One of my most common anxiety dreams is having to do something I have already done well, but I can’t remember how I did it. I start off confident and everyone around me is confident and full of expectation. It slowly becomes clear that I don’t know what I’m doing. My panic grows as I feel everyone’s disappointment. Charlie Jane Anders turned my nightmare into the premise of a space adventure. Imagine that you grow up knowing you are the clone of an intergalactic leader and someday you will be called back to the fight, but you’re also a human teenager who can’t even protect their best friend from the bullies at school. In Victories Greater than Death, Tina is both anxious to start her destiny, but also doesn’t remember how, even when friendly and unfriendly armies arrive.

Tina believes she has a destiny and a purpose for good in the universe. Once in space, with her best friend at her side, she realizes that everything, including her very existence, is more complicated. How Tina navigates the complexity and builds a family of support is the meat of the book. This won’t be the book for someone looking for straight action.

I’m a little concerned that Victories Greater than Death is being marketed as a “romp.” It is not. It’s about the work that goes into doing the right thing, doing good without doing harm, and taking care of the people around you. There are adventures, space travels, battles, and life saving maneuvers. It does have light moments, but it’s also contemplative, gentle, and thoughtful about our choices, our inherent value, and the living with the expectations others put on us.

This is the beginning of a series and I really can’t wait to see what comes next. I grew to love these kids, outsiders on Earth who end up on a spaceship, and still outsiders.

"When I finally wear myself out crying, Rachael says, “That’s the first time I’ve seen you cry since we got on this ship. I was starting to wonder if you’d had your tear ducts replaced with tiny rocket launchers.”

I laugh, and it feels good to laugh again. “It’s tough being a superhero.”

“Nah,” Elza says. “Being a superhero is easy. Being a real person? That’s hard.”

Yiwei starts playing his guitar again, some tune I’ve never heard before with a lot of high, short notes. Xiaohou chimes in with a peppy bassline. We all just sit for a while."

So much of Victories Greater than Death is about letting go of the idea of being a hero and and doing the work to be a good person. I loved it and I hope it finds its way into the hands of teens and adults who will also love it.

I received this as an advance reader copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Despite strong recommendations, this is my first time reading any of Anders’s work, and her YA debut as well. Although you can somewhat tell that she’s crossing over from adult sci-fi, it’s a strong outing, with excellent writing and delightful characters, plus a powerfully rendered and original type of weapon. Sometimes time jumps were utilized in a way that felt awkward and the romances both felt a bit underdone to me, but overall it’s a great read, especially for fans of Star Trek or Becky Chambers’s Wayfarer’s series. I'm interested to see where Anders takes the series!

First off, how beautiful is this cover! I wont lie when I say that's what first drew me towards the book, but once I read the synopsis I was sold.

Tina has been waiting her whole life for this moment. She has always known she was 'alien' a copy of an important Captain who was hidden on Earth until she was able to fulfil her prophecy. Still when her interplanetary beacon lights up she doesn't expect the bad guys to get there quite that fast. Tina is quickly thrown into a life and situation she knows nothing about, but with a quirky crew surrounding her and her best friend by her side, there is nothing Tina can't do, which is good because the galaxy will depend on it.

Told in First Person perspective this is definitely Tina's book but what I love was that almost every character we meet makes an impression whether they pop up for a sentence or more. Tina has had the rare ability of knowing her destiny her whole life, she has prayed for the day her beacon would light up and she would be whisked away to a far more exciting life than the one she leads on Earth. But as with most things the dream is far better than the reality. When the time comes for Tina to leave all her earthly ties behind she hesitates, knowing the chances of her returning are slim, but in the end her destiny wins out and Tina swiftly becomes drawn into an interplanetary war. She is incredibly strong an resilient and has the astounding ability to pull crazy and usually life threatening plans out of her arse, but she's also a girl who has been thrust into something far more dangerous than she could imagine, and she wouldn't have survived without her ragtag human crew who come along for the ride & the new friends she meets along the way.

