Some Desperate Glory

No cover

Emily Tesh: Some Desperate Glory (Paperback, en-Latn-GB language, 2023, Orbit)

Paperback, 448 pages

en-Latn-GB language

Published Jan. 1, 2023 by Orbit.

ISBN:
978-0-356-52182-4
Copied ISBN!
4 stars (4 reviews)

All her life, Kyr has trained for the day she can avenge the destruction of planet Earth. Raised on Gaea Station alongside the last scraps of humanity, she is one of the best warriors of her generation, the sword of a dead planet.

Then Command assigns her brother to certain death and relegates her to the nursery to bear sons, and 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 must escape from everything she’s ever known. If she succeeds, she will find a universe far more complicated than she was taught and far more wondrous than she could ever have imagined.

Some Desperate Glory is a thrillingly told space opera about the wreckage of war, the family you find and the path you must forge when every choice is stripped from you. This stand‐alone …

4 editions

Good, but not great

4 stars

The first half of this book reads like a very predictable standard space opera, then it takes a turn for the wild. There are a lot of great ideas here, and my only criticism is that the pacing in the second half was awkward. Tesh rushed through some segments that could have used more detail, yet lingered on other parts way too long.

Dark but not heavy

5 stars

This book really stuck with me after reading it. I had to stop reading it before bed because I would stay up too late reading it, which is a trait I cherish in a book and is also hard to pull off in a book with such heavy themes -- brainwashing, abuse, reproductive coercion, war,.... And the characters were so well articulated. I really live for books where characters seem like actual humans who are capable of being really truly horrible to each other and also capable of kindness and growth.

substantial themes to discuss

5 stars

This will probably be my book of the year choice. I loved the themes and potential discussions in this one, and there's not a whole lot I can say in a review without either spoiling it or setting up a new reader to see things a certain way. I don't want my own biases to influence someone coming to this fresh. I think who you are and what you believe will drastically change how you perceive this book, and that's kind of fantastic to me. I will say, I borrowed this from the library but will be buying a permanent copy to own. I think I'll see and feel different things on subsequent re-reads. I will also say this is a completely different flavor from her fantasy duology.

reviewed Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh

Some Desperate Glory

3 stars

I really enjoyed Emily Tesh's Silver in the Wood and Drowned Country novellas, and so was excited to read this (very different) novel. In some ways this novel emits YA sf child warrior action dystopian vibes, but it's a lot heavier than I'd expect a YA book to be.

This is a book where aliens have destroyed earth, and there's a small space enclave of humans set on vengeance at all costs. But, the thrust of the story is that when the protagonist Kyr leaves this community, she discovers that these humans are largely a fascist cult, and this is extremely hard to swallow information for cult poster child Kyr, still set on vengeance for humanity.

It's a book about deprogramming from propaganda and the narratives you've grown up with. It's a book about burying queer feelings in unsafe environments even from yourself. Unsurprisingly, it's also a book with (at …