• Some Desperate Glory

  • By: Emily Tesh
  • Narrated by: Sena Bryer
  • Length: 15 hrs and 56 mins
  • 4.2 out of 5 stars (149 ratings)

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Some Desperate Glory  By  cover art

Some Desperate Glory

By: Emily Tesh
Narrated by: Sena Bryer
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Publisher's summary

Long-listed, Barnes and Noble Best New Books of the Year 2023

Hugo Award Nominee

Long-listed, Goodreads Choice Awards, 2023

Long-listed, Library Journal Best Books of the Year, 2023

"Sena Bryer delivers a cinematic performance of Tesh's exhilarating space opera. Bryer's full-bodied characterizations—gruff Mags, Kyr's quietly rage-filled squadmates, and a sweetly naïve but powerful alien named Yiso—are so skilled that listeners may wonder if this is a full-cast production. Complete with time slips, a reality-warping artificial intelligence, and epic world-building, this is a gripping, can't-miss listen."—AudioFile

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 Astounding Award Winner and Crawford Award Finalist Emily Tesh’s highly anticipated debut novel.

"Masterful, audacious storytelling. Relentless, unsentimental, a completely wild ride."—Tamsyn Muir

With three starred reviews!

While we live, the enemy shall fear us.

Since she was born, 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 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. When Command assigns her brother to certain death and relegates her to 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, Kyr escapes from everything she’s known into a universe far more complicated than she was taught and far more wondrous than she could have imagined.

A Macmillan Audio production from Tor.com.

©2023 Emily Tesh (P)2023 Macmillan Audio
  • Unabridged Audiobook
  • Categories: LGBTQ+

Interview: A Radicalized Heroine Finds Redemption in "Some Desperate Glory"

'It was difficult to write a character who sucks that much...'
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  • Some Desperate Glory
  • 'It was difficult to write a character who sucks that much...'

Editorial Review

Another smash hit
I first fell in love with Emily Tesh’s writing in an MFA class on sci-fi & fantasy novellas. We were assigned her novella Silver in the Wood, and I was spellbound by not only the lovely prose but her achingly beautiful depiction of queer love and longing. To hear she is publishing her first full-length novel—a queer space opera no less—practically made me swoon. Some Desperate Glory delivers a rich vision of post-Earth humanity and a misguided hero whose redemption you can’t help but root for. I can’t wait to hear this performance from Sena Bryer—who is not a debut narrator, but a newer voice talent I hope we hear much, much more from in the future. —Sam D., Audible Editor

What listeners say about Some Desperate Glory

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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One of the New Best Pieces of Modern Fiction

It's a book with a slow start, but it becomes impossible to put down.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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No notes!

What a great story! It didn't disappoint one bit. I loved the world building, the characters and and distressing as it was, the themes.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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Love the characters and the story

This is a wonderful story and the voice acting was great. I’m an old boomer and it took me a little bit to get used to the they/them pronouns - but I’m used to them now 😂 highly recommended!

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Wow!

Sooo many emotions! loved it. the first few chapters were slow but it pays off!

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    5 out of 5 stars
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Main character

I’ve never had a main character piss me off as much as the one in this book… gawddaamn she’s hard headed

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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Epic!

I was captivated from the start. The narration was perfect. I wanted to be in the world Tesh magically created

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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Great listen

Thought it seemed like a YA coming of age where the first protagonist’s lesson was too obvious and likely to follow the same old path but ended up going deeper and all the characters had nice arches. Great narration.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Not bad, not great

As mentioned in other reviews the narrator was excellent. Story, not so much. It kept my attention and I don’t regret spending the credit. Is it anywhere near the top 10 of my sci-fi reads? Hardly

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    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Annoying narration, story wasn't really for me

The biggest problem for me was the narrator, who often pauses between each clause, drawing things out way too long. On the other hand, I've rarely heard a narrator who is as good at differentiating voices so it's easy to tell who is talking.

The story wasn't really for me, kind of a Handmaid's Tale meets gay romance parallel universes drama. It seemed to me that the protagonist seemed too negative and surly to actually like.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Outstanding!

Great, novel story with a really relatable main character. I loved that I couldn’t predict what would happen, and there was a subtle morality that also I appreciated.

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