As I said this book has a strong ass cast of characters all of whom make some sort of impact onto the story. But as well as all that the characters are diverse af. When we jump aboard the Royal Fleet ship we learn that the aliens introduce themselves via names and then their preferred pronouns, pronouns that change dependant on the species and certain species have third genders. And on the human side Tina's love interest is a Trans girl and another character is queer. I loved how the author wrote this into the book, getting introduced to the different characters and learning their pronouns just became a natural part of the story and didn't feel forced. I also love that the characters from Earth all came from different countries/parts of the planet, bringing parts of their culture with them, and everyone was able to understand each other by the use of a universal translator.

Victories Greater than Death is a book about the difficulties of living up to your destiny and how being the 'chosen one' might not be as easy as it seems. It's also highlights how our differences are our strengths, and that a group of diverse people working together can make the biggest difference. Once Tina is rescued by The Royal Fleet and told all about Captain Thaoh Argentian, the brilliant and kick ass Captain who she's a clone of she is a little wary, a feeling which is made worse when their attempt to remove the 'mind block' fails and Tina recovers none of her previous hosts memories. She feels like a failure and starts to wonder what exactly she has to give to the Royal Fleet without the Captain's memories, something she thinks the rest of the crew must be thinking too, but in truth, it is Tina the crew will rely on most, with or without her past hosts memories.

The universe building was done incredibly well. We get a history of the Royal Fleet and of the Compassion, the 'bad guys' whose leader was once Thaoh Argentian's best friend until he turned against the Royal Fleet and decided instead to turn to a life of mass murder and destruction. We learn the reason why the majority of species in the universe are bipedal, as well as learning all about the differences between species, their strengths, weaknesses and beliefs. At only 288 pages this is definitely a story you can fly through ( I read it in one sitting) and yet we get all the character and world development you would expect from a much longer book.

This book is definitely on the quirky side, but that just made me love it and the characters even more. The Royal Order had very specific greetings and replies for certain situations. For example: 'Thrilling stunts and minor injuries,' replied with 'Delicious meals and harmless poisons...' and they weren't even the weirdest ones. I actually didn't realise this was a series until I started it and after the shocking ending, and amount of fun I had reading I'm incredibly excited that I get to return to this world. An easy 4 out of 5 stars and one of the most exciting and humorous books I've read this year.

Thank you to the publisher, Tor Teen, and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

“Even if you kill me, that doesn’t mean I’ve failed. There are victories greater than death. I might not live to see justice done, but I can see it coming.”

Sixteen year old Tina has always known that she would have to leave her life on Earth behind one day. As the human clone of Captain Thaoh Argentian, one of the best alien commanders in the galaxies, she eagerly awaits the day when the beacon in her chest will light up and the Royal Fleet will arrive to take her back. But when the beacon finally activates, things don’t really go according to plan and everyone expects her to be a seasoned warrior, but Tina realizes she is most certainly not prepared for it. As an intergalactic war continues, Tina, her best friend Rachael and a handful of newly recruited genius kids from Earth must figure out how to stop a genocidal monster from carrying out his plans and save the world.

Space operas are genre I’ve really come to enjoy over the past year or two, so this was an instant addition to my TBR when I first came across it. It certain delivers on the promised space adventure and this book was quite an exciting ride. Victories Greater Than Death has a rather large cast of characters and it does take a while to get them all straight. The story is narrated entirely from Tina’s perspective and it was interesting to watch her try to find her place and grow into her legacy in this new situation after the memory restoration process doesn’t fully work, leaving her with the knowledge but not the memories of the famous Captain. The secondary characters play equally important roles, and it was wonderful how the story gives us such a good idea of their personalities and thoughts though they don’t have POVs.

