Some Desperate Glory is a science fiction novel by Emily Tesh, with political themes and "thrilling action," according to reviewers. It was published in 2023 by Tordotcom. The novel won the 2024 Hugo Award for Best Novel.
I was absolutely hooked. Our protagonist starts as being very unlikeable, but if you are willing to bear with her, it will be rewarding. There is somewhat a change of direction around halfway through, which seems a bit more generic after that. But the world building and the characters still hold up very much. All in all, really well written.
Great space opera about escaping fascist cults that thankfully doesn't start from a character who already thinks they're bad, instead focusing on her own journey. Went in many directions I didn't expect, very recommend
On the surface, this may seem like military SF, but really, it's more about trauma, and radicalization, and cults, and personal growth. It's well-written, too. When following the perspective of an initially angry teenager as she then changes as a person, it is possible to lay things on too thick, but Tesh manages to do it just right.
This sort of shifting perspective also makes the worldbuilding of the setting interesting. The view of the novel's world is colored by the characters' biases, and how those biases shift, and those shifts play a role in the overall plot. The overall plot is perhaps a bit of the standard SF fare, but the way it is told through the arcs of the characters involved is what makes it compelling.
This book stands out in both its approach to the kind of plot and setting it employs, and also in doing what …
On the surface, this may seem like military SF, but really, it's more about trauma, and radicalization, and cults, and personal growth. It's well-written, too. When following the perspective of an initially angry teenager as she then changes as a person, it is possible to lay things on too thick, but Tesh manages to do it just right.
This sort of shifting perspective also makes the worldbuilding of the setting interesting. The view of the novel's world is colored by the characters' biases, and how those biases shift, and those shifts play a role in the overall plot. The overall plot is perhaps a bit of the standard SF fare, but the way it is told through the arcs of the characters involved is what makes it compelling.
This book stands out in both its approach to the kind of plot and setting it employs, and also in doing what other SF novels may attempt to do, but in this case doing it exceptionally well.
It took me a while to warm up to this. Once over that hump this was great with so much relevance.
The first half of this book reads like a very predictable standard space opera, then it takes a turn for the wild. There are a lot of great ideas here, and my only criticism is that the pacing in the second half was awkward. Tesh rushed through some segments that could have used more detail, yet lingered on other parts way too long.
This book really stuck with me after reading it. I had to stop reading it before bed because I would stay up too late reading it, which is a trait I cherish in a book and is also hard to pull off in a book with such heavy themes -- brainwashing, abuse, reproductive coercion, war,.... And the characters were so well articulated. I really live for books where characters seem like actual humans who are capable of being really truly horrible to each other and also capable of kindness and growth.
