I’ll start this out by saying I’m not into reading YA books which may have affected a lot of my review. I think that if I had kids I would let them read this book and in that sense it’s a very successful YA novel but for my own tastes and biases I didn’t really enjoy it.

Victories Greater Than Death is basically like Ender’s Game if it wasn’t fash, with a little Star Trek TNG and Netflix’s Voltron thrown in. It’s a fast moving space opera narrative that’s a quick read. I was familiar with Anders’ All The Birds In The Sky, which I LOVED, though it also felt a little YA-ish, and in both her strength is her worldbuilding. The concept behind the (for lack of a better word) Big Bad is something I’ve never come across in sci-fi, and I wish she had done more with it, though it leaves a story open for sequels (no spoilers!) The story does a good job juggling lots of concepts and a pretty big cast of characters, all of which have discernible arcs, without losing the reader, and that in itself is a feat.

Something that made the prose feel juvenile was that it seemed like a millennial/gen X’er trying to approximate how the younger end of gen Z speaks, which is something I doubt even I could do (as someone on the cusp of millennial and Gen-Z). It’s a very progressive story with lots of minority representation which is part of the reason I said kids should read it, but the way it’s done feels a little hamfisted to me. For example, all the aliens introduce themselves with their gender pronouns, which made me laugh out loud the first time they did it. Maybe I’m a bad person for laughing because it seems well-intentioned… but at the same time the only non-binary characters were space aliens. It’s culturally diverse, but at the same time there’s an alien named Thot, which pretty much sums it up.

3 stars. I think this book may have oversold itself a little bit by comparing itself to Doctor Who and Star Wars. Brief synopsis: an alien clone raised as a human girl for her own protection from enemies awaits the day her beacon will go off to signal her return to the stars as well as when she can begin being tracked/located by alien enemies. At the start of the action of the book, the beacon goes off.

I was hoping that Charlie Jane Anders may have employed the elevated prose of her adult works to transcend the YA boundary here, but I fear that she may have instead decided to go the opposite route and pander to teens. Much of this felt rushed and angsty and I would have so much more enjoyed savoring an elaborate and beautiful new science fiction world. This one feels a little haphazardly stitched together at times, with rough transitions, pacing difficulties, and out-of-place turns of phrase.

That having been said, it was a lot of fun and I rather enjoyed having a trans woman as the lead love interest. The characters are diverse and while still mostly one dimensional, this is something I hope the author can ameliorate in the next installments. The world building is interesting (not to mention wonderfully positive to have a universe in which it's not unusual to introduce yourself with preferred pronouns and to always ask permission before touching another individual) and I look forward to its expansion as well.

**Thank you Netgalley and publisher for giving me an electronic ARC copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.**

I really wanted to like this book, however I felt that the dialouge was flat as the characters weren't well-rounded. I did like the descriptions of the aliens, they were very diverse.

Thank you to NetGallery and Tor Teen for giving me the opportunity to read this for a honest review.

The cover is amazing and the blurb drew me in. The story is ok. I found that I couldn’t really get into it unfortunately. I had high hopes.

Kids adventure through space and meet all kinds of aliens and fight the bad guys. This title will definitely be popular in my library.

I'm a fan of CJA's adult fiction, and this wasn't quite as good, but she creates quite a great fantasy world that's quirky and fun, along with some fast paced action. I think middle school students will eat this up.

"My name is (random smattering of letters) and my pronouns are (xxxxx)" should have been the name of this book.

Tina is an Earth human... sort of. She's aware that there's something different about her, something that says she's meant for space travel. She and her best friend, along with a motley crew of genius Earth teens, join the crew of a spaceship sent to gather her and release the memories of her previous incarnation from the vault in her mind.

This story reads like it should have been written with adult characters for adults when it comes to content, but the writing style feels like it would be best for middle schoolers - so many things were parenthetically explained that it seemed patronizing and dumbed down. It sits awkwardly in YA because it just doesn't feel appropriate for any audience.

I'll be honest, it feels like it has a big marketing push because the book kind of sucks...

