A review by manuphoto
Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh

adventurous emotional fast-paced

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

3.75

I’m a bit conflicted on that one. The premise is good, with Earth having been destroyed by aliens during a major conflict and our protagonist being raised on a station, living to fight another day. It does feel like Starship Troopers meets Everything is Kill meets District 9 meets Avengers. Bear with me….

The novel manages to tackle societal issues, especially on gender identity, sexual orientation, misogyny and patriarchy. Quite remarkable honestly, as it could easily have felt totally out of place. Emily Tesh manages to make those issues part of the story and the characters’s arcs, so that’s excellent. Sometimes she would tell us "this behaviour is bad" but most of the time she would show us through her characters and story, which is much better. I don’t want the narrator or character to explain to me why being sexist is bad, I want the novel to show me why it is bad. Luckily, Tesh favours that approach.

I’m not entirely sold on her prose or the way she brings twists to the story however. Although she writes well, I was sometimes a bit confused by the setting, especially during the action scenes. She also tends to use repetition to put emphasis on certain points, something that I dislike (but it’s maybe more a "me" issue). The story does take a couple of left turns, but they always felt forced never earned. It’s "character finds themselves in an impossible situation… miraculous option appears!". The ideas were often neat, but their implementation less so.

Kyr is a very interesting character. She faces challenges that would destroy most people, both physically and psychologically. But, at least to me, these issues got resolved a bit too quickly and easily, the tension never really grabbed me. There is also a feeling that nothing is really important, as they can fix situations that shouldn’t be fixable. It lowered the stakes a lot for me.

That’s why I say I’m conflicted on that book. On one hand, it’s a fun read, with lots action and yet a very powerful social commentary, good characters and some neat sci-fi tropes. On the other, it can lack subtlety, it has a lot of repetition and it’s not always thrilling. It also feels like a mishmash of sci-fi tropes from other books and movies. Then again, it’s Tesh’s first novel, so I can pardon some of it. It’s already quite an achievement.

Despite some drawbacks, I did like it, I recommend people reading it for the important social commentary and the fun of the story, but I can’t say that it’s my top tier Hugo winning novels, it’s more mid-tier. Which is not bad, really.