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crowns-of-violets-and-roses · 4 months ago

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Some Desperate Glory

Earth has been destroyed and 14 billion humans are dead with it. A handful of courageous survivors hide from the aliens who killed the earth and strike back as much as they can. Kyr (short for Valkyrie) has been raised since birth to avenge the earth and she fully intends to do so. Given the title and marketing around this book I don't think it's a spoiler to say that the human survivors aren't as heroic as they portray themselves; I will try and be relatively circumspect about the actual plot but if you're planning to read it and sensitive to spoilers you may want to skip this post.

It's Emily Tesh's debut novel though her novella Silver in the Wood was critically acclaimed and won her some major awards. And what a debut it is! I enjoyed Silver in the Wood but never picked up the sequel, this has done much more to pique my interest in what she will write going forward.

Gaea Station

The book begins on Gaea station where Kyr is shortly going to come of age and receive her assignment in the war this remnant of humanity is waging. It will be clear to the reader practically immediately that Kyr has been indoctrinated. The story is told from her POV not to set up a shocking twist that Gaea Station is evil but to explore the psychology of a teenager who has been indoctrinated from birth by a fascist cult. In the acknowledgements Tesh lists a series of books on cults and fascism that she read while writing the novel and the influence of them on the book is clear.

This is where the books excels. Kyr buys into the ideology of Gaea Station with fervour and is fully dedicated to the cause it fights for. It's an entirely convincing portrayal not just in terms of her beliefs but her emotions and even what she subconsciously avoids thinking about. The beginning of the books where the reader is immersed in her perspective is a fascinating perspective of someone who has been indoctrinated to the point that they don't examine the worldview that has been imposed at all.

If this aspect of the book has any flaw it's that Kyr's indoctrination is in large part the result of manipulation and abuse by the man who runs the station. The vast people majority of people in a fascist regime or even a member of a cult that has attained any great size is unlikely to receive such personal attention from the leader and it's one point that lacked verisimilitude.

Along with Kyr Gaea Station is where we're first introduced to the majority of the significant characters. Kyr leads The Sparrows a group of teenage girls training to join the war once they reach adulthood. Kyr is a cruel taskmaster to The Sparrows to put it mildly. Kyr's brother Magnus is interesting in his own rights and even more so when viewed in contrast to Kyr and their relationship while rarely the central focus is compelling. Commander Jole the leader of the station is seen for the first time but it's only later we'll get a in depth sense of him. Magnus's friend Avi is perhaps the most significant character introduced here and is often terrible in a way that feels similar yet distinct to Kyr.

Crucially, Tesh is willing to let Kyr be horrible. Some of the other characters are just powerless and trying to survive but Kyr treats both people she's close to and everyone else terribly. She's harsh to her teammates to the point of driving them to tears, punishes younger children ruthlessly and all the time is unbearably smug and self-righteous about what she's doing.

Until that is, Kyr inevitably leaves Gaea Station and becomes gradually disabused of her commitment to its ideology. While I say gradually in practice it happens remarkably quickly. There is justification for the speed it happens in the plot so I won't complain on the grounds of realism. Nevertheless it's a shame that there wasn't more time given to focus on Kyr getting deprogrammed.

Even as she changes her previous actions are not forgotten. With the exception of a handful of people at the top the book doesn't condemn those who were complicit with Gaea Station but neither is it willing to absolve them.

Humanity, Fuck No!

I expect most people reading this are familiar with the internet subgenre of stories called Humanity Fuck, Yeah!, described by a popular subreddit that collects such stories as "all media exhibiting the awesome potential of humanity, known as HFY or "Humanity, Fuck Yeah!", or I once saw concisely summed up as "human chauvinism" science fiction. On Tumblr you're probably most likely to have come across it through humans as space orcs posts and stories. Some Desperate Glory seems as if it is in part a critical response to these type of stories

Even before Kyr leaves Gaea Station we see what the greater universe things of humanity through excerpts from texts written in the settings. I adore using documents written by people in the setting as a framing device when it's well executed and it is here. As we see more of how humans are viewed, first through the excerpts and later through Kyr experiencing the wider universe - seeing Kyr's initial reactions to people not raised in a fascist cult is a highlight of book - it is clear that humanity fits an inverted HFY mould where the characteristics HFY stories idolise made humans the terror of the universe and ultimately led to their doom.

It does frustrate me that this follows countless other novels that insist on humanity being special (or so unremarkable that they are remarkable in their unremarkableness). It's far from the worst offender and "humanity is uniquely terrible" is a little less tired than "humanity is uniquely great" but it still felt repetitive.

The portrayal of humanity as a violent yet honourable primitive species with bizarre customs also mirrors how empires view people they are colonising. It's unclear how intentional this is but the book never actually does anything with this so that parallel just hovers in the background.

The Majo

The Majo, the society of aliens that inhabits most of the universe and annihilated the Earth, are not an empire. You can tell because the book goes out of its way to tell us they aren't one. Which isn't to say that they are an empire but there are enough similarities that I would have liked to see it addressed more substantively. Chalk it up to this book being way less concerned with imperialism than fascism, I suppose.

The various alien species never feel truly Alien. Nothing so cheap as just humans with rubber foreheads but their mindset is never incomprehensible.

At the centre of Majo society is The Wisdom a godlike supercomputer capable of doing basically anything to the point where we might as well just consider it magic. Princes of a near extinct alien species control The Wisdom and are the ones choosing which course of action to take (including say destroying the earth).

Yiso a young Prince of the Wisdom, comes into focus during this section. The training he undergoes to prepare him for his role had clear similarities to Kyr's own childhood which could have been explored more.

As the book leaves behind a tight focus on Kyr in Gaea Station it begins to stumble occasionally. Aspects of the wider setting are introduced but not given enough focus. Nagging questions are left unanswered. Some parts race by too quickly. There are parts of it where I wasn't sure what the books was aiming for and I'm not convinced Tesh knew either. Despite not quite living up to the standard set by the excellent early chapters it continues to be a deeply engaging book.