The cover of this book is stunning and that’s what attracted me to it first, then I read the synopsis and I was sold. Sadly though, this one wasn’t for me. I wanted to love it but I found the writing style hard to get into

Wow. I loved this. What a fantastic YA Sci-fi. It’s about friends and what it means to be remembered after death. It’s about who we are and who we want to be. And it’s about love, loss and believing in something greater than yourself.

Tina – fake human – is finally rescued by the people who put her on earth. She’s a clone of the great Captain Thaoh Argentian. It’s a lot to live up to. But Tina is not Thaoh. She’s just Tina. And on board the spaceship that is headed for disaster she can’t be the hero they desperately needed.

Still, the spaceship is under attack and they need more crew to man the battle stations. Tina’s best friend Rachel (proper human) comes up with a great (terrible) idea. Bring on board more human teenagers… genius’s and they can help. Tina fears this means they will be put at risk. But the crew needs every body they can get. Soon Tina is working with Rachel and her four new human friends to save the ship and possibly the universe. And the battle is far from over… It’s worse than anyone can possibly imagine.

This is a fantastic science fiction. Brilliantly written. The worldbuilding is detailed and unique. The alien lifeforms are clever, interesting and deftly explained. At no point do you feel swamped in lengthy data-dumps or long descriptions of landscape. It’s a fun and horrific tale. The world, universe and space ships are believable and it is easy to get swept away in this story. Following Tina’s journey lets the universe build from Tina’s eyes as well as the minds of her friends. Her expectations and memories verses the expectations of her human’s friends and the memories of her alien friends. There is also a taste of horror in the evil they are facing and a thriller in the race to get there first.

Tina’s development in figuring out who she truly is faces hurdles from without and within. From her human friends and alien ones. What does she really believe in? And who? Her friends are with her every step of the way, but it’s tough to learn the person you think you should be is not the person you are.

Jump on this story as soon as it is out (April 13, 2021). I completely recommend it. You can pre-order it now. This book does what all good sci-fi should. Make you think. Make you question. Make you believe.

Victories Greater than Death was a disappointment. I loved Charlie Jane Anders' previous book, All the Birds in the Sky, and particularly her writing style, but here it fell flat. It felt too much like she was trying to make it teen-esque, but it really didn't work for me. I kept wondering if she had purposefully made her own writing worse because it was YA. I know she can write beautifully, but this book didn't show it. There wasn't much I actively liked about Victories Greater than Death, but a lot that had untapped potential. All of the characters, for instance, could have been really interesting and complex, but instead most remained surface-level and a bit unrealistic feeling. Most of the character development was done through extremely direct statements by the characters about themselves in dialogue, rather than showing who they are through their actions. I cringed every time one of the teenagers introduced themself with a summary of who they are as a person; people just don't talk that way.
Other reviews mentioned the strange pacing, and I completely agree. Scenes just started or ended abruptly. Like the characters, I wished they had more depth. More descriptions of the physical setting would have helped, too.
The story is about a teenager on Earth who has known her whole life that she was a clone of an alien General, and that one day she would be taken back to space and have her memories restored. When the day actually comes, however, she doesn't regain memories of the personal life of Captain Argentian, only disconnected basic information about the world. She joins the Royal Fleet against the Compassion, a group led by Captain Argentian's former friend. The Compassion is trying to find an artifact left behind by the Shapers, an alien species who favored humanoid-shaped aliens, giving them technologies that helped them thrive, and hated non-humanoid aliens, destroying their environments and making it more difficult for them to survive. They had shaped the universe, making humanoid aliens dominate other ones, and the Compassion believe in the supremacy of humanoid creatures as a result.
I thought this was an interesting idea, and the basic plot was fairly unique, but also could have used more slow development. Overall, I think this should have been a longer, more introspective book to truly do justice to all the many characters, conflicts, settings, and plot points introduced (especially since so many are literally alien). Because so many things did have potential, I didn't hate the book, it just disappointed me. I'd give it 2.5/5 stars.

