I really liked the characters in this book. They are fun and so diverse and I wanted to know everything about all of them.

Unfortunately the plotting in this story was so all over the place that it was difficult to follow what was going on. Sometimes you finish a section and the next you’re thrown right into the middle of an action sequence with no explanation of how they got there or what they’re even there for. The timeline was so hard to keep track of because things like this.

Most of my issue really could be fixed with more editing so I think it’ll be fine by release. I really did love the characters and would love to see more of them.

Space adventures are so much fun! I had a really fantastic time reading Victories Greater Than Death, it resonated with me for several reasons.

Growing up, my favorite stories were adventures and survival stories. I loved it when the main character fought against obstacles and triumphed over adversity. But for me, most of these stories had a male protagonist. Not all, but most. I call these characters ’knights’ because they were always brave, self-sacrificing and had hearts for helping people. I put myself into these roles in my imagination to the extent that I dreamed adventure dreams. But even in my dreams the knight was male.

Tina is actually one of the closest characters I’ve read who thinks like I do. She’s got a military mind, appreciates teamwork and understands chain of command, but also has an open mind and values creatives. She feels a strong sense of responsibility to take care of her people, with a tendency to over-commit and sacrifice her own needs. She’s strong, but also vulnerable. I love her growth and how she both comes into her own path (outside of any clone destiny) and figures out there’re more options to handling conflict than killing or dying. It’s really nice to read a non-stereotyped military character.

I was reminded, while reading, of A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, where characters are introduced and we find out about the many ways people can come from different cultures and environments, but with basic civility, are still able to get along. In VGTD, pronouns are given when introductions are made, and permission is asked when people want to touch. I thought it was organic to the story enough that even though the word choices still seemed a bit strange to me, I didn’t feel like I was being hit over the head with it. It is my firm belief that when we can change the language we use, we change our world. We change minds. This is a great step forward into normalizing a way of speaking that develops inclusive thinking.

Final thoughts: - Big ‘YES’ to brave, female knights! Give girls a real hero to dream about!
- Wonderful, thoughtful diversity of characters
- Fast-paced action with a menacing villain and a deeper, mysterious threat to safety that feels relevant to issues confronting us today

Thank you to #Netgalley and Tor Teen for letting me read a free digital advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.
#VictoriesGreaterThanDeath

Tina is not the ordinary 16-year old human living on Earth. She's actually an alien clone disguised as an earthling. She's been waiting to fulfill her out-of-this-world destiny for so long, that when the time finally comes to complete her galactic mission, it's nothing she could've ever expected. But she knows everything--I mean, everything--is depending on the outcome of this mission. She, along with the space crew and her best friend, has to save the world. 

First off, Victories Greater Than Death is an amazing title that pulls you right in. The worldbuilding is thoughtful and intriguing. It was so clever how the author was able to introduce the complex world to readers, e.g. Tina recalling technical information from her previous life. As a reader, this helped immerse me into the world with digestible doses of exposition. 

As a lover of YA, I enjoyed the voice of the MC and the portions of datajournals, e.g. the beginning of chapters 36 and 40. I feel like the datajournals propelled Tina's internal journey throughout the book.

My favorite aspect of this book was how the outer space characters introduced themselves by stating their pronouns. I've noticed that when we talk about other life and worlds in space, we often have the assumption that we are more advanced here on Earth. Like, in my science classes in school we were always taught that other life in the universe isn't as evolved as us. I absolutely LOVED that this book squashed that belief. Having the outer space characters introduce their pronouns showed how we, as humans on Earth, still have a lot of progressing to do. This was genius!

As for the characters, I loved Tina's friendship with Rachael and would've loved to learn more about what Rachael feels when she needs to be alone. I feel like it was an important aspect that touched upon mental health. I also liked Elza's backstory! Because I adored Tina's mom so much, I would've loved to read more flashbacks about Tina's time on Earth. 

There were some moments where character plausibility and story pacing didn’t feel right. For example, the mother's love for Tina is so prominent in the first chapters, and I thought the witty dialogue and quirky relationship was fun to read. Her mother kept lovingly telling her to run. So, in Chapters 4 and 5 it would've made sense to me if her mother stopped baking and tried to "run" to Tina and find her. Secondly, the way that the other characters were recruited (the creation of the app) felt like it happened very quickly. Clearly, these are super minor things that don't overshadow the amazing world and journey that the author created. 

Overall, this was an amazing book (with a set up for a second, I hope!!) I can’t wait to buy the physical copy!

