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A review by cleo_reads
Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh
4.0
Not quite sure how to rate this immersive and very intense, very grim dystopian space opera that genuinely surprised me more than once.
I'm a sucker for SSF stories where the MC discovers that everything they were raised to believe is a lie and then have to decide who they want to be and how they want to live (and then they and their rag tag band usually go off to save the world). Emily Tesh skillfully follows and then subverts this trope. The main character, Kyr, is frustratingly slow to see what's obvious to the reader. She’s completely bought into the (fascist) ideology of her tiny warrior community of remaining humans.
This also works as a feminist reimagining of Ender’s Game. I don’t think you need to have read EG to appreciate this book, but there are a lot of subtle and not so subtle call outs - from the child soldiers (they’re teens in this book though) trained to fight an alien enemy to the mysterious computer generated training program to the three gifted siblings in a culture where three siblings are not usually allowed.
It's a very ambitious book. I'm not sure that it's 100% successful. Once I finished it, I realized the social and political commentary is not quite as nuanced or well thought out as it could be. But it's fast paced and thought-provoking and wow, what a ride!
I'm a sucker for SSF stories where the MC discovers that everything they were raised to believe is a lie and then have to decide who they want to be and how they want to live (and then they and their rag tag band usually go off to save the world). Emily Tesh skillfully follows and then subverts this trope. The main character, Kyr, is frustratingly slow to see what's obvious to the reader. She’s completely bought into the (fascist) ideology of her tiny warrior community of remaining humans.
This also works as a feminist reimagining of Ender’s Game. I don’t think you need to have read EG to appreciate this book, but there are a lot of subtle and not so subtle call outs - from the child soldiers (they’re teens in this book though) trained to fight an alien enemy to the mysterious computer generated training program to the three gifted siblings in a culture where three siblings are not usually allowed.
It's a very ambitious book. I'm not sure that it's 100% successful. Once I finished it, I realized the social and political commentary is not quite as nuanced or well thought out as it could be. But it's fast paced and thought-provoking and wow, what a ride!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicide, Xenophobia, Genocide, War, and Misogyny
Moderate: Homophobia
Minor: Sexual assault