Victories Greater than Death has a very interesting premise and tries to bring a younger YA group up to social/gender identifications. The story first starts off on Earth then moves into space where expectations are not always met.

I told CJA on twitter, but I adored this book. I teach grades 6-12 as a reading specialist and am always looking for books that appeal to struggling readers and marginalized kids, and this book has that, plus a ripping good story. It's going on my classroom bookshelf as soon as I can get a physical copy AND get back in the building!

Victories Greater Than Death had a great premise, but I don't think it was meant for me. The pacing just wasn't my cup of tea (seems like it's more suitable for a younger audience). The plot points were unique but unfortunately, I found they were executed poorly, making some things jumpy or unbelievable.

Thank you to Netgalley for this arc in exchange for an honest review.

3.75 stars

Victories Greater than Death is a thrilling sci-fi adventure, which to be completely honest I only requested because of the pretty cover (coupled with the fact I've heard good things about the author!) but I was so pleasantly suprised by this book! The fund family vibes and space intriuge were so interesting to read about!

We follow Tina, who knows she has a predestined purpose despite having a seemingly normal life. We soon find out Tina is secretly a clone of an intergalatic hero, and is soon thrust into a whole world (galaxy ?) of adventure, where things are not quite what they seem.

She and her best friend Rachael travel into space where they join the crew of a royal fleet spaceship and everyone expects Tina to be a hero, however she is just ordinary. They recruit some more crew members from earth, who are all such characters and watching them grow together as a crew is such a joy!! Also watching Tina grow into herself and her legacy is such a fun ride!!

They are trying to defeat this evil guy who can kill people with his touch, whilst turning everyones memories of them horrible. I know this was supposed to be serious but sometimes I found myself laughing out loud at some of the thoughts the characters would have after a character died and they all turned against thme haha. The villain is such a despicable character (unfortunatly no villain simping for me T_T) however it's easy to see how he got to where he is and how power can corrupt.

I also love the causal lgbtq+ rep, Tina is in a wlw relationship, with the love interest being trans, everyone always introduces themselves with their pronouns and there are lots of neopronouns used as well. The relationship was super cute and I did ship it, although it did happen slightly too quick for me, I would have liked a bit more angst and yearning hehe, but the whole book takes place at a breakneck speed so it's not really a surprise!

One thing I would have liked a bit more of is world-building, as I would have loved to have a bit more about the context of the war withing the galaxy. And possibly a few more emotional character moments, because the ones we did get were really good but I feel like sometimes they were sacrificed in place of a fast plot.

In conclusion this is a really fun, fast paced sci-fi which would be great for beginners!

This was a YA novel in ebook format. Unfortunately it's the start of a trilogy. I'm not a series fan because the first volume is necessarily a prologue and I'm not a fan of prologues especially if they have a cliffhanger ending. Worse even than this, is that this novel was also a first person voice one. Again, not a fan at all. First person is the weakest voice to me. It's the most unrealistic and the most selfish - "Hey lookit me! Listen to me. I can remember whole.

This novel started out pretty well and the first person wasn't nauseating. Some authors can carry it off, and evidently this one can do it, so it started really well and drew me in. I thought maybe this would be one of the rare exceptions that engaged me, but once the aliens started showing up, I began to feel like I was reading a children's book rather than a YA novel. It seemed to be pitched a little low when it came to reading level.

It's about this young girl, Tina, who believes - because of what her mother has told her - that she's an alien baby disguised with human DNA - a reincarnation of an earlier alien who died saving her crew. At some point, Tina is going to be picked up by these aliens to save the day she believes, but at that same time, her life will be endangered by the enemies of those aliens.

In that regard it's a bit like Harry Potter! "Yer an alien, Harry!" LOL! So we have a special child, hidden with a parent who is not their own (or in this case only partly their own). It makes for an attractive premise if it's done well, and this one initially was. If what her mom told her is true, it should make for a weird and interesting story, but if her mother has fed her some fiction, it's a cruel thing to do. This intrigued me.