With the Wisdom introduced the stage is set for the next section of the book. It poses an almost philosophical question. Would it be better:

1. to kill 14 billion humans.

2. let humanity conquer the universe.

These are the only options. In a thought experiment you can just declare that your only choice is whether to pull the lever or not but stories are not thought experiments. The presentation of those choices as the only two possible options is unconvincing. In a short story you could just gloss over it but in a novel length work you need some sort of justification for why they can't do one of a hundred other alternatives. It's far from a grievous flaw but it bothered me.

Alternative Universes

In the penultimate section of the book we move to the viewpoint of Val a version of Kyr from another universe. After being immersed in Kyr's head from the beginning of the book the shift is jarring in the best possible way. Even the name even though it's a potential shortening of Kyr's own feels wrong.

In this universe humanity won the war against the aliens and now is an empire expanding across and endangering the universe. I don't want to belabour this point too much but this section puts another mark in the "Tesh is significantly less interested in imperialism than fascism" column as any focus on imperialism itself is dispensed with perfunctorily.

Val though lacking Kyr's specific indoctrination is still eager to serve as a soldier in the conquering human military.

Before long Kyr gets her memories of the old universe back as do some of the others. Although notably not Magnus who everyone agrees shouldn't get his counterpart's memories which provides a good moment in itself. Cleo, one of the Sparrows, was already interesting from the little we'd seen of her before and rapidly rose to one of the most interesting characters when we got to see her with two lifetimes worth of memories.

It could fairly be suggested that the number of characters from the original universe who Val has significant relationships with in the new one is contrived but frankly I don't care. It's great to see how they develop in a radically different context and my only complaint is that this section isn't longer. Both seeing the alternative versions of the characters initially and then seeing them integrate a lifetime of memories provides some of the books best moments.

The end of the section undermined the dilemma of whether it's better to kill 14 billion people or let humanity develop into an imperial power by changing the stakes that not destroying the Earth will ultimately lead to the annihilation of countless worlds. The initial dilemma was compelling once you suspended disbelief about the lack of alternatives the new one stacks the deck towards destroying the Earth to the point where the question is less interesting.

More focus on the human empire as an empire and not changing the terms of the consequences of destroying earth so starkly would have been great but the character writing in this section is brilliant enough to more than make up for it.

The Old Lie:

While most of the book after the initial section takes place planets and universes away from Gaea Station it looms over the narrative and as inevitably as Kyr left the climax must return to Gaea Station with the lies it's built on now laid bare to Kyr. Unfortunately this is by some distance the weakest part of the novel. If in the sections after Kyr leaves Gaea Station the book stumbles here it faceplants.

Kyr quickly starts working to undermine Gaea Station and brings The Sparrows on board with her plan and then it quickly becomes clear that apparently Kyr was the only one who ever actually bought into Gaea Station's ideology. I exaggerate but not that much. It's hard to think of a named character who is on board with it. The Sparrows are instantly ready to betray Gaea (and not out of any personal loyalty to Kyr most of them don't even like her), middle ranked officer are shown to be acting out of a mix of self interest and fear and the few at the top are just nakedly self-interested under a thin veneer of justifications.

It makes Kyr's earlier genuine belief appear as a rare if not unique exception. When you combine this with the focused personal manipulation of Kyr from Jole (a couple of scenes do a great job of conveying his charisma and skill with influencing people) we don't see anyone who has been indoctrinated to actually actually in circumstances typical of the average person on the station. Something like having one of The Sparrows betray them or at least have to be argued into going along with the rest would have improved this a lot.

This section of the book moves to directly address racism and sexism on Gaea but I often found the manner it did so awkward. Half the time it was just showing something about Gaea Station that we'd already seen and then tacking on "and that's bad because it's racist/sexist" when that was already obvious. A little subtly wouldn't go amiss. There are some notable exceptions including memorably an excerpt from a book written about Gaea that talks about it in a manner that the framing made feel much more natural than when it came up at other points. Interestingly by contrast homophobia was left more implicit. It's more directly addressed later in the book but even then it's more of a light handed show not tell approach.

The ending itself is no better than the rest of the final section. It pulls it's punches and gives a happy ending that feels two easy after everything that happened. It jars with the rest of the story.

Some Desperate Glory tends to be better the smaller the scale it's operating at is. When it's laser focused on Kyr it's damn near perfect, when it's about Gaea Station or the handful of major characters it's still amazingly good but when it pulls out to a larger scale it's still interesting but a lot more flaws start to show.

If it gave the parts with The Wisdom some more thought, allowed Kyr's deradicatilisation a higher page count and showed others who genuinely believed Gaea's ideology, addressed imperialism with if not as much focus as fascism more than the book gives it, and doubled the length of the section with the alternative timeline I'd have no complaints that weren't quibbles. Even so this is an amazing book and I'm eager to see what Tesh writes next.

#some desperate glory #emily tesh

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literary-illuminati · 1 year ago

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Book Review 49 – Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh

Introduction

I forget who initially recommended me this book, but I owe them an incredible debt. Really the only disappointing thing is that I hadn’t heard of it even sooner, as this really is just perfectly tailored to appeal to me specifically. First science fiction/fantasy novel I can remember reading in a long time that I actively wished was longer. As a testament to how much I liked this book – this review is long enough to need subheadings.

So! Some Desperate Glory is a space opera, following Kyr (Valkyr, technically), a 17-year-old cadet and genetically enhanced ‘warbreed’ golden girl of Gaea Station – that being the quasi-fascist statelet of militant dead-enders who fled to a desolate planetoid in a dead system to continue the war after aliens destroyed the earth/most of humanity. After she gets assigned to Nursery (read: breeding the next generation of soldiers) instead of a combat wing and has a crisis of faith, she talks herself into running away to help her brother on the suicide mission terrorist attack he was deployed on. With the help of one of her brother’s friends and a captured alien, she manages it, discovers that her brother had absolutely no intention of actually following orders once he’d made it out, and take it upon herself to do her own, better, terrorism. From there the plot gets weird, and I’m going to spoil it shamelessly talking about it, but if you value surprises when reading at all just stop this review and go read it.

