Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh

[james_davis_nicoll]

It's up to a group of plucky, thoroughly indoctrinated child-soldiers to save humans from alien domination... so that humans can ruthlessly dominate the aliens. Is this the end game or is there an even ender game?

Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh 

Comments

[jreynolds197]

Makes me wonder what time travel stories can be used to round out the month.

Maybe having somebody request Blackadder Back and Forth would be a sufficiently cunning plan?

[mecurtin]

There was a time (decades past) when I read literally every time travel story that came down the pike. I quit in the 90s, I think, but I LOVE the Bill & Ted rule and shall use it henceforth.

Your review prompted me to get mine up on Goodreads for future (Hugo nom) reference. The whole time travel/timeline altering aspect completely tanked my appreciation for the book, and the ending ... I can't accept bartering with levels of genocide, and worse yet making ecocide not even worth bartering over.

Are you going to make a "for Hugo consideration" list?

[james_davis_nicoll]

Do you mean for books I've read or for me?

[mecurtin]

Both! Either!

[scott_sanford]

Bill and Ted had all the disadvantages that come as a package deal with being teenaged goofballs - but they were not actually stupid, just painfully immature in almost every way. Once they got used to having a time machine their applications of it were plausible ones, for teen slackers who'd just gotten a time machine.

I point this out because we've seen stories in which allegedly competent adults, said to have some background familiarity with time travel, use their technology less intelligently than Bill and Ted.

[ba_munronoe]

"I think one book had evil space lizards who were always evil, while the other had evil space lizards who were always evil, but sufficiently faction-ridden for their conflicts to be exploited by humans."

Was that before or after the Evil Space Spiders Which are, Like, Totally Evil book?

[(Anonymous)]

"both from a publisher that was at times the bane of my life"

Hmmm.