Ok. Wow. Absolutely loved this one.
It is definitely not for everyone, mainly because the main character starts out as a total bigott. She's part of a cult and has been brainwashed her entire life and dismantling these genuinely held believes takes time and effort. And she's still not a good person by the end of it, but she's trying. If you're not in the mood to read about a character like this, the book is not for you and nobody would blame you for dnf-ing it. At least not me.
I really enjoyed the book nonetheless. It is a deep look at morality and principles wrapped in a very engaging SciFi story featuring parallel universes and time travel and a whole host of interesting characters. I can not put into words how exciting and at times shocking this book was. I'm definitely putting the authors other books on my tbr now.
I think the second half of the book was a bit weaker so the whole book gets 4,5/5

A great epic sci fi space opera. The main character starts off as pretty unlikeable but during the story progression you see her learn and grow into a person who will cheer for,. This is one of those stories I would love to see on the big screen. My absolute favourite character has to be Yiso, I literally adore them! Very well written and paced in my opinion, and has a very satisfying ending.

I am still reeling from howe much I loved this book! Sci Fi was the first genre I fell in love with but recently I haven't read much that I've liked. I was lucky enough to be sent an advanced copy of Some Desperate Glory, which I hadn't heard of beforehand, and reading the blurb it sounded like just my kind of book.

Kyr is a brilliant MC. The growth she goes through is incredible as she realises all is not what it seems on Gaea station and decides to fight for what is right instead. Kyr kind of sucks for a good proportion of this book, but I definitely related to her - I've been her before. There are some tough issues brought up in this book, and it didn't always make for nice reading, but ET dealt with them flawlessly.

I also really enjoyed that this book wasn't romance focused - don't get me wrong, I enjoy it, but a lot of the times authors have romances overshadow their story and it was a refreshing change.

Thank you so much to Orbit UK for sending me an early copy!

This book is a hot mess, but I enjoyed it.

+Kyr's character arc. I loved following her beginnings as an indoctrinated daughter of Earth whose life had been dedicated to training for war and through the choices and changes that would shape her path forward.
+Cute alien.
+Space gays.
+Wild twists and turns I wasn't expecting. I recommend going in without spoilers.
+Maybe horrible people doing maybe horrible things.
+Mixture of small personal and big world-changing stakes.

+/-The sci-fi setting is the kind of sci-fi lite/fantasy sci-fi where it's basically magic. Some people will be turned off by this.
+/-The pacing is frenetic and also kind of all over the place as we swing between different places and times.

-The book attempts to tackle huge and complex issues of fascism, cults, female bodily autonomy, racism, etc. but it's not particularly nuanced in its approach and ends up coming across rather simplistically. I wish it had simply picked one or two aspects and really honed in on them.
-Some things/people are presented in a very black-and-white manner which seems at odds with some of the overarching themes. Ultimately, I wasn't really sure what the book was trying to say in the end, other than a generic theme of "good people vs bad people". There was so much there in the backstory of the destruction of Earth and the foundations of the cult, but I never felt like these bigger, more difficult conflicts were ever examined in the detail they deserved.
-Sometimes shit just kinda happens and you have to roll with it.
-The word "big" was used to describe Kyr and her brother so many times that it was giving these vibes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZMt8...

Honestly, I think that marketing this book as adult science fiction is doing it a disservice. Some of the language may be too much for YA, but the characters, writing, dialogue, and plot all scream YA. Having said that, I think it read as good YA, and this would be a fantastic novel for YA readers on the older end of the spectrum that presents a lot to think about among the non-stop action.

If something like Iron Widow is your jam, I think you'll like Some Desperate Glory. Overall very messy but still an enjoyable rollercoaster of a read.

My reading experience of this was absolutely wild. I went from hating the protagonist's guts to cheering them on fully and inbetween I was sobbing like a madwoman.

Some Desperate Glory follows Kyr, a warrior in training on Gaea Station, the home of the last of humankind. Earth was destroyed in a war with the alien majoda. Taught for all her life that she is humanity's vengeance and has to defeat the enemy, Kyr is devastated when she is assigned to bear children for the rest of her life in Nursery. When her brother is sent to a suicide mission on another planet and the soldiers capture a majo and his spaceship, Kyr sees her chance to save her brother and get revenge for earth's annihilation.