I do believe that this book would be better suited for younger YA readers as many aspects, like the dialogue, felt like I was reading a book closer to middle grade than YA. However, from a diversity perspective, there is a lot to take away for any reader. It’s not unusual for sci-fi novels to have a lot of diversity, because, like fantasy, the realm of possibility is entirely decided by the author. What impressed me about this book though, was how it was incorporated into the narrative. None of it ever feels forced, from how diverse the characters were to how people specified their pronouns when they introduced themselves. It’s not something I’ve ever encountered in a book before, so it took a little getting used to, but it was really cool and I loved the inclusivity. It would be great to see more books like this.

One common complaint I often have is that some books are often too long, but in this case, it needs to be longer. The author has clearly put so much effort into the world building and background of the story and I felt that what we saw was such a meagre glimpse of it. The way the world was presented was also really rushed, and there was a little too much jargon involved that distracts from the actual story. The glossary certainly helped, but I still had to flip to the back of the book every 10 minutes which quickly became annoying. Basically, there was a lot stuffed into a barely 300 page book and there were times when it felt a little overwhelming.

I loved how action-packed this book was, particularly towards the end and I can’t wait to see what happens next. I’m also looking forward to checking out some of the other books by this author. Victories Greater Than Death was an engrossing space adventure that sci-fi fans, particularly younger YA readers are sure to enjoy and I would definitely recommend it.

I wouldn’t be the first to say that the world we live in has morphed into a real life dystopia. For ages, science fiction has been an impressive tool to show how the world could be. Some of its direst predictions have come true. But Victories Greater Than Death is a panacea to the festering of 2020/2021 rot. It’s a science fiction tale that doesn’t just show how the world could be, but in a refreshing, exciting, and uplifting move, it portrays how the world should be.


Tina was born a clone of a famed, deceased alien commander, but in human form. She's put on Earth to be raised and hidden until she comes of age to return to her ship and go on grand intergalactic adventures. And early on in the story, she does just that, along with her best friend Rachel, and other humans and aliens. But space isn’t a world free of conflict. A humanoid alien named Marrant is out there, with a sinister plot that threatens Tina. Dazzling battles, grand worlbuilding, and varied character dynamics ensue.

Gender identity is varied amidst a wide range of humans and aliens in this story. Preferred pronouns are openly expressed without derision. The few who are unaccustomed to it, don’t fight back in malice, but come to accept it. Touching someone is something that’s asked for. Sexual identity is fluid without societal pushback. Victories Greater Than Death understands that spaces of civility shouldn’t be areas isolated from a precarious world but should be expanded to encompass the universe’s entirety. It’s a prospect that seems impossible in the incendiary landscape that we live in, but fiction like this is important because not only is it entertaining escapism, but along the way it offers a roadmap to empathy.

This novel packs a lot in it. Its pacing zooms through the story. Mostly it’s with entertaining verve, but sometimes it charges through so quickly that its intentions are blurred and truncated. There are a lot of characters in here, and not all of them are given adequate development. A foundation is set for them all, but every so often, their baggage and conflicts aren’t fully dealt with. Tina and her best friend Rachael are exceptions. Whether it’s Rachael and Tina finding a found family, Rachael dealing with her social limitations, or Tina coming to terms with her fate not jibing with her ideals, everything is excellently explored.

And that impeccable exploration extends to its worldbuilding. I lost count of how many creatively drawn aliens were described, with Charlie Jane Anders writing out enough for you to be fascinated by their unique biology and/or upbringing, without devolving into infodumps. Sometimes the story’s fascination with creative worldbuilding overshadows its characterization, but other times the creativity ties in with the characters, developing a sort of springboard for them to grow.

Like everything else Charlie Jane Anders has written, Victories Greater Than Death is well-written. What could be a convoluted story is charged with clear writing, that never loses focus. But this is the first time some of her lines came off as cheesy and cliched for me. I don’t want to say, “because it’s YA”—since some of the most mature, rewarding novels have been categorized as young adult literature. But I can’t escape the feeling that in targeting a younger audience, the novel overcalculated in simplifying itself.

