Victories Greater Than Death by Charlie Jane Anders is about a young woman named Tina who always knew she was meant for bigger things. She just happens to be the clone of the most brilliant alien commander in the whole universe. She’s tired of waiting to be swept up by the alien fleet, but when her wish comes true she may just find she’s in over her head. But with her best friend by her side as well as a group of brilliant earthlings, she may find a way to save the day.

I got this as an advanced reading copy thanks to Net Galley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review. So let me be perfectly honest and say that this was a good book just begging to be great.

There was quite a bit I liked about Victories Greater Than Death so let me start with that before I get critical. I liked the main story. The idea behind a larger alien fleet (akin to Starfleet) in a battle against a group whose main goal is the genocide of anyone not like them is a very engaging plot. The huge universe Charlie Jane Anders built had more potential than almost anything I’ve ever read before.

The main issue with this book was that it felt cluttered. It felt like Anders was trying to do too much. It felt like this should have been a 500+ page book but it had to be cut down to under 300 pages. Because of this, the two main parts of the story felt disjointed. We had the character driven elements, how the earthlings got along and became friends, and we had the bigger story of good vs. evil. But the main focus of the story was so heavy on the character elements that the battle against The Compassion (the bad guys) felt like it was tacked on as an afterthought. This should have been a book like The Long Way To A Small Angry Planet which was more character driven and you knew it was a character driven story going in. 

Also, it was weird that the bad guys kept on showing up but the good guys couldn't get back up to save their lives. In fact, the good side seemed like a group of inept idiots. The Compassion could show up any place at any time but the heroes couldn't find anyone from their group to help? Even if there was a line of exposition that explains this, it's still bad. You can't expect me to imagine a Star Fleet type group that can't muster even one ship to help.

Let's make this positive! So more good stuff. The aliens had a world where saying your pronouns when you introduce yourself to someone is commonplace.  I liked that as it helped normalize the giving of pronouns AND it makes perfect sense because there are so many alien species that were this real, it’d be impossible to memorize every alien species genders. I believe anything that normalizes that in our modern culture is a positive. If it matters to you, you should give your pronouns to those you meet and it should be a normal thing. 

Back to what needed work. Parts of the book were too “infodumpy.” There are so many different alien species and characters that it became hard to remember anything without going back to the beginning of the book to remember it all. Even the earthlings were hard to follow and there were only a handful of them. There was a list of things at the end of the book but it killed the pace of the book having to go back and check stuff. I've read tome sized epic fantasy books that were less confusing. 

Also, we have this group battling against bad guys who want to commit genocide on a level never seen before. But Tina starts having second thoughts about killing. What a great idea! You're fighting against actual evil, a group who would kill billions if they got the chance, and you decide you no longer want to kill. It's stupid and unreasonable. 

Also, there were times when the earthlings were all a bit extra. Rachel could have been a great example of mental health issues but her mental problems were never properly explored so she just came across as the weird kid. Rachel disappears for chapters at a time because of her mental health issues and there's a golden opportunity to talk about them, but nope, she's just the weirdo. It could have been a great excuse to talk about anxiety or depression or autism or anything that could cause her to act the way she does. Unfortunately Rachel comes across as a trope instead of a lesson.

Normally when I have this much negative to say about a book, it would lead to either a critically low score or a DNF. But something kept me coming back to find out how everything ends and that’s what kept my score from dipping lower. I kept picking it up over and over again even though I was frustrated.

This book needs better editing. It needed to be passed by a writing group first. It needed some help because there’s a great story in here somewhere, but one too many issues kept this story from shinning. 

This book could have been great. But it's just mediocre at best.

Victories Greater Than Death gets a 5.5 out of 11

I'd like to thank Net Galley for the opportunity to read and ARC of this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This book comes out on April 13th, 2021.

Eight years ago an earthquake—the Big One—hit along the west coast of the United States. Life as we know it changed forever. But for Vietnamese-American Virginia Crane, life changed shortly after the earthquake, when her mother left and never came back. She has since gotten used to a life without her mother, helping her father take care of her two younger brothers, Wes and Harry. But when a mysterious package arrives for her eighteenth birthday, her life is shaken up yet again. For the first time, Ginny wants something more than to survive. And it might be a selfish desire, but she's determined to find out what happened to her mother—even if it means leaving her family behind.

I received this as an advanced reading copy from Net Galley and the publisher for an honest review. I saved posting this until Odessa actually came out. The fact that it was free did not affect my review.

So this is a post-apocalyptic drama/adventure with hints of Sci-Fi elements that follows a group of kids as they travel. You have Ginny, a naïve girl who's a terrible caregiver, you have the middle child Wes who somehow has more common sense than his older sister, and finally you have Harry who's sole job is to be a moron and get in trouble. 

