Anyway, this book was an absolute banger of a scifi story, shot through with brutal emotion. I loved/hated Kyr and loved everyone else in this book, even Avi, who is repping hard for Bad Gays. Go Avi!
Anyway, this book was an absolute banger of a scifi story, shot through with brutal emotion. I loved/hated Kyr and loved everyone else in this book, even Avi, who is repping hard for Bad Gays. Go Avi!
December 11, 2022
Rep: lesbian mc, gay characters, nonbinary characters, Black side character
CWs: radicalisation, homophobia, misogyny, rape, sexual assault
CWs: radicalisation, homophobia, misogyny, rape, sexual assault
March 15, 2024
I actually really liked this, and I'm really surprised about it. This book deserves a longer, more thorough review, but I'm just not capable of doing that at the moment. I can see how this book wouldn't work for some people, but if it doesn't, it seems a matter of taste to me. I feel like Emily Tesh knew exactly what she wanted to do with the story, and pulled it off. The concepts, characters, plot twists, and everything else this book was wanting to explore I thought it explored really well, and did so with nuance and care*, for the most part.
*The one moment in here that absolutely should have been removed was the scene at the end with a certain two characters touching each other's hair/hair-equivalent, as like a gesture of solidarity? It was genuinely one of the cringiest things I've ever read.
Not gonna do a summary here, not enough mental energy, you can read the blurb. I'll wait.
Light spoilers here: I've seen some pushback to the idea that Kyr would have been deprogrammed so quickly and easily, but I think what happened here was right. Kyr was never going to change, unless world-altering circumstances made her. First they force her to question everything, which she never would have done on her own, and then her brainwashing is broken by essentially . I don't think anything less than this would have been able to get Kyr out of her own head enough to reevaluate things, at least not in time to save her or anyone else. And that's a damning enough message in itself!
This book wanted to explore an unthinking adherent to a fascist death cult, what that person's life would look like to others, and what it would take to shake them out of it. The story had me the whole time, even when I didn't like anybody. It was an interesting way in to the narrative, where you have to literally read between the lines at what is not being said, or what Kyr is not noticing or understanding in order to get a more full picture.
The last half of the book gets pretty wild in terms of sci-fi concepts, and I blew through it, not expecting a book with such grim subject matter to give me those "fun" feelings. I will definitely read from Emily Tesh again.
*The one moment in here that absolutely should have been removed was the scene at the end with a certain two characters touching each other's hair/hair-equivalent, as like a gesture of solidarity? It was genuinely one of the cringiest things I've ever read.
Not gonna do a summary here, not enough mental energy, you can read the blurb. I'll wait.
Light spoilers here: I've seen some pushback to the idea that Kyr would have been deprogrammed so quickly and easily, but I think what happened here was right. Kyr was never going to change, unless world-altering circumstances made her. First they force her to question everything, which she never would have done on her own, and then her brainwashing is broken by essentially . I don't think anything less than this would have been able to get Kyr out of her own head enough to reevaluate things, at least not in time to save her or anyone else. And that's a damning enough message in itself!
This book wanted to explore an unthinking adherent to a fascist death cult, what that person's life would look like to others, and what it would take to shake them out of it. The story had me the whole time, even when I didn't like anybody. It was an interesting way in to the narrative, where you have to literally read between the lines at what is not being said, or what Kyr is not noticing or understanding in order to get a more full picture.
The last half of the book gets pretty wild in terms of sci-fi concepts, and I blew through it, not expecting a book with such grim subject matter to give me those "fun" feelings. I will definitely read from Emily Tesh again.
April 9, 2023
Is this book an instant sci-fi action classic? Yeah probably, but that’s almost secondary to the way it’s a longform exploration of the way fascist cults poison everything around them, and how even if you manage to “get out”, that really doesn’t mean you’ve gotten out - not if that mindset, that belief system, is still with you. So what *can* you do about it?
I’ve read a number of SF books in recent years along these same themes - guess it’s on people’s minds for uh some reason - and this was the best *by far*.
I think for me, what will stick with me is the way Kyr’s perspective/thought process is written. The way, when you’ve been raised in a cult like this, your mind is taught from birth to just… glide right around any ideas that challenge the favored ideology. And look, it’s not unique to these types of cult-like environments - we are all inculcated with harmful ideas by the culture(s) we live in, in various degrees and ways. But for me personally this book reminded me specifically of people I have known from extreme religious backgrounds - the way you can have a conversation with someone about certain topics and actually see in their eyes the moment their mind just skips over something, because they simply cannot process that the world would be any other way than what they were taught, even if what they were taught was blatant lies. The way you can watch someone hurt those around them - and themselves - and brainstorm desperately about what you could say that might get through to them when all you want to say is “you don’t have to do this” but you know that they won’t hear you, because “you don’t have to do this” is incompatible with reality as they understand it.