The Heroine

Kyr is, and I say this lovingly, the most insufferable bitch of a 17-year-old military brat I’ve ever spent time in the head of (at least at first). Even compared to the other indoctrinated child soldiers she’s the cop nobody likes. She then spends the first third to half of the book unlearning this indoctrination, by which I mean very arduously and painfully reaching a point of ‘the fascist cult was a corruption and black mark on the good name of the death cult vengeful crusade, I’ll do it better’ and ‘it’s probably okay to not, like, personally hate aliens who were too young to have been alive when the earth was destroyed. Torturing them for no reason is wrong, like abusing animals was, back when there were animals’. She spends the entire book expecting on a bone-deep level to get herself killed for the cause, and at the end of the book is only like 10% of the way better (one of the last beats in the entire story is, standing with one of her only friends and sure they’re both about to run out of life support, offering to snap their neck for them because ‘asphyxiation’s a nasty way to go’). Whenever she is confronted with the idea that some people aren’t constantly aware of the possibility of physical violence or get to live their lives as something other than a bullet in the gun seeking vengeance for a dead planet she wants to scream and smash things at the unfairness of it all. I adore her.

Honestly my only real complaint is how quickly she starts mellowing out in the second and third acts of the story. There’s extenuating circumstances (whole extra life of memories, time loop bullshit, forcibly confronted with what she said she wanted and what it looks like, etc), but past the one real big hump it did rather feel like her character development suddenly became a bit smooth and easy/. This is one of the things I’m talking about when I say I wish the book was longer – everything after the first big climax and the time travel/universe editing felt kind of rushed and abbreviated.

As far as being a #problematic fave goes, Kyr was also very carefully kept from being, like, directly personally culpable for anything really unforgivable. Which I do understand why from a wanting people to sympathize with the racist homophobic fascist child soldier, but like – you’ve already introduced time travel and retroactivity. C’mon, don’t get cold feet now. Let her and Avi really share the ‘killed trillions in a universe that retroactively never happened’ credit.

Also, and entirely tangentially – you know how in a lot of action shows, the hero has incredibly emotionally tense rivalries and/or camaraderie with other guys, and then also an extremely conventionally feminine girlfriend off to the side somewhere who does like two things in the entire story and mostly seems to exist to prove he’s straight? Kyr has that, except she is textually gay (if incredibly repressed about it and like 90% of the way to asexual in terms of libido). Sorry Lis, but you are literally barely a character. Cleo’s right there, and already has a personality that’s more than two bullet points and is actually involved in the plot in ways beyond ‘love interest’.

Gaea Station

The shitty fascist asteroid habitat that Kyr grew up on is (if barely) the primary setting of the story, and as far as portrayals of incredibly unbalanced and fundamentally broken society just full of cultlike and ultranationalist neuross. I kind of love it as a dystopian setting, though I feel like the author kind of over-egged the pudding on it by the end of the book.

Society is organized into what feels like an intentional parody of a lot of YA dystopia setups, where you live in a tightly integrated mess all through adolescence (each with their own heraldic animal to idenity with!) but then at 17 your exams determine the branch of society you will be assigned to for the rest of your life to do your duty for humanity. Of course, unlike most YA dystopias, the System isn’t the result of some leviathan-state ruling the fates of millions or a tradition that’s going back generations upon generations – it’s a ramshackle mess that can barely consistently feed its warrior elites enough protein slop to take advantage of their genetically engineered hormone levels for muscle growth. It’s all so clearly and intentionally artificial and fake that it loops around to feeling extremely realistic.

Also do love how the elder generation all have names like Joel or Ursa or Elena, while the younger generation are all Valkyr and Magnus and Avicenna and Zenobia. The only really surprising thing is that they don’t specifically call out how children are raised in common and without individual families as following Plato’s Republic – it’s exactly the sort of attempt to create a grand unifying mythology for all of Earth’s true and vengeful children.

I really do wish Tesh had trusted the reader a bit more about it, though. Like, we can tell that almost all the names of the younger generation are either historical figures form the Mediterranean/Greco-Roman world or Norse mythology (with a few exceptions like Avicenna who fit the general aesthetic if not those exact conditions), which puts a bit of a lie to the whole ‘pan-human’ bit. It’s a clever bit of characterization through worldbuilding! You don’t need to call it out twice in dialogue between characters and then again in an in-universe scholarly essay excerpt at the start of a chapter. I can’t complain too badly though, she’s really not even close to being the worst for that I’ve read recently.

One thing I did like especially because I don’t think it was ever called out and brought front and centre is just the sort of, like, perfect irony of both Kyr and her brother Magnus – ‘warbreed’ engineered supersoldiers with physical capabilities beyond any baseline human, blonde aryan ubermensch, the golden children and eugenic future of Gaea Station/true humanity – both being queer and totally unsuited to their assigned gender roles. If it was, like, specifically brought up in a big monologue as disproof of the Gaean ideology or something it’d feel much too on the nose, but as just a set of facts underlying the characterization of the protagonists I liked it quite a lot.

Trio Dynamics

They don’t actually have all that much pagecount spent together, now that I think about it, but as far as I’m concerned the absolute heart of the story is the dynamic between Kyr, Avi (Avicenna, genius-level hacker and cynical rat bastard discontented Gaea Station restaurant) and Yiso (young and rebellious Prince of the Wisdom, taken captive by Gaea when they’re personal ship came too close and then liberated/kidnapped by the other two in their escape attempt). It’s peak trauma-bonding in that the first time it involves a) Avi torturing Yiso to force the alien supercomputer to let him access it and b) Kyr shooting Avi in the head after he uses access to the supercomputer to wipe out 90% of galactic civilization as payback for the whole ‘destroyed Earth with an antimatter missile’ thing (she got a case of morals when confronted with what ‘winning’ would mean. Also her brother shooting himself.)