I really enjoyed the opening chapters with Tina and her best friend Rachael hanging with each other. They truly came across as being lifelong friends. They had each other's back and they were very close. As is my wont in too many YA novels, I actually began liking the sidekick more than I liked the main character. I don't know why this is, but it happens a lot! That slipped a little about 20% in, unfortunately! Before that, though, was the issue of Rachael being bullied.

I don't doubt there still is bullying in schools, but the way this author had it was that the bullying was rife, open, and completely unchecked. I found it to be a bit too much of a stretch to be expected to believe that not a single person in the entire school - not any other student, nor any teacher or auxiliary staff member even noticed it, let alone was intent upon doing anything about it. It was, as it is in most of these stories where bullying is involved, overdone. Bullying is a serious problem and it needs to be stamped out, but it cheapens the whole problem if it's made into a caricature like it is here.

I am not a fan of info dumps, flashbacks, or intensive backstory and this novel began with little to none. While on the one hand I appreciated that, for me I could have used a little more than the author offered, because in starting to read this, I had questions that were not being answered. I had to wonder how this supposedly semi-alien child was even conceived given the differences in DNA between us and the aliens.

Chimpanzees are as close to humans as DNA gets without actually being human, and it's not possible (nor remotely desirable!) to hybridize a chimpanzee with a human, so how would it work with totally alien DNA? Maybe the aliens have seriously advanced technology, so I let that slide, but that itself raised other questions down the line, and it wasn't the only issue.

The thing is that Tina has been raised from infancy apparently without any doctor at any time discovering that she was a hybrid! I mean she must have had medical exams and the required vaccinations, right? But her partly alien body didn't react? No doctor noticed anything out of the ordinary? And how did mom explain this baby suddenly arriving in her life? I assume, since it has some of her DNA, that the child would identify as hers if tested, but how did she explain its magical appearance after having shown no signs of pregnancy? And if this deceased captain was so very valuable, why not make a score of clones? Why just one?

So while I was certainly interested in the story because it was different, I confess I was a bit skeptical about it as I started in on it. Again I decided to let this slide and go with it. The problem with doing this though, is that while some issues, even quite large ones, can be forgiven for the sake of a good story, the more of these issues that build up, the harder it is to turn a blind eye to them.

That began with the book description, which was replete with the usual hyperbole. I know that this isn't usually on the author unless they self-publish, but it can cause problems for readers. At one point it said, "think Star Wars meets Doctor Who," and while I can get with the Doctor Who (despite Chris Chibnall), I can't stand Star Wars at all, so that was a negative for me. I'm not a fan of books that compare themselves to others, because I think it's unfair to the author, and it can have unintended consequences. Because of the Star Wars reference, I almost did not pick this up, but the premise intrigued me, even though I could not see for the life of me where the Doctor Who part came into it. Still can't!

For me, the base problem with this whole premise was that of reincarnating a "legendary commander." It made no sense that these aliens with advanced technology, and evidently under threat, would choose to wait a whole generation for a hybrid commander to grow from infancy and save them! Did they have no other commanders? Did the legendary commander have no deputies or sub-commanders who knew their tactics? Was the war put on hold until the commander could resume command? Worse than that, there's no logic in believing that even this person, the hybrid with the dead commander's DNA, would be anything remotely like the commander was - or anywhere near as canny, skilled, or gifted.

I mean, did the Beatles' children go on to become a world famous band? No! Did Einstein's children go on to become renowned theoretical physicists? No! Did Dwight Eisenhower's surviving son go on to become a legendary general? No! He did become a general, and probably a fine one, but no one's heard of him. Did Ted Bundy's daughter go on to become a serial killer? Hell no!

If the DNA of those children - 'pure', as it were - didn't lead them to emulate their parents, why would anyone think a hybrid child would do so? You are not your DNA in the sense of it dictating who or what you become. That's on you. And there's no way a person's memories can be transferred to another by hybridizing DNA. DNA isn't memory, so this premise was weak and frankly insulting. For me, this novel didn't make a good case for why this would work, or why anyone even thought it would. Still I was willing to let even that slide.