A Sci-fi journey with a whole lot of heart Victories Greater Than Death is a wild ride through the stars. A slow uptake on this book creates a feeling of ambiguity, however once the main ensemble starts to show it really picks up in a lovely and surprising way. Tina is our not so fearless leader feeling a pull of both worlds she finds herself in. If I had to take issue with any aspect of the book it would be the style of "Hey I'm YA- look over here!" writing that felt almost like it was added in as an after thought to soften the read. The action was a little packed tightly for the read and could of spanned into another book easily, which made the read sometimes confusing at points.

Representation is delivered in droves with this book- something the YA space is still lacking. It was clear that author Anders is deeply invested in proper acknowledgement of orientation and identity of all individuals.

Overall I would rate it a 3.5 (rounded up to 4), a nice jaunt into another world.


NetGalley has provided this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was a fun young adult sci-fi. It was a little hard to get into as it moved slow, there are a lot of characters and things to learn, and the writing style took some getting used to. Overall though, the story is enjoyable, and It is worth sticking until the end.

I am not the biggest sci-fi reader (I am trying to read more for the students who request it), but I think the target audience will enjoy this book.

This ARC was generously provided by Netgalley!

The book follows Tina, an alien clone brought to earth and raised by a human adoptive mother. She also has a human best friend, formerly from school, Rachael. Tina, her mother, and Rachael are all aware that one day, a beacon in Tina’s chest will begin to go off, and at that point she will begin to be hunted by a group of aliens. Once the beacon finally activates, she gets whisked into a world that is both everything and nothing like she’d hoped.

tldr up front: I enjoyed the book, though there were some issues that kept it from being one of the greats in my opinion. I’m excited to see where the story goes from here in the sequels! 3.5 stars

Let’s talk about the positives first: I really enjoyed the sci-fi setting that Anders created, a diverse universe that feels original and full of life, with interesting technology to boot. The characters who get a focus are done well, particularly Tina, Rachel, and Elza. Bringing on the human characters is a nice way to keep the story grounded as we learn about all these alien races and technologies. Anders worked with several sensitivity readers during the writing of the book, and it (to my eyes, at least) shows; the cultures depicted in the book all seem to be done so with respect, but as I’m a white American there very well may be some things that slip through the cracks. Anders does a neat trick with the plot point of giving memories back to Tina, as this allows her to explain things that we as readers wouldn’t know about the world to her human friend Rachael, while still saving twists that should have been remembered for later in the story. The prose, when not straying towards the bit I mention in the negatives section later, is frequently beautiful. The idea of the greetings is one of my favorite examples (e.g. one character says “Wild voyages and unexpected beauty” in greeting, the other character says “safe arrivals and haunting memories” in response), though the way Anders describes aspects of her universe is also greatly enjoyable.

Now unfortunately I have to get to the parts I didn’t like as much: The writing style felt a bit pandery to an imagined YA audience to me at times (lines such as “an involuntary cry of pure WTF”), which ended up taking me out of the story every time it popped up. I’m not sure if it’s because I’m older than the intended audience or if this type of thing is common with YA novels. Either way, not a deal-breaker, just something that bugged me a bit when it popped up! Since there are so many characters, the characters other than the couple that get main focus are a bit flat and two dimensional, and never really get to have personalities other than “this is my one interest”. I also wish a bit more focus was given to the alien characters, as the human characters are the ones given most of the backstory opportunities. Hopefully the other characters get expanded on in future sequels! The book is on the shorter side, which means transitions between scenes can occasionally seem disjointed or rushed. Sometimes it cuts at what you would assume is halfway through a visit to a planet and jumps back to everyone on the ship after everyone’s done and getting ready for the next task, sometimes after a chapter break you get dumped into the middle of an action scene; this is clearly an intentional decision from the author, it just didn’t end up working too well for me.

I am in love with this story. I will be singing its praises to anyone who will listen. Victories Greater than Death is a cozy scifi, hopepunk adventure about found family, learning your identity, and the harmful legacies we inherit. It is full of brilliantly realized queer representation (including bi, pan, trans, nonbinary, and polyamorous). It is smart, funny, and sweet. It made me cry and feel safe. I absolutely cannot say enough about how good this novel is.

I was provided with an ARC of this novel via NetGalley in return for a fair review.
It’s a SciFi novel with a diverse range of human and alien characters. I loved the normalisation of LGBT+ life experiences, struggles with mental health & anxiety & small touches - like the universal translator which makes it impossible to misgender anyone.

I was immediately captivated by the main character, Tina, a teenage girl who knows she is the clone of a dead alien hero, Captain Thaoh Argentian. I would have liked to see a bit more of the relationship between Tina and her mother - who has prepared Tina for the aliens who will be coming for her - not all of them friendly. Perhaps we'll get to revisit this later in the series.