Nevertheless, this is mostly the story I was hoping for. It was empathetically gentle, while having exciting battles. If you’re looking for a 2021 novel that epitomizes fun, I can’t think of a better choice. Escapism is crucial in times like these—a bit of joy amidst madness. But not only will Victories Greater Than Death heal your soul, it might just grow your heart a few sizes, too

I really wish I ended up liking this a lot more, take my opinion with a grain of salt because personally this book wasn't for me. Space opera adventures along with the found family trope has been repetitive and this book didn't particularly bring anything new to the table. I found the writing very mediocre with its cheesiness and info dumpy, though I was grateful for the short chapters, it just felt very early 2000s bad fanfic-esque. If it wasn't for all the cursing, I think this book overall felt like it could've been catered more towards middle grade level. I was just bored throughout a majority of the story, things sped up in the last 100 pages and got more exciting I'll give it that. Other things I did appreciate though was the representation and incorporation of inclusivity of gender expression and language with how everyone was able to understand each other. Also my heart swooned with the f/f romance, it felt like insta-romance at first and with unnecessary conflicts happening between them but as the story progressed their development got a lot better and they were so cute. The friendships, romance, and realizing one's self worth was definitely was got me through this book, but overall most of the concepts were intriguing but the execution was a let down.

This was an interesting story, and I enjoyed the diversity, as well as the adventure in space. I liked Tina and her growing bond with Elza and how sweet and great the two of them were together, how they learned about each other and how Tina helped Elza feel safe and comfortable with someone for the first time. I loved Tina and Rachael's friendship and how the best friend got to go on her adventure with her and find her own place. I really liked the diverse, intelligent humans they brought along, and the close friendship that grew between them all. But at the same time, I was expecting more of an alien diversity in this story, and we kind of threw the alien characters to the side for the human ones. I really liked how everyone would state their pronouns when they introduced themselves, that was so awesome, and I loved it! This was an interesting and fun read, and I loved the characters and the bonds between them all.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Victories Greater Than Death is a fun, super-queer space adventure, and definitely fulfilled my expectations. While I did take a bit to get into the world building and wanted it to be a tad more fleshed out, I did more or less enjoy the story overall.

Tina is a great protagonist, and has a good balance of strength and vulnerability. She starts off with a fairly black-and-white mindset about the conflict and possible resolutions, but as she grows, so does her worldview, and it’s great to see that evolution.

I also really enjoyed how inclusive it was. I did feel a tad overwhelmed at times with the large cast of characters, not all of whom I felt I really knew by the end of the book, but I liked that Anders put effort into creating a truly diverse cast, including compassionate rep of people of other races and ethnicities, and including a rainbow of LGBTQ+ rep. The characters also include their pronouns when introducing themselves, which is something I’ve unfortunately never seen before in a book, but really hope catches on!

And while I definitely wanted more page time for the romance, as it did feel a bit rushed, I liked what we got. Tina and Elza have such a sweet dynamic! And the way the relationship is explored through the lens of their identities, such as Tina having never really been attracted to anyone before Elza, and Elza navigating relationships as a trans person with all its complications, is so compassionate and lovely, and really spoke to me on multiple levels.

This is a fun first entry into a planned trilogy, which I will be keeping my eye on in the future. And given what I’ve heard about Charlie Jane Anders’ other work, I’m also curious to check those out. And if you’re in the mood for a fun queer space opera, I recommend checking this out!

A diverse, inclusive Star Trekkie space adventure for today's teens!

Tina and her best friend, Rachael, are living a relatively normal life of teen angst, perhaps a bit heavy on the angst. Rachael, a talented and extremely introverted artist, has dropped out of school in self-preservation. Tina is slogging along without her and, between bouts of protesting injustice, awaiting the day when the beacon inside her summons the mother ship to retrieve her and activate the memories of the brilliant alien commander from which she was cloned. We all have our stuff. Once the beacon is activated, it's nonstop high-stakes adventure for Tina, Rachael, a handful of genius Earth kids, and the alien crew they join in an intergalactic battle against a sadistic monster and the genocidal rebellion he leads.