This book, most of all, is about learning kindness in a world that has taught you nothing but hate. About learning the meaning of friendship and empathy for those you were taught to fear. About seeing the enemy as people. About compassion and second chances. The characters here aren't necessarily good people or heroes, but their every action hit home.

Kyr, the protagonist, started out as maybe the most unlikeable point of view I've ever read about. She's a narcissitic bully who's only obsessed with her own advancement and following the rules. She's completely indoctrinated by her fascist space-cult and enact earth's vengeance, no matter what. Her growth throughout the story was phenomenal, yet still in line with her character. She doesn't become an empathetic, warm and fuzzy person over night, but she does learn how to feel for others and see through her station's lies.

One thing I will say the way the book is written, especially the way the themes are presented, read more like YA than adult, so much so that I had to check that the book was in fact adult. From the dialogue, to the worldbuilding, to the MC's character arc, it read like YA to me. There are themes of eugenics, genocide, sexual assault and forced pregnancy in here. Those topics aren't glossed over necessarily, but also not handled in depth, the way I would expect in an adult book.

Around the halfway mark is where the story took an absolutely mind-blowing turn. See, I don't consider myself an emotional reader. But at the 50% mark, I was bawling my eyes out and screaming at my Kindle. The actions of the characters in this book aren't good or kind. In some cases they are even horrific. But every character learns to be a little bit better and more compassionate by the ending. By the last pages, I was holding my breath, hoping for all the characters to pull through.

There was also queer rep in this which I liked, but it wasn't at the forefront of the story. If you've seen this advertised as a sapphic book, I will say there isn't really a sapphic romance, although the main character herself is sapphic. There's also a mlm relationship between side characters and another character uses they/them pronouns.

All in all, a great read for fans of YA sci-fi. 4/5 stars.

As someone who absolutely loved this author's previous books, I was delighted when I was approved for an ARC of this and it didn't disappoint. To be perfectly honest, I went into this book knowing very little about it and having only scanned the blurb, so that probably helped in terms of preconceptions...

The basic premise of Some Desperate Glory is that it's the story of Kyr, who's been brought up as part of a small colony after the destruction of Earth by alien invaders known as the Wisdom - in particular, she's been specifically bred to be a warrior and brought up in a very Spartan regime where running AI simulations is her idea of fun. As such a driven individual, dreaming of glory by means of being the best soldier she can be, Kyr is pretty unlikeable and it's established early on that she only really cares about two people - her twin brother Magnus and her 'uncle' who is the leader of the colony.

As the story unfolds and Kyr gets repeatedly chewed up by the system she'd bought into 100%, she also starts to realise that there are major holes and inconsistencies in everything she's been brought up to believe. Things particularly start to unravel when Kyr leaves behind everything she's ever known and goes in search of Magnus, who she believes has been sent off on a suicide mission. Not only are the colony not the last survivors of humanity, the way she'd always been told, there's also more to the story of her older sister, who Kyr has always scorned as a traitor to humanity.

The AI known as the Wisdom, and those who make it work, play a large part in the storyline and at one point even show Kyr the life she could have had, which helps her make some difficult decisions about how to deal with the one she did. While Kyr is still pretty unlikeable in a lot of ways even by the end of the book, her better qualities (for example, loyalty and an inability to give up even when things are tough) have also been nurtured by the system in which she was raised. I was really engrossed by Some Desperate Glory, more so than I expected would be the case, and it's definitely going to be a contender for my best books of 2023 list.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher, via Netgalley. This is my honest review of the book in question.

I couldn’t get into this at all. I think it was too ‘sci-fi’ for my particular taste. I found the language and terms used to be too jarring for me to understand anything that was going on. I’m more of a fantasy reader, and although I loved this authors other works - I’m not sure if this story was for me.

This is sadly a DNF for me, I was hoping to enjoy it as I love Tesh’s Greenhollow duology but this just didn’t sit well with me. I was uncomfortable with the topics and although there is trigger warnings, I don’t think the author handled these well and it also read very YA when it was supposed to be adult.

This will be posted on Instagram on release date.

