CBR Bingo: Citizen (the main character is pretty much the “ideal” citizen in her society)
I read Emily Tesh’s The Incandescent a few months ago, and I enjoyed it and wanted to try the author’s other works, so I recently picked up Some Desperate Glory, her debut novel.
Sometime in the future, Earth has been destroyed by alien technology. Some of the remaining humans inhabit Gaea Station, constructed of old warships, and form a militaristic society where children are born and raised almost solely with the goal of revenge. Our viewpoint is Valkyr (“Kyr”), a young woman who is the most devoted cadet in her age group, who is on the brink of receiving her “adult” job assignment. She is expecting, based on her breeding, skills, and training scores, to be assigned to a combat position, but is shocked when instead she is assigned to “Nursery,” the group of women responsible for bearing and raising children. When her twin brother, Marcus, refuses his own combat assignment, he leaves the station, and Kyr is determined to find out why he has defected.
Kyr isn’t a particularly likeable character (especially at first), but she is a compelling one, and I found her viewpoint eminently readable. The society she lives in is brutal, being sexist, homophobic, controlling, xenophobic, eugenics-practicing, etc. etc., but she’s devoted to their cause. It’s somewhat understandable, as she’s a teenager who’s essentially been groomed and brainwashed from an early age, but if you’re someone who needs the main character to be sympathetic, this might not be the book for you.
The writing in this is very good (if I hadn’t known, I would never have guessed this was a debut novel), and the plot is unpredictable and doesn’t drag. This one has some heavier themes (which again, might not be everyone’s cup of tea) than The Incandescent, and I think I actually liked it even more than that one. I’ll likely be picking up any future works from this author.