Reading this book - reading Kyr’s thoughts and reactions in the first half especially - is like those conversations, the heartsickness of seeing someone you love wall themselves up in their own mental prison, the way they’ve been taught, over and over again. (A mental prison, of course, with very real, very harmful consequences.)
This book works so well, I think, because even though it goes to some very dark places it always keeps you moving *through* them. The plot is propulsive, with twists that keep you thinking while never letting up on the action - just the way excellent SF should be.
If you’re looking for a hook, I would probably describe this book as Ender’s Game meets Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Seriously!
And I have to say I enjoyed this author’s two novellas when I read them a couple years ago but this book blew me away. I couldn’t put it down, and when I had to, I was thinking about it constantly. Hardcore looking forward to whatever is on the agenda next.
Last but not least I do want to thank my AP English teacher lol, because that lengthy unit on WWI poetry has just been paying dividends throughout my entire adult life and it continued to do so here!
I’ve read a number of SF books in recent years along these same themes - guess it’s on people’s minds for uh some reason - and this was the best *by far*.
I think for me, what will stick with me is the way Kyr’s perspective/thought process is written. The way, when you’ve been raised in a cult like this, your mind is taught from birth to just… glide right around any ideas that challenge the favored ideology. And look, it’s not unique to these types of cult-like environments - we are all inculcated with harmful ideas by the culture(s) we live in, in various degrees and ways. But for me personally this book reminded me specifically of people I have known from extreme religious backgrounds - the way you can have a conversation with someone about certain topics and actually see in their eyes the moment their mind just skips over something, because they simply cannot process that the world would be any other way than what they were taught, even if what they were taught was blatant lies. The way you can watch someone hurt those around them - and themselves - and brainstorm desperately about what you could say that might get through to them when all you want to say is “you don’t have to do this” but you know that they won’t hear you, because “you don’t have to do this” is incompatible with reality as they understand it.
Reading this book - reading Kyr’s thoughts and reactions in the first half especially - is like those conversations, the heartsickness of seeing someone you love wall themselves up in their own mental prison, the way they’ve been taught, over and over again. (A mental prison, of course, with very real, very harmful consequences.)
This book works so well, I think, because even though it goes to some very dark places it always keeps you moving *through* them. The plot is propulsive, with twists that keep you thinking while never letting up on the action - just the way excellent SF should be.
If you’re looking for a hook, I would probably describe this book as Ender’s Game meets Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Seriously!
And I have to say I enjoyed this author’s two novellas when I read them a couple years ago but this book blew me away. I couldn’t put it down, and when I had to, I was thinking about it constantly. Hardcore looking forward to whatever is on the agenda next.
Last but not least I do want to thank my AP English teacher lol, because that lengthy unit on WWI poetry has just been paying dividends throughout my entire adult life and it continued to do so here!
November 6, 2023
This is a SF novel, that starts quite ordinary but then has an interesting twist. I read it as a part of the monthly reading for November 2023 at SFF Hot from Printers: New Releases group. The book was published in 2023 and it is a debut novel, even if the author had two very strong fantasy novellas before – Silver in the Wood and Drowned Country.
The story starts with a quote from Euripides and excerpts of some alien instruction about humans, who are stereotyped as uncontrollably violent. […] You should always keep in mind that in the humans’ opinion they are being perfectly reasonable when they attack you.. Then readers are moved to the main story. The protagonist, Valkyr (shortened to Kyr) a teen grown/bred on Gaea, a planetoid mixed up with dreadnoughts. She is one of the soldiers of Gaea Station, the last true children of Earth, for a generation ago our home planet was destroyed by alien majo species and their Wisdom cruiser, killing 14 billion people. Now a communalist totalitarian group trains genetically enhanced teens as their weapon of revenge. This version of what Westerners would probably call a fascist state, (even if it has more common with present-day North Korea and 1970s China than 1920s Italy) is a nice deviation from stories of corporate greed that are the mainstream in US/UK SF. In order to train they use agoge simulation, which initially feels like a version of Ender’s Game, but turns much more than that. Meanwhile, the alien ship is captured with a passenger abroad, Kyr gets an assignment she cannot accept, while her brother, it seems, defects to humans, who now live in peace with majo, so Kyr kidnaps the captured alien and his ship and gets to the wider world.
To be honest, at this point, I assumed it would be a story of a person, who escapes her heavily indoctrinated past to come to terms that maybe her struggles were wrong. However, roughly at 40% mark there are several unexpected (by me) developments, which seriously improve the story.
Overall, while there are some issues with pacing and too common trope from YA lit with teens overcoming larger, older and more experienced people, the book was a great yarn with interesting ideas, detailed characters and their development and some funny dialogues. A strong contender for the next year’s genre awards.