By all rights they should absolutely hate each other and after two temporal recursions and oceans of retroactively unspilled blood on all their hands they’re the only people who even slightly understand each other. At one point Kyr tells Yiso ‘just so you know, I don’t really care about you as a person,’ and then immideately thinks ‘that was a lie. Why did I say that?’ Avi and Kyr both deprogram themselves from the cult that raised them but only the ‘loyalty to the cult’ bits and not the ‘alien race war vengance death cult’ bits. Yiso meets Kyr in an atemporal training simulation and gets retroactive Stockholm syndrone even though the first time they actually meet she breaks their ribs for repressed teenager reasons. They all drive me absolutely insane and I absolutely adore them. Even if Avi’s redemption felt waaaaay too rushed and unjustified in the final recursion, willing to forgive it here.

Time Loops

The big twist of the story is that, having fucked up and enabled Avi taking vengeance for Earth by doing the same thing to every other alien species, Kyr jumps into the alien supercomputer time manipulation buisness wholesale and goes back to prevent the destruction of Earth. Which then fast forwards to her being a newly minted officer in the Terran Expeditionary Fleet that is the imperial power dominating the known galaxy in increasingly high-collateral damage ways as time goes on. Yiso, in this timeline the beating heart and soul of the main alien resistance group, seeks her out and restores her memories and they go back to try and hijack the alien supercomputer before the government office whose hijacked its crippled remnants (as helmed by the alternate-timeline version of Gaea Station’s great leader, now a fleet admiral of the ‘Providence’ division) manage to literally destroy the universe.

It is mostly down to all the fanfic I’ve read, but I really, really adore timeline divergences that ropagate out and leave all the major characters different but similar people in alien yet appropriate situations. I also adore time travel stories about someone turning the timeline into swiss cheese trying to brute force their way to the one and only golden ending. So I adore this whole conceit. Really my only complaint is that there were only two (one and a half, really) recursions. Not that I’m demanding a full groundhog day here. But, like, it’d have been nice. And Kyr/Avi/Yiso continuously bumping into each other in different configurations and usually ending up at gunpoint would have been ann absolutely amazing bit.

Space Orcs

I can’t be sure Tesh actually had any exposure to the whole online meme of ‘humans as space orcs’, but I do and it’s really impossible to read the book as anything but an examination of the idea. Compared to every alien species ever encountered, humans are tall, heavy, muscular, impulsive, and violent. In a one-on-one confrontation they’ll snap any other species’ neck. The very first pages of the book are an excerpt from an in-universe text writing for an aliens about how actually really humans are very intelligent, and then talking about how threat displays and ‘human culture’. In the original timeline they even fit into the usual social niche of orcs in a lot of fantasy these days – the scattered and diminished remnants of a brutal empire that was defeated and mostly-exterminated in their attempts to conquer the universe.

The book’s handling of this doesn’t really have a point, as far as I can tell – the worldbuilding’s sufficiently divorced from anything real that trying to call it a commentary on racism or genocide or conquering empires is a stretch. (It is after all a fundamental point of the book that the obliteration of earth and extermination of the vast majority of humanity really was the only way the Wisdom could prevent the Terran Federation from conquering the known galaxy. Which is I’m extremely sure not something the author intends to be a historical analogy.) I found it a fun bit of worldbuilding and interesting subversion of normal space opera tropes regarding humanity’s relative abilities, anyway.

Theodicy

Is an incredibly pretentious way to title this section, but also in a sense kind of the core of the book’s plot? In an interesting way, and I think it’s really the book’s greatest weakness that it doesn’t explore or grapple with it enough.

Which is to say – the Wisdom is at the heart of galactic civilization. It’s an alien AI with vague but vast (though limited) reality-warping and precognitive powers. It does not rule the civilizations that accept it, but guides them as a benevolent god towards best, happiest outcomes with whatever support they ask for or need. To determine what ‘best’ means, it creates its Princes, vat-grown heirs to the dead species that created it, with a lifespan of millenia spent going through simulations and interacting with the world to provide the data and decision-making it requires to make that sort of strategic decision.

The Terran Federation’s attempt to reverse-engineer or hijack the Wisdom put it in a situation where the only solution its princes could find was to destroy the better part of humanity and even more of their industry and culture. Through the plot of the first acts of the book, Kyr and her genius-level-hacker friend hijack a node of it and Kyr convinces/forces it to accept her decision-making instead of its prince (who they just killed). This results in an explicitly colonialist human empire ruling over aliens as oppressed subjects, and using the half-wrecked and poorly understood Wisdom to eliminate threats before they occur (shunting the reality backlash off to alien worlds they don’t care about). The next acts of the book mostly resolve around fixing or reverting this, and end with Kyr diving back into a node and having another conversation with it.

A conversation which is basically it giving up. It reverts things back to the human-genocide timeline, then shuts down its infrastructure and goes dark, leaving the entire mostly pacifistic and loosely governed galactic civilization it had protected suddenly on its own. Humanity were such assholes we found a loving god and then convinced it to kill itself.

Which, like, could 100% totally work. As far as high concept short story prompts go its incredible. But as far as actually driving the action goes the Wisdom is the one who makes the most important deciisons in the entire book, and determine the entire shape of the plot. For it to land, it really really needed more than two and a half short conversations on screen, at least to me.

TL:DR

Good book, lesbian doing space atrocities, should have been longer.

#book review #sff #some desperate glory #emily tesh #lesbian space atrocities #space opera

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qbdatabase · 2 years ago

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Hello, books and worms!

I’m testing out a fun new project of creating themed lists of five to a dozen titles each month. They’ll have a cute little collage for each title’s cover, and then a very short blurb for the title, author, age, genre, and a sentence or two of description.

This month’s theme is devoted to Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week, but feel free to send an ask with requests!

Description blurb for each book under the cut v

Life Underwater / Matthew Metzger: Romance; a gray-romantic Muslim transgender man accidentally falls in love with a non-binary marine biologist

Fire Becomes Her / Rosiee Thor: YA Fantasy, Historical; a demiromantic bisexual woman schemes her way to the top of alt-Jazz Age magical politics

Syncopation / Anna Zabo: Romance; two band mates, one tour bus. can a gay song writer make it work with an aromantic rock star Dom?