Using alien cultures to normalize diversity is nothing new, but it feels fresh and smart here — from the universal translator including pronouns in all introductions to the accommodation for and embrace of bio diversity among the alien crew. If the pro-diversity, anti-colonization message isn't exactly subtle, it's well done and welcomed. As is the twist/interlacing of the chosen one/chosen family tropes.

Overall, I'm a big fan of this fun, inventive space adventure, but not a fan of the abrupt, first-person present-tense writing. Your mileage may vary there (especially if you're a teen or more used to this style). Also, I'm seeing a lot of love for the cover, but it doesn't really work for me. The glowy purple aesthetic is, of course, awesome. But it can't overcome the weird Barbie vibe this gives me. Don't let that deter you — there's not a bit of Barbie in here (though there is a bit of glowy purple).

Content notes: transphobia/persecution (in backstory; overall story is trans-affirming), violence, gun violence, genocide, death, torture, imprisonment, bigotry,

My thanks to #NetGalley and Tor Teen for a digital ARC.

This wasn't quite what I was expecting. The writing was more juvenile than I usually expect from YA and while there were things about it I liked, there was nothing about the plot that drew me in. I was mostly just bored and hoping I would get through it quickly.

There was a large (too large) cast of fascinating characters, with varied and interesting backgrounds. And I loved how they introduced themselves with their pronouns as well - that was cool. But there were so many - especially the kids from Earth - that it got confusing trying to figure out which was which. They just kept blurring together in my mind.

My biggest problem with the novel was the main character, Tina. She's supposedly an experimental clone of a heroic and well-loved captain, but she doesn't have the captain's memories (though she does have an encyclopedic knowledge of things her human self has never heard of. Basically she's Captain Kirk. She's reckless and impulsive, can't take orders, and generally makes more problems than she solves. Her new knowledge is just enough to improbably save her from every scrape, which gets annoying. I think it was her who really turned me off to the novel from the beginning when she's impatiently waiting for her beacon to activate and take her away.

*Thanks to NetGalley and Tor Teen for providing an e-arc for review.

Victories Greater Than Death is an immersive SF adventure that balances rich characters and an action packed plot. While the action explores ethical questions about fighting for the greater good, being a hero, and the cost of sacrifice, the characters were my favorite element. Anders is able to bring life and detail to every single one of them, no matter if we only hear a few lines from them. Seriously. I am so shocked and thrilled by the level of character development and description. Even though I didn't agree with all of Tina's decisions, because of the level of development, I could understand her completely.

One of my favorite elements of Victories Greater Than Death, besides the immense character development, was Tina's character. She is struggling with trying to be someone she's not. Trying to live up to a legacy she has no connection to, to a person she can never be. So committed to being a hero, to being the best, to living up to people's expectations, she makes questionable choices. She thinks she has to be tough and not show any weakness, but Tina has to realize that she can only ever be herself. That all that fighting against it is wearing her down.

Victories Greater Than Death was a pacy, adventurous read! It seems written for a younger audience than I was expecting, and blends a lot of present-day real-world teen issues/settings/relationships in with the Sci-fi, but I think the intended audience will love it!