If you sensed a hint of bitterness with that last line, you're not wrong. I found a lot of the character's actions to be unbelievable. Harry was born around the time of the earthquake (that's not a spoiler) so we can assume they've lived in this new post apocalyptic world for a few years now. I refuse to believe that Ginny and Wes (and most of the good adults too) can have lived in this world since the beginning and still be so stupid. Ginny holds on so tight to her old pre-earthquake moral compass that if it were coal, she'd get a diamond. Her annoying innocence gets them into trouble and even has repercussions for the end of volume one.. 

Also, for a post-apocalyptic wasteland, the kids seem to stumble across every nice adult that exists and they just always happen to find what they need. I never once feared for their lives. Even when they were in danger I never ever thought that anything could ever happen to them because their plot armor was so thick that it could withstand a nuclear blast.

The only two characters worth a damn in this were Four Dollar (a guy they stumble upon in a time of need) and Wes because he's not a gigantic moron. Four Dollar was actually an interesting character and I would rather read about him. Wes stood out because he was the smartest both in terms of "street smarts" and emotional intelligence. I believe Ginny was supposed to serve as some sort of moral compass, but she just came across as an idiot.

There was a very very small love story which had to potential to be really cute, but it was greatly ignored in volume one. 

Odessa has promise but volume one was a gargantuan let down.

Odessa gets a 4 out of 11

 This movie was sitting, waiting to go for quite a while. We know that COVID pushed it back and that for a while the hype behind it claimed that it was going to single handedly save cinema. Theaters were hurting due to lockdown and this was the film that was going to bring everyone back. But it didn't go that way. America didn't get the pandemic under control and movie after movie got pushed back to 2021 and beyond. Some were released straight to VOD. But Tenet came out anyway. Here's my review.

Quick note. If audio is more your thing, I talked about this film as well as my experience going back to theaters on my podcast Future Flicks with Billiam which can be found anywhere you listen to podcasts. Look for Return to Theaters and Tenet Review - Ep 183

Armed with only one word, Tenet, and fighting for the survival of the entire world, a Protagonist journeys through a twilight world of international espionage on a mission that will unfold in something beyond real time. (Premise from IMDB).

This stars John David Washington (BlacKkKlansman), Robert Pattinson (The Twilight Saga), Elizabeth Debicki (Everest), Kenneth Branagh (Murder on the Orient Express), Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Godzilla), Himesh Patel (Yesterday), Michael Caine (The Dark Knight), and Indian actress Dimple Kapadia. It was written and directed by Christopher Nolan who did Inception and The Dark Knight trilogy.

Let's be honest, You know if you like Christopher Nolan's work already. If you like movies at all you've seen something he's done and by now you should know your feelings on his work. The question now is, how confusing is it?

Before the movie came out there were quite a few stories of the actors having no idea what the film was even about or how things worked within it, but that could have just been Nolan's strategy from preventing leaks. Michael Caine was only given his scene to work with and given nothing else of the plot. John David Washington was only allowed to read the script in Nolan's locked office. So the fact that no one on the cast really had a clue, doesn't surprise me.

I do have to be honest though, this film took a while for me to get into for one good reason. This begins faster than a coked up greyhound race and the protagonist (he's never given a name) just kind of goes along with it and knows what to do. He's told about the word tenet, he's introduced to a scientist that tells him how the weird time stuff works, he's told what he has to do, and he's just sent on his way without anything else. It's a jarring beginning to a film that could have used a little more to start with. The film was already two and half hours, would ten more minutes of exposition really been that bad?

But that aside, I eventually go it. I understood what was going on in the movie and I felt confident watching the film that I wasn't missing anything hugely important. I have no doubt that a rewatch will reveal even more to me, but one time through didn't leave me with any unanswerable plot related questions. 

The acting was phenomenal. John David Washington is the new hotness and he's already ready to explode. I wouldn't be surprised if he surpasses his dad in pure acting talent. His dad is Denzel Washington, if you didn't know. Robert Pattinson is further escaping his Twilight/Harry Potter past and showing us he's much more than a teen heartthrob, and everyone else involved was, at the very least, good. There were no wooden or lackluster performances in this movie. 

The cinematography was astounding with no wasted shots. Not once did I stop to wonder why we saw a certain scene or why anything was needed. Christopher Nolan knew what he wanted and it translated flawlessly to the screen. Nolan is no stranger to CG or other computer aided movie telling tools, but what sets him apart is his use of conventional means. Remember the scene in Inception when Joseph Gordon Levitt was walking up the walls? Do you also remember that was real and they built a rotating set for it? That's the kind of stuff that sets Nolan apart from other blockbuster directors. For certain scenes the actors had to learn how to speak backwards, they had to learn how to fight backwards, a lot of this was done conventionally and that will only add to the film's longevity. 

 Tenet was fantastic. I loved it. I loved it even more once I got passed the slightly confusing beginning. Do I love it more than Inception or The Dark Knight trilogy? Maybe not. But this was a fantastic film that was well worth a watch. Yes, you should watch this. Yes, you should own this, and yes, you should watch this more than once.

Tenet gets a 10 out of 11