by Charlie Jane Anders

“Victories Greater Than Death” by Charlie Jane Anders is a glorious adventure of a book. It’s like a cross between Star Wars and probably Star Trek, however I have not seen Star Trek so I don’t know for sure. Or Star Wars and the Guardians of the Galaxy. Definitely Star Wars and something else. The main character, Tina, is a Makvarian that was disguised as a human at birth and was sent to live on Earth. When she was born, a copy of warrior Captain Thaoh Argentian consciousness was put inside her. When Tina reaches a certain age, a beacon will light up inside her, alerting fellow members of the Royal Fleet of her location. Tina gets picked up by an alien spaceship called the Indomitable, which also accidentally picks up her best friend Rachel. At this point Tina will be able to go through a treatment to restore Captain Argentian’s memories and essentially bring her back to life. However, the technology was still pretty experimental when Captain Argentian’s memories were collected and transferred, so things didn’t work out exactly how Captain Othaar planned. This leaves Tina, Rachel, and a plethora of different aliens to fight a battle to save the galaxy. This book was really fun to read! I love all the different types of aliens and how much detail Anders gives to try to explain them. The huge diversity of the types is really creative and impressive. I also like the different names for different species of aliens, like the Grattna and the Kraelyors. Also the crazy names of the different “people ” on the Indomitable like Uiuiuiui, Lyzix, and Yatto the Monntha. It was a little difficult to keep all the different names and types of aliens straight though, just because the names are so weird and there are so many of them. Another thing that I enjoyed about this book was that everyone introduced themselves with their pronouns. I thought that was super cool and definitely something we should try to normalize more. Also all the different little aspects of the cultures of the different aliens. Like how the Grattna always have to have three sides to any situation, or that the Oonians can only have a baby after one of them die so that there are only 1,000 of them at a time. I also thought it was cool that the Makvarians have three genders and that a general Makvarian relationship involves all three of them. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes adventure, and sci-fi. It’s an epic adventure full of action and fun.