Devon’s Island / SI Clarke: Sci-Fi; a soldier and her food scientist wife must work together with an aro-ace autistic scientist to plan a mission to Mars

The Bruising of Qilwa / Naseem Jamnia: Fantasy; a middle eastern aro-ace non-binary refugee discovers a terrible new disease amongst accusations of blood magic

The Last 8 / Laura Pohl: YA Sci-Fi, Apocalypse; eight teens survive an alien attack and gather at Area 51, led by an aromantic bisexual Latina who discovers a space ship that could change everything …

Two Dark Moons / Avi Silver: YA Fantasy; an aromantic bisexual female must survive in a jungle of reptilian people to pass her coming of age ritual

It Sounds Like This / Anna Meriano: YA Fiction; fat ace Latina MC leads a brass marching band of newbies with the help of a sweet and shy gray-romantic ace boy who just might be her new crush

Tarnished are the Stars / Rosiee Thor: YA Sci-Fi; a lesbian with an illegal clock-work heart, a tyrant’s aro-ace son, and a skilled assassin form an uneasy alliance to end an epidemic

The Liar’s Guide to the Night Sky / Brianna Shrum: YA Action; a ski-slope accident pits a bisexual girl training to be a firefighter and her cousin’s aromantic pansexual Latino best friend against freezing temperatures

The Rhythm of My Soul / Elin Dyer: YA Mystery; an aro-ace ballerina, a boy determined to dance until it kills him, and a new boy with a dark past need to figure out who is out for revenge–and why

Common Bonds: an anthology of short stories featuring aromantic characters

#aromantic awareness week #aromantic awareness #aro week #aromantic #aro rep #YA #YA books #adult books #fiction #lgbt fiction #lgbtqia #themed lists #book recs

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haveyoureadthistransbook · 11 months ago

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Pluralities by Avi Silver

goodreads

"Wait—rewind. I was still a girl back then, before the universes converged." Guided by premonitions and a fateful car ride, a burned-out retail worker stumbles into the grand exit from womanhood. Meanwhile, in a galaxy not so far away, an alien prince goes rogue with his sentient spaceship, seeking purpose in the great glimmering void. As the two of them come together in a fusion of body and mind, they must reckon with their assigned identities. Tender, witty, and daring, Pluralities is a slipstream-meets-space-adventure story honoring the long and turbulent journey into gender euphoria.

Mod opinion: I have this one on my tbr, but I haven't gotten around to it yet. It sounds incredible though!

#pluralities #avi silver #polls #trans lit #trans literature #trans books #lgbt lit #lgbt literature #lgbt books #sci fi #nonbinary #own voices #to read

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excessive-vampires · 8 months ago

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Dealing with Demons Chapter 7: Having Fun Despite Extenuating Circumstances Part 1: Riley

Masterlist with CW

Taglist: @demyxdancer @softvampirewhump @d-cs

Riley was running late for work. They had treated themself to breakfast from a nearby coffee shop to celebrate solving an "alien abduction" case. It was never really aliens, usually it was vampires messing with their victims while they were still suggestable, or the fae collecting materials for the magical equivalent of mad science. This time it was the later, so a joint fae/Bureau team had hunted down those responsible. They were apprehended, and the case was closed. As far as Riley had heard the offenders were going to be spending the next century doing something in between community service and indentured servitude.

Sil hated working with the fae though, which was why Riley was getting her coffee and a chocolate croissant, to help celebrate no longer having to work with them until the next fae-related case came up. But the line was longer and slower than expected, and Riley ended up ten minutes behind schedule. Not a good look for just a week after getting back from being suspended. Still, the world wasn't going to fall apart without them while they got breakfast.

When Riley opened the soundproof waiting room door chaos leaked out. Everyone was running somewhere and yelling, every face was full of panic. The elevator opened to show a small crowd of researchers, each with an armful of files, who rushed out towards the hastily made cluster of desks that seemed to be where everyone was running to or from. There was an agent at the center of the chaos who seemed to be barking orders at everyone he saw. Riley couldn't remember the man's name, but recognized him as the leader of the team assigned to investigate the missing person cases.

Riley rushed to Director Coleman's office.

"What's going on?!"

Coleman looked up from where she had her head in her hands. "Andrew Bell disappeared from prison."

"Like, escaped or—"

"Disappeared. We sent people to Clara Bolton's house to protect her, but..."

Riley's heart sank. "No."

"She's gone too. Just vanished. No two disappearances have been this close together before. This is an absolute clusterfuck. We have the agents working on the other disappearances briefed on the situation, but I'm having Agent Silverman's team take point. Including you. And listen, Agent Bishop, I need you to contact Avi."

"What? Why?"

"Because they'll know if Bolton is still alive."

Riley fished out their phone and hit the call button under Avi's contact information.

"Riley? What—"

"Meet me at the Bureau. It's important."

"Why?"

"I'll tell you when you get here."

"I'd rather know what I'm walking into."

"Just get here! It's an emergency!"

There was a pause. Then, "I'll be outside the building in five minutes."

Riley hung up and walked towards the exit. Coleman followed. Soon they were outside, and, after a moment of waiting, the already cool morning air chilled and Avi appeared. The demon was dressed professionally. Their expression was serious and guarded. They crossed their arms over their chest.

"What do you need?"

"Is Clara Bolton alive?" Riley asked, trying to keep the desperation out of their voice.

"Yes. Why?"

"Give me your word she's alive!" Riley demanded.

"I give you my word she's alive. What's going on?" The panic that had infected the base was starting to leak into Avi's tone.

"She's been taken," Director Coleman said. "By supernatural means."

Avi's eyes went wide for a moment. Then they composed themself. But their ever present smile was still missing. "I assume you know who I am. Avi, they/them if you don't. Who are you?"

"Director Sarah Coleman, she/her. I'm in charge of this base."

Avi's expression darkened. "I can assure you I had nothing to do with her disappearance. If I were to end her life, even indirectly, our deal would be broken."

"I guess that rules out the demon of envy," Riley said.

"Maximilian? Why?"

"Andrew Bell was taken too."

