Victories Greater Than Death

Victories Greater Than Death (Unstoppable, #1)

by Charlie Jane Anders
Setting: Space
Published on April 13, 2021
Pages: 284
Format: eBook Source: Library

THE UNIVERSE IS CALLING—and time is running out.
Tina has always known her destiny is outside the norm—after all, she is the human clone of the most brilliant alien commander in all the galaxies (even if the rest of the world is still deciding whether aliens exist). But she is tired of waiting for her life to begin.
And then it does—and maybe Tina should have been more prepared. At least she has a crew around her that she can trust—and her best friend at her side. Now, they just have to save the world.
From internationally bestselling author Charlie Jane Anders (All the Birds in the Sky) comes a thrilling adventure set against an intergalactic war—Anders’s long-awaited YA debut.

I picked this book as part of my Aspirational Sci Fi TBR because I hadn’t read a lot of sci fi this year. Specifically I picked some YA books as a warm up because at the time I wasn’t in a sci fi mindset.

Tina has always known that she was clone. A famous alien commander was mortally injured. Her crew cloned her and implanted her memories into her as a baby. They disguised her as human and gave her to a woman on Earth to raise to keep her out of harm’s way until she was mature enough to access her memories. It was just a matter of time until the beacon in her chest went off and called her ship. Now it has happened.

But other aliens are hunting her. What happens when the hope of a battered fleet turns out to be a teenage girl who may or may not be able to do what she was created for? Will she be able to live up to the expectations of an entire universe?

This book is a series of adventures on the way to finding a way to defeat the alien who killed Tina’s forbearer. Each adventure goes wrong of course. Tina is joined by several other teens from Earth who were deemed to be smart enough and skilled in different ways to be able to help the crew along with the alien crew who came to rescue her. I liked the fact that there was room for all types of personalities in the Earthling crew – even extreme introverts. Rachel is Tina’s best friend from Earth who just wants to be by herself drawing comics. The other people from Earth come from all over. They range from a wealthy Black Brit running from an abusive family to a trans street kid from Brazil to a wannabe pilot from India to an aspiring musician from China. Each has skills that come in useful in a pinch.

There is good LGBT representation which you expect from this author. Every character introduces themselves with pronouns. Several of the alien species have several genders and each has different configurations and numbers of life partners.

The book was fun but I don’t know that I will be rushing out to get the sequel even though it ended on a bit of a cliffhanger. It didn’t pull me in enough.