Way before I was a fantasy nerd, I was a serious sci-fi nerd (think early Star Trek and stuff). So I was really happy to receive a sci-fi book with a unique story and wildly interesting characters.
The story starts out with Valkyr living in a dystopian space world, having the sole goal of revenging Earth's destruction by an alien race. This is what she's been born for, raised for, trained for. She thinks she has it all figured out. But when her brother disappears, her whole world gets turned upside down.
Even though you might think you can figure out where the story will evolve from this, believe me you can't. When you've finished about 50% of the book, your - the reader's - world will be turned upside down as well.
And if you've had trouble rooting for Valkyr up until now (you probably will), then everything is about to change and the rest of the book will be a wild space ride. And even though Valkyr is tall as hell, what she's about to face is bigger than her alone.
As every good sci-fi story, there are observations and lessons about real life. About humanity and society. And there is a lot to take away and unpack from this story, showing humanity at its worst and at its best. Its content will stay with me for a long while after closing the book.
The only critisicm I have is that the nature, technology and goal of Wisdom and shadowengines remain mostly in the dark. However, the author herself has pointed this out in her acknowledgement, saying that it's running on purest narrativium. And I'm okay with that.

*I will not be posting this review to any socials - however thank you very much for the opportunity to read the ARC prior to the books release*

I think for a first full novel the author writes very well and has obvious talent. However, this book was not for me at all and sadly I chose to DNF'd at around the 24% mark

POSITIVES
- interesting setting
- bold MC choice (propaganda brainwashed soldier) however, this was also a negative for me.

NEGATIVES
- unlikeable characters - I did not warm to any of them in the quarter I read and it made me not want to pick up the book
- patchy worldbuilding
- underdeveloped plot
- 'the nursery' - massive TW needed for forced pregnancy. This is one of my most hated tropes in books and sadly it is seen often in SCIFI/fantasy. This was my main reason for not continuing with the story.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an arc in exchange for this honest review.

All I can say about this is that my feelings were incredibly mixed come the end. It had an incredibly strong start, fully immersing us in the world through a prose that was very blunt, just like the brainwashed child soldier who’s our protagonist. Normally, I don’t like prose as blunt, much preferring when it’s lush and lyrical, but for this it worked incredibly well and felt like an extension of the main character; blunt like a soldier and hitting all the marks like a strong fist.

But I found that around the 40% or so mark my interest waned, I didn’t enjoy it as much and suddenly felt bored. The interest, however, eventually returned, only for this cycle to continue throughout the rest of the book, sometimes quite rapidly. Immense enjoyment, waning interest, bored senseless, repeat. The themes, however, were strong and well woven into the story, so I applaud the author for that.

I do have one nitpick though: the author uses several names rooted in greco-roman and norse history and myth as a device for the themes about white facism, however two things fell flat for me, being both a classics student and a Scandinavian. Cleo mentions that the only classical name they could come up with for a black woman was Cleopatra, a ruler of Egypt, which is in Africa. Though several spring to mind for me, the name Dido especially, as it has a bit of a history of being the type of name the author is using Cleopatra as. Another is Magnus, which felt so off reading as a name in a sci-fi, especially one intimately tied to a regime, considering how popular it is in Scandinavia. It’s like,,, the most basic name you can come up with. Whilst it did work as intended, both threw me off just a little. However, I don’t think many other readers will take notice or any issue of this. Like I said: it’s a nitpick.

I have decided that I don’t like space operas.
I kind of didn’t want to read this book. I was very sceptical and had the feeling that I wasn’t going to like it. But when I did start reading, I was pleasantly surprised. It was actually pretty cool. Until it wasn’t.

The setting was cool. Earth is destroyed, humankind is trying to survive and working on a plan of revenge against the alien race that destroyed their planet. I loved this idea! How would humanity survive in a situation like that? I immediately felt the frustration and determination of the people on the space station and I absolutely loved the “human are space orcs” trope.

The plot also started out quite nicely. Kyr’s brother Mags has been sent on a suicide mission and Kyr wants to stop him and bring him back home. She’s accompanied by Mags’ friend Avi and an alien.
The plot is very linear, but I never felt like it was building up to something, because every promising plot point was nipped in the bud. There was always something happening and then something else and then something else. It kind of felt like the author had many ideas for scenes in the same universe and stuck them together with no connection.
So far so not very good but still kind of alright.
And then it all turns into one gigantic mess.
Suddenly, everything is happening at once in one big tangle and I had to concentrate so much to understand what was going on (it didn’t always work).
There’s parallel universes and time jumps and people die and then live again in another universe and some are evil and some are not and you never know who you’re supposed to root for and you especially never know if something is real or just an illusion or if whatever happens is going to stay that way or if it’s gonna be reversed somehow and it’s just a big mess.
I really stopped caring about the characters because – they died? Just go to another universe, doesn’t matter.
What.
Also, I felt like there simply wasn’t enough space in this book. I expected awesome descriptions and spaceship chases and zero gravity and all that and there was barely any in it. I did like the design of the space station, but we didn’t spend that much time there.

