Books › Some Desperate Glory
Hugo Award for Best Novel 2024
Some Desperate Glory
544 pages
A furious, mind-bending journey of unlearning everything you were raised to believe in the cold vacuum of space.
What it feels like
Reading this book feels like being strapped into a cockpit with a pilot who is actively realizing her entire life is a lie. It begins with a claustrophobic, suffocating intensity, trapping you inside the mind of a fiercely indoctrinated, deeply unlikable protagonist whose rage is her only compass. As the narrative accelerates into a propulsive, reality-warping space opera, the mood shifts from grim militarism to something expansive, messy, and wondrous. The prose is sharp and urgent, perfectly mirroring the protagonist's shattering worldview and desperate scramble for truth. It is a thrilling, emotionally grueling experience that ultimately rewards the reader with a profound exploration of queer survival, the agonizing work of de-radicalization, and the fierce joy of choosing your own family.
- Mood
- claustrophobic
- explosive
- desperate
- mind-bending
- Tone
- furious
- uncompromising
- urgent
- earnest
- Pace
- propulsive
- Themes
- unlearning indoctrination · the cost of vengeance · queer survival · found family · breaking cycles of trauma
- The writing
- Sharp, urgent, and deeply embedded in the protagonist's fiercely skewed, indoctrinated perspective.
- The arc
- Moves from blind, furious zealotry through shattering disillusionment to a hard-won, expansive sense of agency and connection.
- Who it's for
- Fans of messy, unapologetically angry protagonists and queer space operas that tackle heavy themes of radicalization and redemption.
Content notes
- fascism and indoctrination
- threat of forced reproduction
- emotional abuse
- genocide
- violence
About the book
While we live, the enemy shall fear us.
All her life Kyr has trained for the day she can avenge the murder of planet Earth. Raised in the bowels of Gaea Station alongside the last scraps of humanity, she readies herself to face the Wisdom, the all-powerful, reality-shaping weapon that gave the Majoda their victory over humanity.
They are what’s left. They are what must survive. Kyr is one of the best warriors of her generation, the sword of a dead planet. But when Command assigns her brother to certain death and relegates her to the nursery to bear sons until she dies trying, she knows she must take humanity’s revenge into her own hands.
Alongside her brother’s brilliant but seditious friend and a lonely, captive alien, she escapes from everything she’s ever known into a universe far more complicated than she was taught and far more wondrous than she could have imagined.
A thrillingly told queer space opera about the wreckage of war, the family you find, and who you must become when every choice is stripped from you, Some Desperate Glory is award-winning author Emily Tesh’s highly anticipated debut novel.
Description from Open Library.
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