Mea Culpa
So sorry - have ponies!
I meant to do Thursday and Friday posts before I left for Balticon. But Amtrak melted down Wednesday night and I was worried about residual delays…and completely forgot in my goal to leave a bit early!
For now, have a review. I’ll try and make this up to you. Silly Amtrak.
Review: Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh
This book starts with half a page of content warnings. It’s not a fun book. It’s not a happy book. It’s not a pretty book.
A little while back I was talking about deradicalization with somebody who basically said that ex fascists should never again have an easy time in society. They would not budge. Their opinion was that they should be shunned and miserable forever.
My opinion is that if that’s how you treat ex fascists, you won’t have many ex fascists…because they might as well stay fascists.
Some Desperate Glory is entirely about deradicalization. Our protagonist, Valkyr…her unfortunate name alone says it all…is raised in what is basically a fascist cult with echoes of Sparta (these echoes, down to the age at which children are taken from their mothers to be trained as soldiers, are apparently quite intentional).
After a terrible war, the aliens, with the help of a reality bending AI, destroy Earth as a solution to the human threat. The author is clearly taking “f yeah humanity” to the logical conclusion that if we are space orcs, that is bad. Most of the survivors live on various colonies, including a planet the aliens gave them to replace Earth…but the might of humanity is broken.
The Gaeans stole some warships and turned them into a station where they raise children to be the Only True Humans…everyone else is a collaborator.
It goes even darker from there. Tesh manages to create a thoroughly unlikable yet somehow oddly relatable protagonist, encouraging the reader to ask what they would be like if they were raised in this situation.
Not a fun book…there’s homophobia (including internalized), sexism, mass murder, violence, (off camera) sexual assault. But either it’s not really grimdark or I’ve finally recovered from my grimdark aversion ;).
Recommended…but make sure you’re in the right mood.