Charlie Jane Anders' new novel, Victories Greater Than Death, the first volume of a projected trilogy, is great fun. It is Anders' first book for a YA (Young Adult) audience, which means that it has teenage protagonists, who are shy and moody and nervous about their infatuations. It is perhaps less conceptually audacious than some of Anders' other work; but this is only a relative observation. There's still a lot going on in Victories Greater Than Death, even if its main purpose is to entertain.
Victories Greater Than Death is about a bunch of human teenagers, of various gender identities and ethnicities, who find themselves transported onto a starship, and enmeshed in a galactic war. A multi-species and relatively non-hierarchical federation, the Firmament (ultimately guided by benevolent computers like those of Iain Banks' Culture novels) is engaged in struggle against a fascist counterforce, which we can think of as an analog to the contemporary Earthly movements behind Trump, Bolsonaro, Modi, Orban, Duterte, Netanyahu, and so on, only expanded to a galactic scale. In the course of the novel, we get everything that we expect from space opera: exciting interstellar battles, majestic discoveries, last-minute escapes, daring rescue missions against great odds, and the sociology of navigating interspecies differences. We also get everything we expect from YA fiction: the emotional ups and downs and intensified agonies and ecstasies of teenagers who are geniuses but misfits, struggling to define themselves, to do something meaningful in the world, and to make sense of their own emotions. What we do not get, thankfully, is the overdone template of YA dystopian fiction today, in which a plucky teen girl, all on her own, overthrows a totalitarian world order. Anders has something much more imaginative in mind.
Victories Greater Than Death deftly combines teen interiority with galactic socio-politics. The narrative focuses upon six teens who leave the Earth behind and venture into space. They are gay and straight, female, male, and trans, and from different continents and ethnic and racial groups. Their multiplicity is echoed by the crew of the warship the HMSS Indomitable, who are drawn from different humanoid species originating across different planets. Anders' worldbuilding feels solid and well-thought out, although she definitely puts wacky imaginative detail ahead of plodding sociological plausibility.
In its worldbuilding, Victories Greater Than Death entertainingly subverts many of the expected genre clichés. For instance, the HMSS Indomitable belongs to the Royal Navy. We all know how space opera is obsessed with galactic empires. But it turns out that the Queen, ostensibly at the head of this interplanetay society, "isn’t a monarch," but rather "more like a librarian"; she interfaces with gigantic AIs, "gathers the knowledge of a million worlds," and "shares it with everyone in the Firmament.” She is more Barbara Gordon or Rupert Giles than she is Elizabeth Windsor. Learning this is a great relief to one of the teens, an Afro-British gay man who hates his memories of "being forced to sing ‘God Save the Queen’ as a small child." I give this detail as only one small example of how the novel continually plays with the tropes of both the space opera and the teen romance, and twists them into delightful new forms.
Tina, the narrator and protagonist of the novel, is a white American teen girl who is actually, under disguise, the genetic clone of a legendary Firmament starship captain from a planet of purple-skinned humanoids. She is supposed to have the captain's memories implanted into her own brain as well, but the operation backfires. She gains her predecessor's procedural and semantic memories, but not her personal ones. Tina now knows how to fire a "positron cloudstrike gun," and she knows cultural details about the various galactic species, but she does not know what her predecessor actually did, or what sort of person she was. This turns out to be a good thing rather than a bad thing, because Tina reaps the rewards as well as the confusions of hybridity, without having her own personality swamped by that of her supposed 'original'. In any case, this extra-human or post-human layer of doubt works to intensify the romance aspect of the novel, which has Tina pining for one of the other teens, a dark-skinned trans woman from Brazil.
In giving Tina this divided and incomplete heritage, Anders also undermines the tiresome narrative stereotype of the Chosen One. As a result of her incomplete transformation, Tina cannot be the one who saves the world; more broadly, she cannot be "The One" (like Neo in The Matrix) at all. This is, first, because such a savior figure does not exist; and second, because any such figure would be a nasty, megalomaniacal dictator if he or she did in fact exist (that would be the novel's antagonist, Marrant, who leads the fascist rebel forces: fascists have leaders, but egalitarian democrats don't).
Instead, Tina learns a number of things. In the first place, although Tina picks up the powers and abilities of her predecessor, and therefore is a superb warrior, she finds that she cannot live with herself after killing people. This is the case even though she only kills people in self-defense, in order to stop them from killing her and her friends. She becomes a pacifist, and hopes to defend the Firmament and oppose the fascists while maintaining "non-offensive status." It remains to be seen, in the other volumes of the trilogy, just what this will entail.
In the second place, Tina learns that she can only help to save the world by joining up with her friends. The group of Earth teens integrates successfully into the larger galactic community aboard the Indomitable, but they also stick together and have one another's back. Defeating the bad guys is a group effort, in which everyone has their individual roles. Nobody can go it alone, but also nobody can substitute for the uniqueness of anybody else.
Multiculturalism is replicated on multiple levels throughout the novel. There's the multiplicity among the group of Earth teens, and there is the larger multiplicity of the humanoid races existing in harmony on the starship, and throughout the Firmament. But beyond this, there is a looming, still broader level. We gradually learn the backstory behind the Firmament. An older, now vanished species, known only as the Shapers, went through the galaxy ages ago, aiding the growth of humanoid sentient species on many planets, while at best stymieing the development, and at worst exterminating, all the sentient non-humanoid (and especially non-vertebrate) species they found. These crimes stand behind the current splendor of the Firmament, as much as slavery and genocide stand behind the United States of America. The fascist antagonists in Victories Greater Than Death embrace this ugly heritage, as much as right-wing forces in contemporary America (with analogs across the world) do. But even the good guys, the Firmament, are not free of this history. In principle, the Royal Navy is supposed to cross the galaxy, aiding the helpless and oppressed. But in practice, this doesn't always happen -- the Firmament has a long history of broken promises and calculations based on realpolitik. And this, too, is part of the legacy our teens have to deal with.
The end of Victories Greater Than Death gives us something of a cliffhanger, preparing us for the later installments of the trilogy. Most of the plot strands are resolved, and the immediate bad guys are defeated. But there is a cost -- Tina's best human friend, and one of the alien good guys as well, are left in a coma -- and there are intimations of greater dangers to come, as well as the lingering, unresolved issues that I have already mentioned. I look forward to the sequels; but for now, Victories Greater Than Death is a fun, satisfying, and also thought-provoking read, which I can happily recommend to an adult, as well as a YA, audience.

