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buckthorn75's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
4.0
miloblue's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Wow, so goooood!!! Earth nerds fighting intergalactic evil and reckoning with the inworld versions of specisisism, imperialism, and conquest.
ghoulsrfools's review against another edition
adventurous
hopeful
inspiring
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Genocide, and Violence
beckys_books's review against another edition
4.0
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.
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.
howlintherain's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
xenawl's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
2.0
I had high hopes for this book but the characters are very underdeveloped and what could be a fascinating world clumsily drawn. There are too many characters and too many very silly names, and while there’s some good stuff negotiating the relationship between Elza as a trans woman and Tina becoming a purple space alien rather than an earth teenager there’s too much emphasis on the earth teenagers in general. The alien characters are so undeveloped that it’s almost impossible to care when they die. Even announcing pronouns feels clumsy, probably because I’ve seen it done so much better in other books (e.g. Everina Maxwell), and non-binary genders are virtually unexplored, just mentioned. Like, surely most of the time you would just say ‘pronouns she/her’, in an environment where it’s standard practice to announce? Also nobody on any planet has only one pronoun. A minor irritation. I tried so hard to suspend my disbelief but it kept coming back at me like an alien facehugger. Would have DNF about 1/3 of the way through if I hadn’t been going to discuss it with a friend.
toc's review against another edition
4.0
Oh, [a:Charlie Jane Anders|4918514|Charlie Jane Anders|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1532450668p2/4918514.jpg]. Can you do no wrong?
But first, to get into the mode of this book: My name is to'c and my pronoun is he.
Once again Charlie Jane gives us a most excellent source of wild science fiction entertainment. And so uplifting to boot. OK, so I'm not young and the jury is still out on whether I'm an adult. But I most thoroughly enjoyed this YA novel. And how could one not? This is not only a thrilling space adventure, in pure Charlie Jane style, but also a casual affirmation of young adulthood. Being a natural born nerd I missed out on most high school drama. I just wasn't part of the milieu, ya know? But these kids def are and they def feel it. Which is a Good Thing for the Young Adult readers out there. I expect that any young reader struggling with What It's All About will surely find themselves in this book and get a not necessarily gentle prod that It's All OK, You Matter. Even the Tina's among them…
But first, to get into the mode of this book: My name is to'c and my pronoun is he.
Once again Charlie Jane gives us a most excellent source of wild science fiction entertainment. And so uplifting to boot. OK, so I'm not young and the jury is still out on whether I'm an adult. But I most thoroughly enjoyed this YA novel. And how could one not? This is not only a thrilling space adventure, in pure Charlie Jane style, but also a casual affirmation of young adulthood. Being a natural born nerd I missed out on most high school drama. I just wasn't part of the milieu, ya know? But these kids def are and they def feel it. Which is a Good Thing for the Young Adult readers out there. I expect that any young reader struggling with What It's All About will surely find themselves in this book and get a not necessarily gentle prod that It's All OK, You Matter. Even the Tina's among them…
vkutasz's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
dejahentendu's review against another edition
Just too young for me. I've officially hit "old."
murve's review against another edition
Loved the cover but the writing style was not for me.