Tina is initially obsessed with working out how to set off the beacon in her chest which will summon the alien fleet to come & collect her - and will signal the beginning of the rest of her life. Tina knows she is supposed to be or do something special, even if she isn't sure what that might involve. That adolescent frustration and impatience felt genuine, as does the fear that she won't live up to Captain Thaoh's legacy.

Once Tina and her best friend Rachel make it into space to join the Royal Fleet it becomes a fast paced adventure, trying to out run and out think the bad guys and save the universe as well as themselves.

I look forward to reading the next instalment in this series, and I'll be recommending this book to my niece

I'm torn about Victories Greater Than Death. I've enjoyed Charlie Jane Anders' previous work, and there's plenty to enjoy here too - the heart of the book, the messaging, the diversity of representation - all of these are spot on. Unfortunately, I found the actual reading experience a bit more hit and miss. There was lots of action, but this was sometimes to the detriment of a cohesive plot or well-developed characters. The pacing felt slightly off - there was such constant building action that any resolution felt quite unsatisfactory. I felt myself getting confused as more and more characters were added, and frustrated that we didn't really get to learn a lot about anyone. That said, this was a mostly enjoyable read, and I may pick up the sequel - I'm hoping the characters will be developed further as we go along in the series, and I'm intrigued to learn more about the Firmament!
2.5 stars rounded up to 3.

I loved 'All the Birds in the Sky' and 'The City in the Middle of the Night', and was overjoyed to see that Charlie Jane Anders was taking her first stab at YA. I was even more excited to be able to get it as an ARC! (This honest review is in exchange for the free digital access)

A quick blurb: Tina has known since she was thirteen that she had a higher calling-- literally. Some day, someone would be coming from the stars to whisk her away to resume her post as one of the most celebrated heroes of the Royal Fleet. See, Tina is a clone of the fallen Captain Argentian, who gave her life to save her crew. When the Fleet comes calling, Tina/Argentian is their greatest hope in their fight against the insidious Compassion, but Tina struggles with this expectation. With Tina and a ragtag band of other Earthlings along for the ride, the crew of HMSS Indomitable strike out across the stars to find the means to stop the Compassion's scourge.

This is a fast-moving sci-fi adventure. The pacing is slightly jerky, in my opinion, but it definitely doesn't drag. For reference, it reads a lot like Becky Chambers' "A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet' in terms of the skipping between events (I do kind of wonder if this is actually pretty apt for space travel, with so many long down times). While this was slightly disorienting at times, it kept the book trimmer than sci-fi epics like this usually are, which was nice. The writing was strong, although I do think that (as other reviewers suggested) there is a little bit of dumbing down from Anders' adult narration that didn't need to happen.

Content-wise, there was a lot of awesome stuff here on two fronts. From a sci-fi front, I loved a lot of the questions the book posed about things like humanoid bias and the interactions of cultures. It's definitely not hard sci-fi, but encompasses enough plausible specifics to explore interesting questions. Anders has definitely played Mass Effect :)

From a queer/social justice perspective, this book has a lot to offer. First, the normalization of pronouns other than he/she was great, especially the default inclusion of pronouns in introductions. One great moment was someone says what her pronouns are before threatening to kick someone's ass. Amazing. It seems as if homophobia doesn't exist in the Royal Fleet, and why should it? The characters also, without fail, ask for consent before touching, sexual or platonic. Though this read as awkward to me (because We Live In A Society), the characters didn't treat it as such-- if science fiction can imagine aliens and space travel, why not societies in which people take consent seriously? I think the behavior in the book is an amazing model for teens talking about touching that I wish I had had.

Ultimately this isn't quite a 5/5 for me. The narrative definitely stutters a bit, and like many other first sci-fi novels in a series a little bit too much is packed in. As much as I loved all of the ideas presented, the book felt slightly packed-to-the-seams with exposition. It's a super strong 4/5, though, and in my experience the book being overstuffed likely allows the rest of the series to ease up on the exposition and really blossom. Really really looking forward to the next one, and will definitely be recommending this to kids in search of exciting sci-fi or great queer characters.

Every character development lover’s dream!!
Not a single character in this book felt flat, they all felt real and fleshed out and unique. It reminded me of Star Trek TNG in all the best ways. The beginning half was paced so well and gave us a great introduction to each character. The only reason this isn’t a five star read for me is because from about 50%-75% I found some parts to be very confusing and I wasn’t sure where the characters were at times or what was actually happening. One chapter I thought was just a dream but eventually realized it actually happened. That chapter was my least favourite.