Victories Greater Than Death is so needed right now, its an epic sci-fi story featuring queer characters, cool alien characters and great friendships.
I did find it very difficult to read to begin with as we were thrown into what would be considered important scenes without much additional information about what was going on. The author has created some amazing space 'communities' and areas that I would've loved to have been explored more rather than the main focus of going into battles most of the time.
One element of the book I applaud is its diversity, the normalisation of pronouns within the book was really cool to see alongside the diversity within the main group of friends. I would love to see this level of inclusivity in more YA books and thank the author for this!
Overall I definitely began to enjoy the story more towards the end as it followed a clearer path at this point, and I felt a good connection to the majority of the characters (especially Tina and Elza) and would definitely be interested to see where it takes off after this ending!

I received the ARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I love Charlie Jane Anders, and the premise of this book is excellent. The characters are lovable and the galaxy Anders has built is rich in detail and wonder. However, I'd say the content of this book alone could easily make a whole series. It often felt rushed, and I couldn't quite follow the logic of the story from time to time. I wish Anders had taken the space to drill deeper into this world, linger on some seems, and let us discover more about Tina and those around her.

I feel like we only got part of the story. I have no idea how much time passed between the start and the end - just that our group has been on several missions of indeterminate length with travel time between them and we've ended up with multiple couples who are professing their love for each other by the end. I think at some point early on I missed some key moment, some explanation for what was happening and why we were doing things (entirely possible; I listened to the audiobook while working, so my focus was not 100% centered on the book).

So between missing some fundamental reason for being (I know there's an awesome French term for this, but I can only pronounce it not spell it) and then skipping the meat of all of these missions (we get "were going on a mission" [line break] "dramatic end to mission" and never really why we're on the mission or what we had to do for said mission). Plus, having read Anders's adult book The City in the Middle of the Night, I was really hoping for that beautiful prose and description but it was very dialogue heavy instead.

I will say: I love the queernormative society/universe, I love that there was an explanation for why all the aliens are fundamentally humanoid, I loved that there was a discussion on the different forms of language and culture coming from different planets and environments and even among the different earth cultures we see.

Also, I had no idea this was a trilogy until I listened to the interview between the author and narrator at the end. It wrapped up nicely and could have ended there but I'll admit I'm curious.