Avi took a step back, their mouth fell open, their arms dropped to their sides. "If someone is collecting people who've sold their souls, whatever they're doing can't be good. For those that have been taken or for the demons connected to them. Is this related to the other missing persons cases that have been in the news?"

"We don't know yet, but at this point we have to assume they are. I trust we can count on your cooperation with our investigation?" Coleman asked.

"Director Coleman, no offense, but if I'm going to be working closely with people who know how to banish me back to the psychic plane I'm going to need some assurances."

"Name your terms."

"Let's make a deal. I will assist your agents in this investigation in any way I can short of endangering myself, do whatever I can to not hinder the investigation in any way short of endangering myself, and not harm you or anyone under your employment for the duration of the case. In exchange, you and everyone under your employment will not banish me, imprison me, harm me or attempt to harm me, or interfere with my making and carrying out deals for the duration of the case."

"I won't make anyone promise to not interfere with deals that involve people getting hurt," Coleman said, staring Avi down.

"Fair. And I won't be stepping foot inside that building." Avi pointed at the base, apparently unintimidated. "Do you accept these terms?" Avi held out their hand.

"I accept." Coleman shook it. "Now, the two of you wait here while I get Agents Silverman and Green. You're going to investigate the crime scenes."

"While we do that someone should be making a list of relevant missing persons reports. I can go to their homes and determine if they've summoned a demon recently and what kind."

"That would be invaluable," Coleman said. "Thank you, Avi."

Their smile finally showed up. "No problem, new boss."

Riley turned to Avi as Coleman left. "For a minute there I thought you were going to ask for her soul."

"Deals can be for things other than souls, and I figure I can give you this one case for free since I'm already involved in it."

"What about the Bell case?"

"That one was a favor to you. Now I'm officially part of the team. Like a consultant or a liason." Judging by the demon's tone, this seemed to greatly amuse Avi.

"So if we need your help with another case then you'll want her soul?"

Avi shrugged then leaned forward. "I probably won't ask for hers," They said conspiratorially.

"Oh." Riley's blood ran cold. Avi wanted their soul.

Avi put a hand on Riley's shoulder. "But that's for future us to worry about."

Then Mike and Sil arrived. Sil walked up to where Riley and Avi were standing.

"Avi."

"Agent Silverman." Avi did a mock salute. Mike stifled a chuckle. Sil's frown deepened.

"For this mission I am your superior. You will listen to what I tell you to do, and you will not act without consulting me."

Avi's face got serious. "Understood."

"Good. We might just get through this without disaster. Now come on, we're taking car five."

Mike called shotgun as soon as they were in sight of the parking garage and sprinted towards the car. Sil sighed and quickened her own pace. This left Riley and Avi somewhat alone together.

"So... Riley... are you working on any new playlists?"

"Can we not talk unless it's about the investigation?"

"Oh." Avi frowned. Okay."

Riley put in their earbuds and played their de-stress playlist. Today was definitely not going how they thought it would.

......

Soon they were squeezing themself into the backseat of the car next to Avi, because no matter how much they were reeling from the revelation that the demon wanted their soul, they were still more comfortable around Avi than the rest of the team was.

"How long is the drive going to be?" Avi asked.

"Forty-five minutes," Sil answered.

"Hmm." Then Avi leaned their head back and closed their eyes. Mike looked back at them and then got Riley's attention. They took out one earbud.

"Do demons sleep?" Mike whispered.

"Not that I know of." Riley's tone was similarly quiet. They moved to put the earbud back in but Mike gestured for them to stop.

"Then what are they doing?"

"I don't know."

"Ask them."

"You ask them."

"No way, they like you."

"I'm not going to—"

"I'm meditating," Avi said. "But I can still hear you just fine."

Sil laughed. A blush rose in Mike's cheeks and he turned back around. Riley put their earbud back in. They wondered why a demon would need to meditate, but not enough to ask.

#dwd #riley pov

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saturn-sends-hugs · 2 years ago

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Fuck it, I’m seeing a lot of talk about Echo being a picky eater recently and I think I want to add my two neurodivergent cents to it lol

Firstly, I think it’s important to note that Echo is autistic. I know this hasn’t been stated anywhere or anything, but listing out his character quirks makes it pretty clear.

He repeats orders, arguing with his batch when they don’t follow them, and worries about doing things wrong. This feels like a safety thing to me, almost like telling kids in class to be quiet when the teacher is talking for no other reason than it feels right and them breaking rules is stressful. (can you tell I’m speaking from experience cause this whole post will be me speaking from experience bkshsjsks)

He reads and memorizes the reg manuals, liking to be caught up on the latest versions. Again, this feels like a safety thing; him wanting to know how things will work ahead of time so he can be prepared in every situation.

He doesn’t like being wrong, like when we see him refusing to back down on thinking the Seperatists Senator’s distress call is a trap (Avi Singh I think?). Even when the evidence starts poking holes in his theory, he doesn’t want to let it go. I’m not sure how to explain how this relates to autism other than that fact that autistic people just don’t like being wrong? Like it’s just hard to admit that and it’s almost scary to change your mind like that sometimes? Idrk honestly, I’m DEFINITELY not an expert lol, just saying my piece

So many of Echo’s character quirks relate directly to autism, and all of them are things I strongly relate to. (yes this is why he’s my favorite shush)

But most of all is his picky eating. And uh, this might actually get a tad heavy here but I hope this can maybe share an accurate perspective on it?

Many autistic people are fairly picky eaters, something I’ve definitely struggled with since I was born. We see Echo being skeptical of food multiple times, especially when they’re new to him. We see him eating rations bars, which would be familiar, without a second thought, but new things he’s extremely hesitant to try.

With that in mind and the headcanon (kinda) that he’s autistic, this sounds a lot like ARFID to me.

ARFID (Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder) is tricky to describe since there’s nothing conscious to it, its just somewhat of a mental hurdle? Like there’s a point you just can’t cross no matter what, a bit like ADHD and executive dysfunction, expect a lot stronger lol. It’s pretty much just picky eating to the extreme that a person cannot control and just makes your choices extremely limited when it comes to food.

