Some Desperate Glory

Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh was originally published in 2023. The novel is a bestseller, won the 2024 Hugo Award, and was a finalist for the Arthur C. Clarke Award and the Ursula K. Le Guin Prize. Some Desperate Glory is Tesh’s first novel; she published two award-winning novellas in 2019 and 2020. The novel is a space opera featuring LGBTQ+ characters. Through the main character, a soldier named Kyr, Tesh explores How Fascist Competition Undermines Empathy, How Authoritarianism Oppresses Women, and Found Family as a Form of Resistance.

This guide refers to the 2023 Tor Books edition.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of graphic violence, death, death by suicide, animal death, rape, sexual violence, child abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse, bullying, gender discrimination, antigay bias, racism, mental illness, pregnancy termination, substance use, and cursing.

Plot Summary

Some Desperate Glory includes three different universes. In the first universe, Kyr is a 17-year-old aboard Gaea Station, a space station run by her uncle Commander Jole, a fascist autocrat who falsely claims that the approximately 2,000 people aboard the station represent the last significant remnants of humanity. Kyr’s twin brother, Mags, is also on the station. The novel begins with Kyr failing at the Doomsday training scenario in the technology called the agoge, a simulation of the actual destruction of Earth.

Children on the station are divided into groups called “messes,” each named after an animal. Kyr and the girls in her mess, Sparrow, are getting their assignments; their training rotations are ending, and they are about to enter the military economy of the space station. Jeanne is assigned to Ferox, one of the dreadnought spaceships that run Gaea. The other Sparrows are ordered to strip a majo (alien) ship that they have commandeered. Lisabel is assigned to Nursery. Arti is assigned to another dreadnought, Augusta, and Vic is assigned to Suntracker. Zen is assigned to Oikos and admits that she never liked Cleo or Kyr. Cleo, Kyr’s nemesis, is assigned to Victrix, another dreadnought.

Kyr is assigned to Nursery, which upsets her because she has the best training scores of the girls. Jole tells her that she needs to birth more soldiers. In Nursery Wing, Lisabel tells Kyr that Mags refused his assignment and left the station. When the second-in-command, Admiral Russell, flirts with Lisabel, Kyr goes to find Avi, who helped Mags cheat in order to win the Doomsday scenario. Avi reluctantly agrees to help Kyr find Mags.

Avi and Kyr go back to the agoge. While Avi snoops, he puts Kyr in a training scenario with orcs, and she defeats them. Next, Avi puts Kyr in a simulation he made for Mags: a clifftop garden with no enemies. Then, Avi discovers that Mags refused assignments on all the dreadnoughts and was assigned to Strike force. He is supposed to carry out a terrorist attack on humans who work with the Prince of the Wisdom, a majo zi alien, on Chrysothemis. Avi says that Kyr’s sister, Ursa, lives on Chrysothemis, along with many other humans. Jole hid the fact that humans exist outside the station so that he could make women in Nursery give birth every two years. Kyr was taught to view Ursa as a traitor.

Avi and Kyr decide to steal the majo ship and go after Mags. To get to the alien in a brig, Kyr swims through the shadow-engine currents of the four dreadnoughts that power Gaea; the shadow engines power the ships by creating currents in the fabric of space and time. Entering these currents is extremely dangerous. She knocks out the guard in the brig and releases the majo, who says that their name is Yiso (they use “they/them” pronouns). Cleo stabs Kyr while trying to stop the group from taking Yiso’s ship. However, she intentionally misses her shot and allows Kyr to get away with Avi and Yiso.

On Chrysothemis, Avi finds a shack for them to stay in while Kyr heals. Yiso is very talkative for 12 days. Then, Avi announces that he found Mags and gives Kyr a tablet with directions to Ursa’s apartment. Ursa lives with her son, Ally, who was fathered by Jole through rape. Mags is living with Ursa and comes home. He refuses to carry out his Strike mission; he doesn’t want to kill anyone. Kyr decides to kill the Prince of the Wisdom to fulfill the mission, which she thinks is better than terrorizing humans.

Kyr sneaks out early in the morning and goes to the Wisdom node where the prince will arrive. Mags comes after Kyr, and they are attacked by a tiger. Avi created it by taking over the Wisdom technology; he was able to do so by hurting Yiso. Kyr goes into the Wisdom and encounters Yiso in the Halls of the Wise in a different timeline. They do a stick dance. The prince, named Leru, arrives and fights with Kyr and Mags. Mags kills Leru. Avi destroys most of the majo worlds with the Wisdom, and Kyr is unable to stop him. Mags kills himself. Kyr kills Avi and one of the prince’s guards.

Kyr goes into the Wisdom again, and it allows her to pick where she wants to go in time. She decides to go back to the day Earth was destroyed and save it. Kyr sees Jole there before she jumps the majo bomb into shadowspace. The Wisdom transports her into the future.

The second universe is set on Hymmer Station. Kyr is called Val, is 23, and works as a lieutenant for the Terran Expeditionary forces. Cleo is her roommate, and they are both assigned to Victrix. They celebrate with drinks, and then Kyr goes on a date with Lisa—this universe’s version of Lisabel. Kyr is told on comms that she is needed at work; she has to end the date early. Kyr and Cleo are instructed to go door to door looking for a terrorist. Kyr finds Mags, who is named Max, with Yiso. Yiso gives Kyr back her memories from the first universe.

Kyr, Mags, and Yiso try to stop Jole, who has taken control of the broken Wisdom with his Providence force in the physical Halls of the Wise. Avi helps him destroy the majority of the majo worlds again. The Wisdom transports Kyr to a third universe. It makes the decision of what to change this time.

In the third universe, Kyr is back on Gaea in the Doomsday scenario before assignments have gone out. The Wisdom destroys most of itself, which allows Gaea to destroy a Wisdom cruiser ship. After this victory, Jole declares that Gaea’s soldiers are going to liberate the humans on Chryosthemis. Kyr is assigned to assist Jole in Command as he makes the Victrix ready to fly again. While repairs are underway, Kyr, Avi, Yiso, Mags, and the Sparrows plan a rebellion. Yiso gives Cleo her memories back from the other universes to convince her to help. Yiso also gives Avi back his memories.

The teenage conspirators are assisted by two adults: Corporal Yingli Lin and Sergeant Harriman. They cover for the teenagers until Avi sets the plan in motion: They make it seem like Gaea is under attack and needs to use Victrix to evacuate. The Sparrows make sure that all the children are onboard. Jole captures Yiso, and Kyr goes back for him. Jole falls into the shadowspace engines of the dreadnought and dies. Yiso transports Kyr into the clifftop garden while the station is coming apart.

The Wisdom teleports Yiso and Kyr to Yiso’s ship, where a small fraction of its technology exists. As the ship flies to Chrysothemis, the Wisdom tells Kyr that it can’t help her with every apocalypse, and she says that she’s done with the end of the world.