Hugo Nominee Review: Some Desperate Glory, by Emily Tesh

Hugo Nominee Review: Some Desperate Glory, by Emily Tesh

by Rich Horton

I'm going to be doing a review of each of the Hugo nominated novels over the next couple of weeks. I actually have already reviewed one of them, Ann Leckie's Translation State. For the most part these reviews will be somewhat short.

In recent years, quite a few Hugo nominations have gone to first novels, and this year there are two of those. One is Some Desperate Glory, by Emily Tesh. Tesh is a British writer, and her previous publications, two linked novellas from Tor.com, received lots of positive attention -- indeed, the first of these, Silver in the Wood (2019), won the World Fantasy Award for Best Novella. Its sequel is Drowned Country (2020), and the two are collectively the Greenhallow duology. Alas, I have not read either. So, for me, Emily Tesh came out of nowhere with Some Desperate Glory -- but clearly she didn't, with two previous slim books that were well-received. That said, Some Desperate Glory is SF -- even, at some level, Space Opera -- and thus quite a contrast to her other work, which I understand is dark fantasy.

The novel opens on Gaea Station, a small space habitat in which live the remmants of humanity who survived the destruction of Earth. This small group has sworn revenge on the aliens who destroyed (as in blew to bits) the Earth -- a loose federation of sorts collectively called the Majo, comprising several different races and even one human-occupied planet, Chrysothemis. Gaea Station faces very long odds, though -- they have only relatively few small ships, plus the remnants of four dreadnoughts the engines of which power the station. Their society is also harsh and strict -- the children, all born without know their birth parents, undergo military training from the age of 7, and at 17 they are assigned to their long term roles, which might involved military responsibilities, station maintenance, or "Nursery". None of this ever seems pleasant, but it's even worse when we learn that the women assigned to Nursery are expected to bear children every couple of years for a couple of decades, and are required to submit to the attentions of any eligible man who wants them. (Some of this I deduced -- it's not all explained.)

The main character is Valkyr, called Kyr. In the rather YA-flavored opening section, we learn that she is (naturally) the bestest ever female soldier trainee, with only her slightly older brother Magnus having better scores than she. We see her as the leader of her cadre of 17 year old woman, just as they are ready for their assignments. We gather quickly that she is a rather unpleasant person. And we slowly realize that she's confused by a few things -- one is her older sister, Ursa, who betrayed Gaea years earlier by leaving for Chrysothemis. The other is her learning that her brother is queer, and in love with Avi, a very small and bratty young man who is a computer genius. And, finally, there is the matter of the Majo ship that is captured, and which contains an alien, one of the originating race of the Majo, the Majo Ze. And her world completely changes when she learns that Magnus has been sent to Chrysothemis on a secret mission to disrupt the ceremony at which the planet will receive a node of the Wisdom, a sort of supercomputer which makes decisions for the best of everyone in the Majo -- decisions like destroying Earth.  At the same time Kyr learns her assignment -- Nursery! Instead, she rebels and decides to steal a ship and head for Chrysothemis -- to take direct action against the Majo, as she feels she is best suited for, and also to save her brother from what seems like a suicide mission. 

This first section is at times hard to take. Part of it is that Kyr is an asshole -- which is the point, sort of, but also is overdone, and becomes contradicted in later sections. The other part is that a lot of the details about Gaea Station just don't hold together. The thing is -- partly -- that the next part, on Chrysothemis, is much better. And the story really becomes quite interesting. I'm not going to detail the rest of the plot at all, as there are spoilers aplenty in almost anything I could say. But in the end, this is a novel that frustrated me throughout -- there are some great ideas, some interesting moral questions, some cool science fictional notions. And at the same time, all along, there are annoying aspects: thin worldbuilding, implausible (or arbitrary) character development, a failure to fully interrogate some of the (truly worthwhile) moral questions, and occasional downright silliness. And, a whole lot of overegging the pudding in establishing the villainy of the central villains. (When will authors realize that bad people are still complex people, and bad situations are still usually mixed -- there is no reason to go back and check every single "villain box"!)

In the end, I have to come down somewhere in the middle. First, I'll say, the novel is on balance an enjoyable read, especially after the opening section. I'm glad I read it, and I'll try further things Emily Tesh writes. But set against that there are real flaws, and if they aren't quite fatal they are damaging. It modulated oddly from straight YA at the start, to a more adult novel in the middle, back to an overly convenient and very YA-ish ending. (I note, of course, that the very best YA fiction avoids this -- and much so-called "adult" fiction leans into it.) The prose is -- mostly just fine, but never special. (There are a few solecisms, but I admit I wondered if a couple of these were misreads by the reader of the audiobook I listened to.) Would I have nominated it for a Hugo? No. But am I happy to have read it? Yes.