This makes it difficult (ahem, impossible) to do seemingly basic things like trying absolutely any new foods. There are a few safe ones, maybe even a category of foods that are almost completely safe (for me: most deserts or fruits), but anything outside of that is different, it’s new, and it does not feel safe. When I say picky eating to the extreme, I mean extreme. If I’m literally starving, haven’t eaten in way too long, but the only things available aren’t safe foods? Well too bad guess I’m not eating today 🤷 It’s not much of a choice, it’s just being trapped by your own neurodivergent brain 🫠🫠🫠

It can feel childish and incredibly alienating to constantly turn down new foods or restaurants, or to order the same thing every time from a restaurant, off the kids menu or with special requests, and I just think that piece is being missed in Echo’s picky eating. Now I’m not telling anyone to stop making it a humorous thing cause it totally is in the show, but hey, I’m always here for the angst potential :)

Like what if the reason Echo still looks malnourished after joining the batch is because his safe foods like typical rations just aren’t readily available after the Empire springs up? What if the batch is on shore leave and decide to go to a restaurant and Echo has to either turn them down and explain, or force himself to go and try to tough it out? What if one of the batch makes a joke about Echo’s picky eating, just trying to make conversation or something, but Echo just fully shuts down? Maybe even Domino would joke about it at first, until Fives learned better and started helping Echo, but uhoh now he’s gone and Echo has to figure things out all over again with a new batch 🥲

Is this a fictional character that was grossed out by foods like two times and I’m just heavily projecting onto? Yeah, sure, but hey, I’d love to see more people recognizing this side of it and maybe connecting with it too :)

@gentle-hero-blog thanks for letting me sob abt this literally the minute u got home bkshsjskk <3333

#picky eater echo is so incredibly important to me #i could explain more abt arfid if that’s something anyone wanted (and honestly i might vent post abt it some day cause oof it sucks)#but i wanted to keep this one more echo focused than just ranty lol 😅#arc trooper echo #tbb echo #saturn sends thoughts #and feels stupid abt it lol #was i mid sob session while writing this because a joke directed at echo sent me into a mini panic attack maybe maybe but it’s fineeeeee #we love uncovering almost forgotten trauma from random things abt ur comfort character 🫠#way too early in the morning to be venting abt this 😅

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melanielocke · 2 years ago

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Book recommendations - Morally complicated/unhinged protagonists

I usually tend to gravitate towards characters who are good. Most of my own written characters will fall firmly on the good side of an alignment chart even if they are complicated, have trauma etc. But every once in a while I do enjoy some characters who are kind of unhinged or morally complicated. Here are some of my favorites.

I'm going to start with the book I just finished reading and am currently obsessed with: Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh

In this book, earth has been destroyed, and Kyr has trained all her life to avenge earth. She was raised on an isolated space station with what she believes are the last humans, taught to hate the Majoda, the aliens who destroyed earth. Kyr has never questioned anything she's taught and worked hard to be a model soldier, but then her brother is assigned to a suicide mission while Kyr herself is relegated to the Nursery to bear children.

Kyr decides to take her fate into her own hands and rescue her brother from what she believes is pointless and leaves the space station together with her brother's brilliant but kind of unhinged friend Avi and a lonely Majo captive Yiso. But when Kyr enters the wider universe she must confront that not everything she's been taught is true and that the universe is a lot more complicated than she believes.

Essentially, this is a story of someone indoctrinated by a cult slowly breaking free. Kyr starts out not very likeable. She wants nothing more than to be the perfect soldier, is mean to everyone and is pretty clueless. But slowly she learns through the book and I loved watching her journey.

My favorite in this book has to be Avi though. He's unhinged. He's a genius, way too smart for his own good. He's gay and has a very complicated relationship with Kyr's twin brother Mags. I can't say too much without spoiling the book.

Mind the content warnings for this one, and keep in mind that Kyr is heavily indoctrinated by what is pretty much a fascist cult and as such she shows some queerphobic views (such as refusing to use they/them pronouns for a genderless Majo at first), though it also seems relatively watered down compared to how bad it probably was in the cult. It's also pretty obvious to a reader that Kyr is wrong about most things at this point.

The copy pictured is my Illumicrate edition, which has the UK cover (and very pretty edges)

Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao is up next

Iron Widow is a YA sci fi with characters inspired by people from Chinese history. The main character, Zetian, is inspired by the only female emperor in Chinese history Wu Zetian.

Huaxia is under attack by hunduns, a type of mechanic aliens, and to combat them they fight in chrysalises, machines taking the shape of creatures of Chinese mythology piloted by a boy/girl pair using spirit presence. Unfortunately, the girls often die due to the mental strain.

Zetian's sister was murdered by one of the pilots outside of battle, and she enlists as a concubine pilot to kill the man responsible. She gets her wish in an unexpected way, when said pilot takes her with him to battle, she kills him through the mental link.

Labeled an Iron Widow, Zetian is paired with the most powerful male pilot, a convicted murderer who is only kept alive because of his exceptional spirit presence. But Zetian has had her taste of revenge and is not going to go down quietly.

I love how unhinged Zetian is in this book, and the author is very good at making us root for her. They could probably have Zetian blow up an orphanage and still have us cheer for her. Zetian's anger is understandable, she's a girl fed up with the patriarchy and girls dying as pilots. This book also has a poly main couple, with all three being bi and into each other.

The book is the first in a duology and book 2 will be out April 2024 (it was delayed)

The Locked Tomb series by Tamsyn Muir is already pretty well known but it fit this category well and I only started it recently

There's three books out, but book 3 only comes out in paperback this September which is why I don't have it yet (nor have I read it)

The first two books focus on Gideon and Harrow, who are both from the ninth house. Harrow is a necromancer and heir to the ninth house, whereas Gideon is a warrior who would much rather leave the ninth house altogether. But when Gideon tries to escape, again, Harrow makes her an offer, become her cavalier when she answers the summons of the emperor, who called the heirs of all nine houses and their cavaliers to become lyctors.