The first problem was with the aliens - and I mean apart from the clichés. The author seems to have decided to make them as diverse and wacky as possible with no regard to whether or not they're realistic. One of them has one eye, but the eye wraps around its head. I can't for the life of me see how an eye like that could have evolved or even work. The bad guys are of course cliché ugly, and have heads that look like skulls. It's a bit too much, so after having enjoyed the book initially, I began seriously struggling with it when the aliens arrived and the reading level seemed to dip precipitously.

The writing was a bit off at this point too. And I don't mean the use of 'itch' where 'scratch' was meant. That was on Tina and people do talk like that, so no problem there. No I mean examples like, where after arriving aboard the mother-ship, Tina expresses a desire to be by herself for a while, but immediately they're taking her to an exam room (where the one-eyed alien awaits) and all thoughts of being alone are lost, and not even mentioned. It would have been nice to have Tina resent her 'me time' being purloined, or have the guy apologize for robbing her of it, but it was dropped like it had never arisen. Another oddity was that the alien spacecraft was called 'HMSS Indomitable' which is frankly ridiculous. What's with the 'HMSS' and why would aliens use a naming convention for their spacecraft that mirrors a usage on Earth for ocean-going vessels?

A really serious problem with the aliens is that they're not really alien. They seem like Americans who just look different from regular humans. It's quite glaring. They speak English and they use American colloquialisms. Now you could argue that they have some sort of universal translator, but the author doesn't specify that, or even have Tina question how they speak English, which makes her look a bit dumb, I'm sorry to report.

No, the biggest damning factor was that the patches on their uniforms have English phrases on them. How that works I do not know. At one point I read "Rachael looks at the winged-snake emblem on their left shoulder, which reads THE ROYAL FLEET on top, and WE GOT YOUR BACK on the bottom." Maybe they have a universal translator that translates speech from alien to English, but does it also translate words on shoulder patches? Does it also render colloquialisms? It was too much. Maybe this was the Doctor Who part?! I just got the feeling that the author hadn't really thought through the aliens, which seemed a bit hypocritical given the attention that was paid to appropriate interactions elsewhere.

Yes, gender-neutral pronoun, I'm looking at you! The fact is that using such pronouns has been shown to reduce mental bias favoring men. It also increases positive attitudes towards women and to the LGBTQIA community, so it's a good thing, but it stood out glaringly here, and made the aliens seem even more American. Every alien that Tina meets introduces themselves and gives their favored pronoun, but no explanation is given as to why aliens - I mean literal aliens from other planets - would have any conventions like the Americans do, let alone this particular one - which they all shared and which is relatively new here on Earth.

For example, the alien would say, "My name is Yatto the Monntha, and my pronoun is they." I respect that the author wants diversity and inclusiveness in this novel. That's all well and good, but what it feels like when it's done here is that instead of respecting it, it's being parodied. Every character introduces themselves like this (Tina doesn't respond in kind - at least not initially), and it quickly became an annoyance because this is not an alien thing, it's largely an American thing (at least so far).

Other people in other nations use it of course, but it's not the norm world-wide. Whether it should be or not is another issue, but that's not the point here. The point is that beneficial or not, not even everyone on Earth is as committed to this as many people in the US are, let alone alien races from distant planets, so it constantly reminded me that I was reading fiction written by an American author, rather than allowing me to immerse myself in this alien world. I couldn't imagine reading a trilogy of this kind of writing. I really couldn't.

I wish the author all the best in future endeavors, because there is some solid stuff here, but I can't get onboard with this particular one. I finally gave up reading at 20% because of something dumb that Rachael did, believe it or not. After Tina had been wringing her hands over Rachel leaving the craft, even though Tina knew it was best and didn't want to see her friend injured or killed, Rachael finally got to stay on the craft (as we all knew she would), but then she comes up with the idea that the aliens should recruit children from Earth to replace the original crew members who have been killed in the line of duty. Children! Because there are child geniuses. And Tina barely shrugs at this.

