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A review by aeturnum
Victories Greater Than Death by Charlie Jane Anders
3.0
"My name is Captain Teyeyeyey, and my pronoun is she, and I am going to slaughter you. You have [5 seconds] to surrender."
Victories Greater Than Death by Charlie Jane Anders is an interesting one. On one hand it goes in directions that feel extremely fresh and unexpected (the norm for Anders' writing), on the other hand much of the more traditional parts of the narrative feel confused and contradictory.
This book is about a galactic civil war and a scrappy ship trying to to check on the *faintest* of hopes. It is even more so about the emotional trials and struggles of six teenagers on that ship. If you hear about a galactic civil war and your #1 question is "how would a teenager feel about it?" This is absolutely the book for you. For other people - I am less sure.
Our protagonist is Tina Mains - a half-human, half-alien who is the clone of a famous, brilliant and dead space captain. We join her story just as the beacon that will call the people who created her back to pick her up goes active. This is just fine with Tina - who struggles on earth and looks to the stars for her destiny - at least until a squad of intergalactic assassins from the space captains' rivals show up first.
What follows is, as one might expect, a journey of adventure and self-discovery. Tina struggles to live her own life and also learn about the person she is cloned from (and why her ship took such a huge risk in coming to get her). She also settles into a military ship that is ostensibly founded on utopian ideals of leaving no one behind, but which frequently struggles to follow through.
The idea of struggling with complexity, however, is where the book gets in over its head. It's easy to be understanding on this point - the book gets into a lot of things! Gender above all else and the question of just war, how does one come to terms with ones circumstances of birth, how useful ideals are, the times to use violence, and so on. The problem is that it feels like the raising of these issues and the plot arc are often working against each other.
The bulk of the text is taken up with exploring the growth of Tina and a group of other human teenagers who join the crew early on. This clashes pretty fiercely with the background of them being *on a warship in an active war.* The alien soldiers on the ship can't seem to decide if these children are recruits or foster children and for a long time it feels like Anders might be trying to articulate a third path: a fusing of approaches to living the life we have before us under the circumstances we find ourselves. It just never really comes together - the alien crew just bounce between being parental and being professional without a ton of rhyme or reason.
This kind of thematic imbalance is everywhere in the text. Characters will raise passionate, articulate objections that they never return to. Tina in particular ping-pongs between her genetic past as a clone (deciding *how* and if she wants to claim her genetic legacy) and the events she is experiencing. The structure here feels all off where the plot moving ahead disrupts her reflection and it feels like the story is fighting itself. Unable to decide where to focus and how to bring home what the characters are feeling.
On the whole, I really struggled to connect to the cast. The characters who are most distinctive are also the ones who have the least emotional texture: they find a role they love on the ship and that ship becomes their identity. The characters whose emotions we see feel indistinct - like Anders was unable to connect their emotional journey to the circumstances they find themselves in. It's fair to say that our heroes are teenagers, but that can only go so far.
So why read this? Well the world building is *fantastic.* Anders has an eye for imaginative use of technology and this is no exception. I'll leave the details for the reader to discover, but even though I found the bulk of the text turgid and indecisive there is a *real heart* to this book. This vision of science fiction is genuinely compelling and heartening.
Without spoiling things - I just walked away feeling let down by this book. Plot arcs are built up only to fizzle out. Characters are built up only to fade away. The ending is complex and confusing and both too short and overly long - but even with all that it feels flat.
There are lots of warm, lovely queer relationships in this book - and the queer positivity is a reason to read it. However, I can't even whole-heartedly recommend that aspect as the *bulk* of the book is just our characters making eyes at one another and telling themselves why it will never work. It is disappointing that, in such a queer book, the romantic arc is so pablum.
Read it if you want a fresh, interesting take on sci-fi and don't mind a lot of the time being taken on thematically unsatisfying teenage trials.
Victories Greater Than Death by Charlie Jane Anders is an interesting one. On one hand it goes in directions that feel extremely fresh and unexpected (the norm for Anders' writing), on the other hand much of the more traditional parts of the narrative feel confused and contradictory.
This book is about a galactic civil war and a scrappy ship trying to to check on the *faintest* of hopes. It is even more so about the emotional trials and struggles of six teenagers on that ship. If you hear about a galactic civil war and your #1 question is "how would a teenager feel about it?" This is absolutely the book for you. For other people - I am less sure.
Our protagonist is Tina Mains - a half-human, half-alien who is the clone of a famous, brilliant and dead space captain. We join her story just as the beacon that will call the people who created her back to pick her up goes active. This is just fine with Tina - who struggles on earth and looks to the stars for her destiny - at least until a squad of intergalactic assassins from the space captains' rivals show up first.
What follows is, as one might expect, a journey of adventure and self-discovery. Tina struggles to live her own life and also learn about the person she is cloned from (and why her ship took such a huge risk in coming to get her). She also settles into a military ship that is ostensibly founded on utopian ideals of leaving no one behind, but which frequently struggles to follow through.
The idea of struggling with complexity, however, is where the book gets in over its head. It's easy to be understanding on this point - the book gets into a lot of things! Gender above all else and the question of just war, how does one come to terms with ones circumstances of birth, how useful ideals are, the times to use violence, and so on. The problem is that it feels like the raising of these issues and the plot arc are often working against each other.
The bulk of the text is taken up with exploring the growth of Tina and a group of other human teenagers who join the crew early on. This clashes pretty fiercely with the background of them being *on a warship in an active war.* The alien soldiers on the ship can't seem to decide if these children are recruits or foster children and for a long time it feels like Anders might be trying to articulate a third path: a fusing of approaches to living the life we have before us under the circumstances we find ourselves. It just never really comes together - the alien crew just bounce between being parental and being professional without a ton of rhyme or reason.
This kind of thematic imbalance is everywhere in the text. Characters will raise passionate, articulate objections that they never return to. Tina in particular ping-pongs between her genetic past as a clone (deciding *how* and if she wants to claim her genetic legacy) and the events she is experiencing. The structure here feels all off where the plot moving ahead disrupts her reflection and it feels like the story is fighting itself. Unable to decide where to focus and how to bring home what the characters are feeling.
On the whole, I really struggled to connect to the cast. The characters who are most distinctive are also the ones who have the least emotional texture: they find a role they love on the ship and that ship becomes their identity. The characters whose emotions we see feel indistinct - like Anders was unable to connect their emotional journey to the circumstances they find themselves in. It's fair to say that our heroes are teenagers, but that can only go so far.
So why read this? Well the world building is *fantastic.* Anders has an eye for imaginative use of technology and this is no exception. I'll leave the details for the reader to discover, but even though I found the bulk of the text turgid and indecisive there is a *real heart* to this book. This vision of science fiction is genuinely compelling and heartening.
Without spoiling things - I just walked away feeling let down by this book. Plot arcs are built up only to fizzle out. Characters are built up only to fade away. The ending is complex and confusing and both too short and overly long - but even with all that it feels flat.
There are lots of warm, lovely queer relationships in this book - and the queer positivity is a reason to read it. However, I can't even whole-heartedly recommend that aspect as the *bulk* of the book is just our characters making eyes at one another and telling themselves why it will never work. It is disappointing that, in such a queer book, the romantic arc is so pablum.
Read it if you want a fresh, interesting take on sci-fi and don't mind a lot of the time being taken on thematically unsatisfying teenage trials.