Synopsis
All her life 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 all-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. But when Command assigns her brother to certain death and relegates her to the 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, she escapes from everything she’s ever known into a universe far more complicated than she was taught and far more wondrous than she could have imagined.
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 award-winning author Emily Tesh’s highly anticipated debut novel.
Review
Emily Tesh’s Greenhollow Duology is one of my favorite duologies of all time. Tesh has a gift for creating emotion and taking the reader into the story with few words. It’s safe to say I was looking forward to Tesh’s debut novel, Some Desperate Glory. While reading, I experienced a wide range of emotions. There were elements I loved, but they were countered by elements I strongly disliked.
Much of my difficulty with this book was due to the characters. I didn’t care for any of them because they were all unlikable. I believe it is necessary to make clear that if you are anticipating a queer sapphic space opera, you may be disappointed. Even my favorite tropes, such as found family, were impossible for me to enjoy. I really wish I could find one positive thing to say about the characters.
What I did appreciate was the plot and the twists and turns. The writing was adequate; however, I was hoping for some of Tesh’s poetic style that we saw in the Greenhollow novellas. The writing isn’t anything I’ll remember in the future. There was a character that provided a change of pace in the dialogue by making funny and snarky remarks, but it didn’t stick with me because it was so constant. I think the pacing was fantastic, and Tesh did a good job with the plot. I loved the timey-wimey things.
Tesh attempted to target some ambitious ideas and themes here. I believe that if the character development had been explored further, the complex philosophical themes would’ve come together better in the end.
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