The story starts with a quote from Euripides and excerpts of some alien instruction about humans, who are stereotyped as uncontrollably violent. […] You should always keep in mind that in the humans’ opinion they are being perfectly reasonable when they attack you.. Then readers are moved to the main story. The protagonist, Valkyr (shortened to Kyr) a teen grown/bred on Gaea, a planetoid mixed up with dreadnoughts. She is one of the soldiers of Gaea Station, the last true children of Earth, for a generation ago our home planet was destroyed by alien majo species and their Wisdom cruiser, killing 14 billion people. Now a communalist totalitarian group trains genetically enhanced teens as their weapon of revenge. This version of what Westerners would probably call a fascist state, (even if it has more common with present-day North Korea and 1970s China than 1920s Italy) is a nice deviation from stories of corporate greed that are the mainstream in US/UK SF. In order to train they use agoge simulation, which initially feels like a version of Ender’s Game, but turns much more than that. Meanwhile, the alien ship is captured with a passenger abroad, Kyr gets an assignment she cannot accept, while her brother, it seems, defects to humans, who now live in peace with majo, so Kyr kidnaps the captured alien and his ship and gets to the wider world.
To be honest, at this point, I assumed it would be a story of a person, who escapes her heavily indoctrinated past to come to terms that maybe her struggles were wrong. However, roughly at 40% mark there are several unexpected (by me) developments, which seriously improve the story.
Overall, while there are some issues with pacing and too common trope from YA lit with teens overcoming larger, older and more experienced people, the book was a great yarn with interesting ideas, detailed characters and their development and some funny dialogues. A strong contender for the next year’s genre awards.
June 2, 2023
Valkyr (Kyr) is a member of a group of trainees aboard Gaea Station which houses a group of militant human holdouts from the war that destroyed the Earth and most of humanity. The lives of her and her compatriots is a fascist nightmare where the best assignments are suicide missions and the worst are a hellish existence giving birth to child after child. When her brother is assigned a suicide mission and her own worst nightmare comes true with an assignment to nursery, she leaves the station with an alien prisoner and a brilliant queer boy in attempt to save her brother.
That's the setup. There's much more going on and the story moves along at a cracking pace. It's quite brilliant. I would actually say that it straddles into YA territory (Kyr is a teenager), particularly during the first part where we're primarily dealing with a young woman challenging her own brainwashing. This part of the book could be written as a contemporary YA about someone escaping a cult, but once the really science fictional plot kicks in, this changes rapidly.
Content warnings on this one abound: bio-essentialism, homophobia, suicide, fascisim, racism, genocide and probably a few more.
That's the setup. There's much more going on and the story moves along at a cracking pace. It's quite brilliant. I would actually say that it straddles into YA territory (Kyr is a teenager), particularly during the first part where we're primarily dealing with a young woman challenging her own brainwashing. This part of the book could be written as a contemporary YA about someone escaping a cult, but once the really science fictional plot kicks in, this changes rapidly.
Content warnings on this one abound: bio-essentialism, homophobia, suicide, fascisim, racism, genocide and probably a few more.
Shelved as 'dnf'
April 16, 2023DNF at 25%
This book will be great for people who don’t read a lot of SciFi but it was not for me. Kyr is a horrible main character and I would much rather have followed almost any other character in this book. She’s SO indoctrinated that I know any character development isn’t going to be sufficient or nuanced enough. The book is also trying to tackle so many complex, important topics and yet it lacks any nuance or originality. I don’t have the patience for a book I would have rated 3 stars at best.
RIP my SciFi era
This book will be great for people who don’t read a lot of SciFi but it was not for me. Kyr is a horrible main character and I would much rather have followed almost any other character in this book. She’s SO indoctrinated that I know any character development isn’t going to be sufficient or nuanced enough. The book is also trying to tackle so many complex, important topics and yet it lacks any nuance or originality. I don’t have the patience for a book I would have rated 3 stars at best.
RIP my SciFi era
Read
January 2, 2024The first book I've read in 2024 and likely to be the best. It's a fantastic space opera, military SF that overturns every convention of that genre, and is also a meditation on moral responsibility when you are both oppressed and oppressor. Plus it does have some jokes in, and much lovely friendship.
July 19, 2024
A first-rate, twisty and very fast-moving deep-space and alternate-history adventure. Well, it's more an sfnal study of fascism, and how to get out from under its evil spell. Very nicely done, a remarkable first novel. Held my interest through many twists and turns, though it does get a bit more into video-game territory than I would prefer. Plus, confusing at times. Solid 4 stars from me, recommended reading. Note that the advertised queer romance elements are minor.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 2,469 reviews