Reviews with content warning for Murder - Some Desperate Glory

I really liked this novel. It started with the destruction of Earth and tells a story about the perils of Fascism, white supremacy, homophobia, and xenophobia. It tells a story about what blind spots are developed when one grows up in that system and the price you pay for having those blind spots.

I liked the characters and I enjoyed seeing them in different incarnations. I appreciated that growing up with very different circumstances didn't necessarily change certain fundamental truths of who the characters were and just because Kyr learned from her mistakes and tried to do better, she still didn't necessarily see the whole picture or naturally see the how to be as inclusive as she needed to be, although she did come to the realization of what needed to happen after it was pointed out to her. She wasn't magically perfect even when raised outside of a Fascist State (though still definitely inside an Imperial one)

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geekmom's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Breathtaking.

Please write more, Emily Tesh!

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kylosten's review against another edition

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adventurous tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

This was initially hard for me to get into.
It throws you right into the story with very little explanation of the world or how it works (the worldbuilding does happen after the initial few chapters and I do think it's solidly done once it starts happening) and Kyr is initially very difficult to like or root for. She's been brainwashed from living in a militaristic space station. She starts to question small things fairly early on but continues to cling to the ideas she's learned until probably 60% into the story.
She does grow and eventually I found myself truly hoping she would succeed. The character growth is actually some of the best I've seen recently and I'm glad I stuck through the initial frustration with her as a character.
I found some of the descriptions of shadowspace and how the distortions around the shadow engines worked to be a little confusing but overall it didn't really stop me from enjoying the wibbly wobbly timey wimey butterfly effect story once that aspect of it really started. I think the science is not meant to be really fully understood or grounded in reality but I could see that being an issue for some readers.
It dealt with themes of propaganda and the prejudice and biases we have from where we live and grow up vs what our conscience and gut tells us and I think it did that well. It also dealt with the downfalls of hyperindividualism and the importance of community, us vs them mentality, and more.
This is overall a very solid space opera sci fi that dealt with important themes from our real lives and I already want to read it again with the benefit of hindsight.

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raptorq's review against another edition

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adventurous dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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maryellen's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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talonsontypewriters's review

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adventurous dark medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

Excluding a few awkward bits each, the worldbuilding and plot are both fairly strong -- one twist especially spiked my enjoyment -- but I don't honestly feel like the themes, heavy-handed as they are, delved quite as deep as they could have. In particular, certain tenets of the criticized ideological systems go unchallenged and even almost tacitly confirmed as true. I guess you could argue that they were meant to be more subtly folded into the rest of the overarching criticism, but since other things are directly addressed just fine, I find it a bit odd.

Also, maybe I'm just oversensitive about F/F relationships rarely being afforded the same complexity as M/M or F/M ones, but the distinct handling of Kyr and Mags's identities and relationships does rub me the wrong way. Mags and Avi's relationship is consistently one of the more plot-relevant (and a bit fucked up for various reasons), and despite not being perspective characters, they each get in some brief thoughtful dialogue on their identities and realizations thereof. Kyr, on the other hand, gets some repressed subtext and

a single date with a relatively minor, extremely underdeveloped character in a different timeline

, and her introspection about her sexuality is pretty much limited to that aforementioned repression/dismissal and fleeting surprise, which comes across as especially odd given the worldview she starts out with.

Kyr's bigotry in general felt a bit... diluted, as if the author wanted to write a deradicalization arc but didn't want to start her off as so obscenely awful that many wouldn't be interested in reading -- the point gets through, just judging from how many reviews are complaining about how unlikable she was (that is the point!), but to me it felt like a pulled punch. It's not helped by how quickly her development occurs, either, with some token resistance and lingering vestiges afterward not quite enough to make it feel truly realistic or cathartic.

Fine as a story, but falls short in its scaffolding social commentary, which is neither especially unique in concept nor exceptionally powerful in execution. Might have been better marketed as YA, though I feel some further nuance than is provided would still be expected there.

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juliana2's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional reflective tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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trips's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

This book is tough to write about, on one hand I do applaud the author for trying to write something that is rather nuanced and complex as this story. But on the other hand, I have to cut the applause short because I think the author took on a little too much and maybe should have stuck to 1 or 2 of the conversations it was trying to have.

This book at its core is a "Huckleberry Finn"-like book. The MC however, is pretty insufferable for the first half of the book. More than just being an ignorant product of her upbringing, Valkyr is a huge bully and is genuinely mean to almost everyone she speaks with. She has dashes of homophobia and racism at the beginning as well. She needed a BIG arc showing her reconciling with herself as her world is blown wide-open but...she doesn't really get it because the playing field changes so often and so quickly in the 2nd half of the book.

I could really tell this book was trying to be a little bit like...Enders Game for children, but it just didn't entirely work.
A lot of the action was quite interesting but ultimately at the end, I felt like the characters needed more onscreen growth rather than split decisions to do the right thing...shrug.

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