But I love space operas. All the character development, all the adventure, not too much science. The characters are loveable and I look forward to reading more about them in the future. This is the first of a series, right? It may or may not have ended on a cliff hanger! This had everything I look for in a sci fi.

I really enjoyed the casual, fun, fast paced nature of the writing style. I adored All the Birds in the Sky, by the same author, but it took me over a month of slogging through the pacing to get through her second book. All three are so vastly different.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of this book so I could read it early. I don’t plan to shut up about how great it is any time soon.

Thank you to Tor Teen for giving me a free digital galley of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This is a YA SciFi novel. A teenage girl, named Tina, is waiting for her destiny to begin. She knows she is the clone of an important commander from and alien planet and she is waiting to rejoin her mission. Once she has rejoined her spaceship, she finds herself in the middle of a rollicking space adventure that is full of friends, surprises and danger. Before leaving the area around Earth the spaceship recruits a diverse group of teenagers from Earth to complete the crew. Tina and the other Earthlings become a supportive friend group with a little love mixed in. Through Tina’s eyes, readers get to meet an array of fascinating species of aliens each with their own quirks. It doesn’t take long before Tina and her friends are training for life aboard the spaceship and volunteering for dangerous missions. There was a lot of great writing in this book and I especially loved the formal greetings that were always just right for every situation!

I will warn readers that this book does take a while to pick up pace. Things don’t really get exciting until Tina leaves Earth. It is worth getting through the first few chapters because the rest of the story is a seriously fun read.

I have read books by Charlie Jane Anders before. I love her work because of the originality of her stories, so I was excited to read this book. Victories Greater Than Death lived up to my expectations - it both surprised and entertained me. I look forward to the second book in this duology.

Overall, I enjoyed this book, although I almost didn't want to finish it. For me the author provided too little background story and world building as she basically bombards you with seemingly useless facts. Also, I feel it lacks character development and emotional depth. On the other hand the story does get exciting towards the end and I appreciate the female protagonist in a space action story and the LGBTQ elements. Thanks for this free ARC!

Tina has known since she was very young that she was different – after all, she has a rescue beacon that, once activated, will allow the aliens who left her on Earth sixteen years ago to find her again, bring her to space on an adventure of her wildest dreams. The only question: is she ready? With her best friend by her side, a faction of fellow Earthlings, and a crew of a Royal Fleet spaceship, Tina may find that all her preparation may not have been enough.

I’ll say that I overall enjoyed this book, and the ending captured enough of my attention that I’ll consider picking up the sequel (even though I’ll have to wait about two years for it at this point). There were several things I loved about this book (and some stuff I didn’t but we’ll start with the positives). First, almost every time a character is introduced, their pronouns are stated. If they are from a new alien species, our narrator, Tina, will also give us some random factoids, which I also thought were fascinating and really helped with world building. And there is so much diversity, not only with the plethora of alien species but among the six Earthlings as well. I found the storyline surrounding the history of the Shapers to be extremely fascinating – beings that needed humanoid creatures to excel so they did their best to wipe out as many outliers as possible. What for? What were they planning? It certainly got me curious. And I really liked how the characters of Keziah and Elza, who both had issues in the past regarding parental figures, were able to strive everyday to prove that they are capable of receiving love and using forces other than violence to achieve their goals. I hope there is more character development for them, and the remaining group of Earthlings, in future installments.

I did have a few issues, but most of them were due to personal taste. I felt the pacing was a bit off, which might have been due to shorter chapters (there were about 55 chapters in, what I’m thinking is, a 300-page book). While I loved a lot of the elements it had to offer, sometimes I felt it was trying to do too much. The ending battle sequence confused me (I was able to retain a bit more of the info during a second read-through, but I’m still not entirely sure I understand what happened). And the topic of grief is handled in a very interesting way, due to the way people die in this novel (that I can’t mention due to spoilers), and I’m not entirely sure how I feel about it. That probably doesn’t make much sense, but I don’t want to say too much.

Overall, I think people who are looking for a fun YA space adventure sci-fi novel are going to like Victories Greater Than Death. I’m very interested to see what people think when it’s released next spring. **Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher, Tor Teen, for the e-copy, all thoughts and opinions are my own.**

This is a solid YA novel that is also in tune with the times: every character introduces themselves with their chosen pronoun. It’s sci-fi because it takes place in outer space but it mostly skips past the “science” part while singing tra-la-la. But that’s okay because it’s lots of fun and entertaining to read.
The plot centers on a character who is basically an alien disguised as a human. She’s been hiding on Earth and now is going back to face the threat posed by the bad guy alien.
With the help of some new Earth recruits, the Royal Fleet will take on the genocidal bad guys who have a grudge against all non-human shaped species.