Fast paced story about a girl who has always been told that she wasn't human (but completely passes for one) and one day she would have the hidden beacon inside her activate and the aliens will come and get her. For all of the people who didn't fit in and thought they might be from another planet.

She quickly is found but finds that the person she was cloned from is from the royal fleet and they have been fighting a breakaway faction in a long term civil war over the galaxy. Tina struggles with what being raised as a human is still good and how she can help stop the person who killed the person that she was cloned from.

*Thank you so much to NetGalley and Tor Teen for providing this e-ARC. All opinions are my own.*
3.75/5 stars


“Alien baby. Massive legacy. Evil murder team”.

Star Wars meets Guardian of the Galaxies in this super fast paced, action packed adventure filled with a ton of queer characters. This book has a sapphic romance subplot as well.

Tina, our main character, is a 16-year old clone of one of the best Captain’s that the Royal Fleet has ever seen, Thaoh Argentian. She is living on Earth waiting for the beacon in her chest to light up so that the Royal Fleet will come get her and take her back to the galaxy when the time is right. When the beacon finally lights, she immediately realizes this was not the future she has been envisioning her entire life.

Tina may be our main character but there is a whole cast of characters that you will learn to love. We have so many groups of people represented in this book that it’s hard for me to even start the list. Pronouns are regularly discussed through the EasySpeak (the device allowing all people to communicate with each other through translation) and an introduction is not complete without learning which pronoun each character goes by. The teen band of Earthlings give you a rounded out band of people to find yourself in. I loved how Anders was able to bring all of the character’s past into the storyline so we could learn about them and not just see them as plot tools.

The plot of this story is VERY fast, buckle your seat belt. I was able to move through this story quickly because of the fast pace and I really appreciate that. I, personally, do not like a huge amount of world building or info dump that is set in the beginning of a book and that is why I found this refreshing. We learned about the world as Tina did which kept the plot line moving and new information relevant to the current situation she was dealing with. The world we discover is so full of colorful, animated creatures with the most interesting histories behind how they exist. I am not a huge sci-fi reader, but I feel like this was a new take on creatures that I haven’t heard about in the media before.

This book spends time talking about grief, coping mechanisms, consent when it comes to touch of any kind, being transgender, and race issues. These were weaved into the action plot well. Teenagers in space are still teenagers and so there is going to be miscommunication issues as they are still growing up. Heartbreak and loss are a component.

This book isn’t without its faults. The sapphic romance grows a little unauthentically in my opinion and Tina has a tendency to be very hard on her love interest. I feel like when working with romance plots, it needs to have more of those personal moments that explain to us why these two characters are coming together. That was lacking. The first half of the book was very fun and I was swooning, but as the book continued into the last half, it dragged a bit. I found that we were in a bit of a repeating pattern.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book and placed a preorder so that I can have a physical copy to read again when the time comes for the release of the second installment of this series. That ending has me eager to find out what happens next.

Trigger Warnings: teen bullying/harassment, graphic battle scenes, mentions of child abuse, racism, xenophobia

I had such high hopes for this book. Space odyssey adventure and that incredible cover?! Yes, please! Unfortunately, it did not live up to the hype for me. I was unable to 100% connect with the story due to the style of writing. While the book attempted to address societal issues (homelessness, abuse, gender norms, LGBTQ+), it wasn’t able to substantially delve into any one topic since the author tried to cover everything. It ended up feeling like a superficial band-aid over some pretty tough topics.

The world building was pretty incredible, though, and the aliens were specifically and creatively described. I am pretty sure there are some kids I will be able to recommend this book for, so I will be purchasing it for my library. However, it was a miss for me.

Anders has written an enjoyable space opera - imaginative, funny, and occasionally thoughtful. There's plenty of action - those sequences are well-rendered - and the characters, alien and human and in-between, are mostly multi-dimensional people you come to care about.

The plotting requires a fair amount of suspended disbelief, but Anders is a good writer who keeps things moving along. The ending leaves an opening for future adventures in this universe.