The first two books are already very different in tone. Gideon in book 1 is funny, the language is very modern and Gideon is often not paying attention because she's describing all the attractive female characters in full detail, but otherwise she's relatively reliable as a narrator. Then comes Harrow the Ninth, which is one of the most confusing books I have ever read. It pays off in the end, everything will make sense (mostly).

What I found very funny in book 1 was just how childish and petty Gideon and Harrow could be towards each other. They hate each other but in a very childish way. Harrow calls Gideon "Griddle". Gideon considers that Harrow would never leave her alone in their rooms on purpose because then Gideon would mess up the buttons of Harrow's clothes.

Book 2 in comparison has a much more serious tone, which much written in 2nd perspective as well as some flashbacks to previous events that do not add up to what we saw in book 1. I have yet to read book 3 but I've heard it's amazing. After Nona there will be one more book which comes out 2024.

Last up is Black Sun and Fevered Star by Rebecca Roanhorse

This book is not so much unhinged, but very morally complicated. The world is based on pre Columbian americas and it shows a complicated conflict between different cultural group through the POV's of a couple different characters. The main character Xiala is a Teek who was banished from her own home. The Teek are very recluse and not super involved with the main conflict.

She is given the task of sailing Serapio to city of Tova, where much of the conflict takes place. Serapio's mother made him to be the reincarnation of their god, the Carrion Crow, and avenge their people.

We also follow Naranpa, who is the Sun Priest in Tova but grew up in a poor section with a group of culture who were excluded from the clans that make up the city.

And then there's Okoa, the brother of the leader of the Carrion Crow clan within the city, who only wants to protect his clan but doesn't really know what is the best way to do this, meaning he often changes his mind and alliances.

The first book builds towards the Black Sun, a rare solar eclipse that will change the world.

There are currently two books out and the third and last is scheduled for 2024.

@alastaircarstairsdefenselawyer @life-through-the-eyes-of @astriefer @justanormaldemon @ipromiseiwillwrite @a-dream-dirty-and-bruised @amchara @all-for-the-fanfiction @imsoftforthomastair @ddepressedbookworm @queenlilith43 @wagner-fell @cant-think-of-anything @laylax13s @tessherongraystairs @boredfangirl16 @artist-in-soul @aliandtommy @ikissedsmithparker

#some desperate glory #emily tesh #gideon the ninth #harrow the ninth #tamsyn muir #iron widow #xiran jay zhao #black sun #fevered star #rebecca roanhorse #book recommendations #queer books #unhinged characters

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sparatus · 11 months ago

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Plssss, the world needs more Sentiment & Reason, no matter what stage it's at

wip game

see what's funny is i actually started writing the first chapter in my head last night but it was like 4am and i HAD to go to bed lol

sentiment and reason is the sort-of prequel to to catch a rabbit, aka kryterius murder mystery, just in the sense that it takes place prior to rabbit. not super connected otherwise. this time, instead of saren and nihlus, we're covering avitus and macen and how they get together - specifically, via a spectre mission wherein they pose as a married couple moving into a neighborhood in order to investigate a murder.

so far i have the outline up to day 2 of the investigation, i'm working on getting at least to a workable skeleton outline before i start divvying up into chapters, but i do have the setting, the victim, the murder method, and the 3 primary suspects + actual killer worked out :3c and also a subplot about saren's great-grandfather dying of cancer and saren getting The Call sometime before the climax. that'll hurt like a bitch i already cried just thinking of him and des discussing the inevitable last night i'm fine but also it's important to avi and macen in that avi encouraging saren to go be with his dying parsaepat instead of seeing the mission through is a breakthrough moment for the two of them, proving that avi does have empathy and emotional intelligence he just keeps them under lock and key, especially once he admits to macen that part of his motivation for telling saren to go was that he (avi) didn't get to say goodbye to his own mother when she was killed when he was 12 and he doesn't want his brother-friend to have to live with that very unique kind of pain

i don't really have any snippets worth sharing so here's some Fun Facts instead:

title is derived from a poirot quote, because that is apparently my naming scheme for this series, specifically The Mysterious Affair at Styles: "'Every murderer is probably somebody’s old friend', observed Poirot philosophically. 'You cannot mix up sentiment and reason.'"

fic takes place on the turian world thracia, which is another one of the ones with no canon from the scavenger hunt me1 mission and i'm kinda just bullshitting as i go but currently i have it as a world on the part of the turian-human border that used to be (unpopulated, just claimed) turian-salarian, pleasant climate, mostly a retirement planet for older turians looking for somewhere peaceful and warm to spend their twilight years, but with the advent of humanity there's been an increase of alien immigrants and with them younger turians moving in to make the old people feel more secure. there's tension there as a lot of turians don't want humans to feel entitled to a turian planet while humans and some other species feel the turians are being reactionary.

the victim is lieutenant general tagetis agonian, a very old drake (147yo at TOD) with an illustrious career including supporting desolas arterius's rise to power/fame and being one of the commanding generals at shanxi

because we all know i love my meaningful names, agonian's first name comes from the genus name for marigolds Tagetes, because he's killed with a marigold crushed into his tea to trigger his severe levo allergy

macen also has a severe levo allergy. coming into contact with a mixed-chirality bouquet and explaining his sudden hives to avi is what gives avi the idea for what killed the general when his autopsy comes back negative for known poisons but his tea had an earth plant in it.

one of the suspects, myrenth "myra" d'saana, is an asari resident in their waning matron stage who works as an accountant in the city. they moved to thracia with their bondmate several decades ago, and while their bondmate has passed on they'd grown fond of the neighborhood and their neighbors and chose to stay there to raise the child she had with said bondmate. said child is currently in their early 30s, asari equivalent of about 8 or 9, and was conceived shortly before the bondmate passed as "something to remember her by."

myrenth is very proud of their garden and regularly went back and forth with tagetis for first place in the annual competition. their garden is mixed-chirality, but they politely kept the levo plants away from the fence bordering tagetis's yard so he wouldn't accidentally come in contact with them.

#press conference #thetrashbagswasteland #ierian's writing

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