This book is a fun romp in science fiction. Tina is waiting for her life to begin when it comes on like a hurricane. Her and her close friend along with several interesting youngsters from across the world get taken aboard an alien spaceship to become part of a war among the different worlds in the galaxy. Each alien is different although bipedal (this is addressed) and Anders has each knew character introduce their gender pronouns because translation system needs to clarify it when your are dealing with aliens.

This book cements Charlie Jane Anders on my list of "Must Read" authors. The story is so fun, and the characters really well developed and enjoyable to spend a bunch of pages with.

Here's a quick summary for myself when I look this book up right before I go to read the sequel: Tina has known since she was a kid that she was a being from another planet placed in a human's body for safekeeping. Tina and her friend Rachael have been spending time trying to stimulate the changeover that will cause her to get her otherworldly powers. Until, it works and she attracts her previous life's arch enemy. After actions and adventures they wind up on a space ship where they create a puzzle to get the smartest humans to join them to help figure things out. (Just like FutureMan!) This brings a whole bunch of really cool and fun characters onto the ship (musical robots!) This makes up Tina's human crew, and at the same time we are meeting all manner of squishy interesting alien characters that make up the rest of the crew of the ship. These characters knew, or knew of, Tina in her previous existence, and look forward to working with their old friend. The crew works together to save the day.

This book flew by as I read it, even thought it had, as you can tell from my mangled description, tremendous amount of back story to cover before we got to the meat of the current story. Each of Tina's crew had enough space to live and breathe and become real people that you end up caring about by the end of the story. (And in the case of the musical robot, from the very start.)

The dialog in this book is rich and delightful to read! You can't go wrong with greetings like "Happy reunions and short absences". Also, having the universal translator describe each person's pronoun at first felt like a way to include positive inclusivity (of course it was also that) but, as I read I realized it is actually a good point when you are meeting beings from across the galaxy for the first time you would like to know their pronoun, so you could address them properly.

Even though there is all of this action adventure going on, there was plenty of time to slow down and deal with anxiety disorders, romance, depression, generic teen angst, and finding comfort in your own skin. All of these issues were dealt with in respectful ways, that actually worked flawlessly inside of the story that was told.

This was a fantastic book, and I really look forward to (hopefully!) sequels that sketch out this world even more, and we can get into all of the further adventures of this crew.

Charlie Jane Anders hits it out of the park with another fantastic piece of fiction. I'm not generally a fan of science fiction or fantasy, but Charlie Jane Anders is one of the few authors whose sci-fi works I truly enjoy.

OK, so let me start by saying that this was adorable. YA is definitely not my thing and I have a ton of criticism ready to go after this paragraph, but first and foremost, if I was a young teen reading Scifi, I would be so happy to have this. I love Charlie Jane Anders and I think she's set up something lovely here.

Unfortunately, Anders has dumbed down her charming prose in favor of something that feels at times like a parody of tumblrspeak. Maybe this tested well and it's what teens like! However, I was hoping for something more akin to The City In the Middle of the Night, which could've been accessible to teens as it was, without any compromise. I don't know who is failing her here, but I felt that she made her world/prose/book lesser in pursuit of a younger audience, when that didn't need to happen. That aside, there were some issues with pacing and exposition dumps that weren't my favorite.
The cast is super inclusive and I loved that our heroes had relatable mental health issues, and that they spent an appropriate amount of time grappling with adjusting to suddenly being humans in space. The world building was fun and I liked the repeated interrogation of the Royal Army's motives and behaviors.

I'll continue to check out everything that Anders writes, I'll pick up a copy of this for my niece when its released for sure.

DNF at 40%.

It's not like the book is bad - I'm just not in the right headspace for this kind of thing. There are so many different aliens/characters that it's hard to keep track of who came from where and what they look like. It was a little exhausting and, frankly, most of it went above my head.

I didn't really care for the humans they brought on in addition to Tina and Rachael. They all sort of blurred together. And they glossed over the fact that they were likely to never return quickly.

I wish the characters had a little more depth to them. I think if they had been more compelling, I would've been more likely to push through the info dumping sections and track the characters.

But over all, I enjoyed the beginning and the intrigue. Maybe on another day, I'll pick it up and be able to track all the aliens/characters. I'm still rating this book 3/5 stars because it wasn't bad per se, it just wasn't for me.