Believe it or not, there are adult geniuses on Earth: brilliant chemists, physicists, mathematicians, engineers and so on. There are also elite adult trained soldiers. Yet their idea is not to seek help from those mature and experienced people, but to recruit children and put their lives at risk. When we hear of child soldiers in the world, particularly in Africa, in the CAR or the DRC, we're up in arms about it, but here Tina is thinking this is a regrettable but brilliant idea of Rachael's? No. Just no!

I know this is a juvenile book and there are lots of such novels where children are put in harm's way for the sake of a good adventure, but the best written ones of those have some sort of rationale as to why it's the kids and not the adults. That didn't happen here - at least not to the point where I gave up reading. It was children all the way and no adult recruits were even considered, nor were any parental and guardian concerns as their children were contemplated being recruited! It was treated like these children were free for the plucking, more akin to: Yeah, we got brilliant kids, let's press-gang 'em!

I know this is 'only fiction' but I can't get with that kind of thoughtless writing. For all the political correctness shown elsewhere in the novel this seemed like a huge backward step, and I can't commend it as a worthy read. There were too many holes and too many things a reader has to let slide. It could have been a lot better and I was truly sorry it wasn't.

I was busy trying to get some Christmas presents made so I didn't dedicate as much time to reading each day as usual which I think affected my enjoyment of this book and caused it to drag out too long. I was very into it at first, enjoying the sci fi-ness of it and Tina's excitement about finally coming into her prophesized destiny, but then some of the dragging began for me. Despite that issue - which might totally be due to my own schedule - there were quite a few very cool sci fi things that I don't recall seeing before. Marrant's power really stands out as unique, and the long-lasting effects of him killing people gave me a lot to consider which is always a plus! In addition to that there is Tina's own situation, the shape-changing/self-healing ship, the reason for an abundance of humanoids in the universe, and the race that sees three sides to every story. All of those were new ideas to me and things I don't recall seeing in any other book, TV show or movie. I'm having my husband, the even bigger sci fi geek, read it to get his take on it all but it's definitely unique and I will be happy to sell it to my students.

Wouldnt recommend this to my students. I have a young secondary school form group and would not recommend this to them at all. It’s aimed at their age group, but it’s so ridiculous that I feel that they’d scoff at it. Even as a scientist and Sci fi reader myself I am struggling to get past chapter 14 (just over 25% of the way through). Won’t be publishing a review to goodreads - have given 1 star for merit for an unusual plot idea.

Kids go to space and get to fight aliens. What's not to like here? I think this one is going to go over pretty well. It's very inclusive and full of action and adventure.

Thanks to the publisher and netgalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is being pitched as Star Wars meets Doctor Who, and I can definitely see why, I think it also has some Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy thrown in. This is a super fun YA space opera (and I really hope the first in a series). The quirky crew is great and love the found family amongst the earthlings, I wish there had been a bit more development of some of the alien crew members. I loved how diverse the cast was and how the emotional ramifications of leaving earth to join an alien spaceship and intergalactic war were explored. The world building was super interesting, and some great use of technology but again I wish there had been a bit more depth to it.
Overall super fun, probably leans towards the younger side of YA

I really enjoyed reading this book. The character development was subtle in a myriad of ways, and the plot moves along quickly enough to keep interest. I could have used a little more expansion around the ending of the book, but on the whole found the experience very enjoyable.

Victories Greater Than Death is a high-spirited space adventure with abundant humor and heart that speaks some important truths about how we come to accept who we are. It digs into challenging questions of identity and oppression while slinging us through the universe and its many worlds.

Anders is interested in the challenge of balancing who you are with who the world expects you to be, The novel's core family of Earth kids undertaking the mission to save the universe are all facing this challenge in themselves, and through them, Anders celebrates the joy of finding your power in embracing who you are at your core.

The whole thing is wildly imaginative, treats the identities of its characters with loving respect, and understands how to make systems of oppression understandable to teenage readers. It's a smart book that will satisfy a YA audience hungry for aliens, intergalactic battles and out-of-this-world romance. But it will also teach readers what a loving, equitable, respectful universe might look like.