The characters were nice enough (apart from their habit of not staying dead), but they all went flat after a while, especially since the character developments were extremely sudden. There was a reason behind it, but, well, that’s not the point. I don’t want the characters to suddenly have an epiphany about how to be a good person, I want to actually see the development!

So yeah, this book was unfortunately a disappointment. Still two stars though because it did have a couple of nice points.

Thank you NetGalley and Little Brown Publishing Group for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

4.5 stars

I've come to accept that Sci-fi tends to leave me confused in some areas, but I still find it an enjoyable genre. This book surprised me in the best way. We see great character development in Valkyr and I think I'll miss her. Yiso was adorable and I found it interesting that you could both love and hate Avi for his moral greyness.

I will admit that there are still some things that I don't understand (and maybe a second read through will fix that) but I thoroughly enjoyed the multi-universe scenes where different outcomes came to play. I also loved how it talks about genders and the natural acceptance of non-binary characters. It was subtle but well-performed. Also, the slight assumption that Kyr is possibly an asexual or aromantic character was a great added representation.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book!!

4.25/5

This book was incredible. I have been excitedly awaiting it ever since its announcement as I absolutely adored both Silver in the Wood and Drowned Country, Emily Tesh's novella duology. Some Desperate Glory is immensely different, but just as much fun to read.
Thank you Netgalley and Little, Brown Book Group UK for providing me with an e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

The worldbuilding was phenomenal. We exist in a universe with such a rich history, it's history that flares to life and sparks invention throughout every aspect of the novel. Everything impacts everything, Tesh has complete control over her world and never forgets or releases her grasp over its execution.
We see beautiful worlds that exist within this universe, we see new species and complicated, thriving communities. We also see paralleling worlds, we see a poisonous human consumption—we see conquerors, we see predators, we see evils.
Gaea Station is a phenomenal setting for our characters, conflict thrives and breeds in every jagged crack that they have to show. They are humanity's last survivors, a brutal force of warriors intent on destroying the alien races—the majoda. They are a cult, a broken army. They are brainwashed soldiers.

It is here we first follow our main character, Kyr. Kyr believes in the cause, she is a loyal soldier, she is a child of the dead Earth and she will be its warrior. When her brother, Mags, is sent to die she leaves Gaea to save him, but she does not leave behind these beliefs. However, within this first decision, we witness her character as she faces the things she has been told are ultimate truths and begins to find the faults in them.
Kyr isn't a likeable character when we first meet her, but she is perfectly written. Her arc is done with such care and craft and, maybe most importantly, believability.
There are so many amazing characters within this story, I fell in love with Mags and Yiso at the very beginning, I adored the haunting iterations of Avi. It truly has a brilliant cast of supporting characters.

I thought, when I'd read around a quarter of this book, that I knew where the story was heading. I could not have been more wrong!
This story takes us through twists and turns, and overwhelming loops, that I never would have imagined. It's phenomenally done and its social critiques are extremely poignant and thought-provoking.
In the acknowledgements, Tesh thanks Ursula K. Le Guin for teaching her the phrase 'social science fiction' and that is precisely what Tesh has achieved here. She questions Earth's society and the very cores of its structures, she questions Gaea's radicalisation and the morality of a monolith humanity, she questions the corrupt powers of dystopias and the erasure that is inevitable in utopias. She also questions who it is that we believe should be saved or given a second chance, what it is that defines a person's worth and who gets to decide.
It's a book that evokes such complex feelings as its emotional narratives delightfully pull at the corners of these questions to complicate them even further.

It's a book with a lot to say and I loved listening to all of its messages. I highly recommend picking this one up! It has such unique character dynamics that I loved exploring, such all-encompassing worldbuilding, such intriguing themes and moralities, such heart. Do yourself a favour and pick this book up when it comes out in April!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.

I enjoyed this book as lot more than I was expecting to, given the myriad trigger warnings given by the author at the start of the novel. While some of the language used and themes discussed could be seen as triggering, the context of brainwashing and subsequent realisation of this by the main character adequately addresses the issues. I really enjoyed the innovative narrative structure, which elevated the plot, and the allusions to facsism and propaganda are achingly relevant today.

Although I hadn’t read any of the short stories by Emily Tesh, I had high hopes for Some Desperate Glory and I was not disappointed.

Some Desperate Glory leans towards soft sci-fi and if you prefer everything to be fully explained and logical then this may not be for you. For example, the space travel itself was definitely a weaker part of this debut novel. However, if you enjoy a focus on sociology, politics and psychology then prepare yourself to encounter brainwashed soldiers, war and revenge.

Finally, I have seen reviews criticise the protagonists’ questionable world views and actions, though these make perfect sense given their isolated and focused upbringing. Personally, I like reading about characters whose choices are realistic - even if I don’t agree with them - and who I might hate for a bit or even most of the way through.

I’m really hoping there will be a special edition of Some Desperate Glory for me to get my hands on!

This dystopian space thriller follows a child soldier as she realises the problems with her society and how they have been lied to.
The story is generally well written and although the MC is dislikable a the beginning, by the end she becomes a character worth routing for. I enjoyed the evolution and growth that Kyr goes through, both in understanding herself and the world around her. The beginning was a bit dry and the plot was a little slow, but it did pick up around the middle and once it did, there were plenty of twists and turns to keep me hooked.
I've seen this commonly described as a queer space opera, which is very accurate, although I would stress this is not a romance, although it is queer with some brief bits of romance.
Neither the UK nor US covers did this book justice - the US cover in particular brushes over Kyr's impressive physical description as being built like a tank (I love a physically strong female MC who actually shows her strength and trained hard to get there).
Thank you to NetGalley for this eARC is exchange for an honest review!

And done, I really liked that book will probably give it a 4.5. It kept me interested the whole way through, and the thought of dnfing it to save money and not getting the pretty edition made me sad which is a good sign for a pretty. I didn't expect to like this book, but I did! It wasn't as confusing as I thought, and it was the first solely physical book I've done in a long time. There was a bit of timey-wimey alternate dimension stuff going on, but the trigger warnings at the start really were hardly mentioned. Definitely gave me the wrong idea.
I keep thinking I don't like sci-fi book but I try them and I keep enjoying them! Will be picking up more from this author

My opinion on this book has undergone a lot of changes. When I first started it, I hated it. Both because the narrator starts off deeply unsympathetic, and because the writing is vastly different from Tesh’s previous novellas which lent towards the gothic and lyrical. The writing here is much blunter and to the point. Which suits the story Tesh wants to tell here, but may come as a shock to readers expecting something more akin to Silver in the Woods. I also was waiting for the MC to magically see all the problems with her home-station just because she doesn’t get what she wants, which tends to be the norm with the style of book I felt like it was gearing up to be. Thankfully, I was drastically wrong.

Without spoiling too much, there are four discrete sections of the book and Kyr takes a good long time to realise some of the flaws and discrepancies between the story she grew up with and the reality of her home, even when she leaves the station and meets people who challenge her interpretation of events. This for me, soothed over a lot of the niggles I had with the first part of the story.

After that, the story really gathered momentum and pace and I was racing through it to find out how it resolved the various threads it set up. For me the ending was satisfying and for a teenage protagonist did not take the easy route of military grown-ups taking orders from less trained kids. It still retained Kyr’s agency whilst being slightly more believable. Ultimately, I did enjoy the book but there are a couple of elements introduced but not necessarily developed as much as I would have liked as well as a challenging pov for the first quarter that may be off putting for some readers.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read and review this book.

Queer. Space. Opera! Not only do I love me some gays in space but this book offered something else I really enjoy - a main character who isn’t particularly likeable. Our super soldier Kyr is brainwashed and naive but like any great narrow minded character once Kyr starts questioning what she was raised to believe we start to see her growth from the inside out and that’s a delight to witness.

This is a very expansive world on display. And whilst I struggled occasionally to take in everything (mainly because whilst expansive it’s also very fast paced and so you gotta find those moments to just breathe and think on what has just happened before moving on) I found myself wanting to know more and that’s always such a plus in any book.

Reader beware, no dystopia is complete without questionable and horrific gender and sexual politics and we see that played out here. There’s homophobia, sexism, misogyny, and rape to be found within these pages, but I think Emily Tesh tackles these issues with grace. This books doesn’t leave you feeling like you experienced everything for no tangible reason.

Overall I recommend this book for anyone who enjoys space, action adventures with a side of cultural commentary and a gay bonanza