This Is How You Lose the Time War
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4.4 • 726 Ratings
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
* HUGO AWARD WINNER: BEST NOVELLA * NEBULA AND LOCUS AWARDS WINNER: BEST NOVELLA *
“[An] exquisitely crafted tale...Part epistolary romance, part mind-blowing science fiction adventure, this dazzling story unfolds bit by bit, revealing layers of meaning as it plays with cause and effect, wildly imaginative technologies, and increasingly intricate wordplay...This short novel warrants multiple readings to fully unlock its complexities.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
From award-winning authors Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone comes an enthralling, romantic novel spanning time and space about two time-traveling rivals who fall in love and must change the past to ensure their future.
Among the ashes of a dying world, an agent of the Commandment finds a letter. It reads: Burn before reading.
Thus begins an unlikely correspondence between two rival agents hellbent on securing the best possible future for their warring factions. Now, what began as a taunt, a battlefield boast, becomes something more. Something epic. Something romantic. Something that could change the past and the future.
Except the discovery of their bond would mean the death of each of them. There’s still a war going on, after all. And someone has to win. That’s how war works, right?
Cowritten by two beloved and award-winning sci-fi writers, This Is How You Lose the Time War is an epic love story spanning time and space.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
If you adore enemies-to-lovers romances, this epistolary novel will be your cup of tea. Time-traveling spy Red’s job is to ensure that history will lead to her extremely technological timeline, but every key mission she attempts in the past is foiled by Blue, the enemy agent who’s shoring up her side’s more organic timeline. Soon, the pair starts leaving each other bantering, flirty notes across time and space, creating romantic and ethical dilemmas. Where do their true loyalties lie? And what possible future would allow these star-crossed lovers to be together? Co-authors Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone each wrote one side of the fictional duo’s lyrical, romantic, and mind-bending correspondence. This enchanting novella is for anyone who believes that love must prevail, regardless of the obstacles.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this exquisitely crafted tale, two special agents from competing factions forge an unexpected relationship through messages left behind as they wage a secret war across space and time. Red, who represents a society dominated by technology and artificial intelligences, and Blue, the product of a biological mass consciousness, must never can never meet, even as they work to secure the future for their masters. Instead, they communicate in hundreds of different ways, their words hidden beneath layers of subtlety and deception, in direct defiance of every rule they've ever followed. As taunts and challenges gradually give way to endearments and secrets, the two women must determine their true roles in the unending time war. Part epistolary romance, part mind-blowing science fiction adventure, this dazzling story unfolds bit by bit, revealing layers of meaning as it plays with cause and effect, wildly imaginative technologies, and increasingly intricate wordplay. El-Mohtar (The Honey Month) and Gladstone (the Craft Sequence) pack their narrative full of fanciful ideas and poignant moments, weaving a tapestry stretching across the millennia and through multiple realities that's anchored with raw emotion and a genuine sense of wonder. This short novel warrants multiple readings to fully unlock its complexities.
Customer Reviews
Resilience, beauty, and a sapphic love story all rolled up into one.
Wow. I have just finished reading Time War and I'm really impressed with the way that this book can simply grip the reader's heart with such ferocious precision and emotion.
While Time War is honestly not my favorite book to sit down and read, as a lot of the story is obfuscated by strange stylistic choices and confusing poetry, it was a wildly enjoyable story which lead me to keep wanting to read it despite the difficulty.
Blue and Red are two which I deeply enjoyed the company of — their letters are works of pure genius, as the two authors genuinely wrote these letters to one another and modeled the novel after their own emotional responses to each letter. This is the strongest thing Time War has going for it: you're ALWAYS looking to read the next letter between Blue and Red. They're enjoyable, full of personality, and so well written.
If you need a book which will captivate you and send you on an emotional rollercoaster, This Is How You Lose The Time War is your next favorite read. My heart rate was genuinely high during parts of this book. I felt, understood and internalized the emotions of Blue and Red as if I was reading their exchanges from their perspective.
I took a star off though, as the writing is genuinely hard to read and complicates the story wildly. I felt like I had to seriously sit down and think about the meanings of a lot of the terminology in this book, as it's never quite explained how Blue and Red are jumping between timelines and who/what the Agency/Garden is, or why they're warring.
Not for me, but an interesting read.
Not for me, but I can empathize with those that love it. More feeling and poetry rather than plot and prose.
Don’t give up halfway through!
This book definitely started out pretty confusing for me, but I kept reading. Not like I didn’t enjoy it until the end, there were just some mysteries that hadn’t been revealed yet. The prose itself is gorgeously written, and the love that blooms from writing letters to each other is so beautiful. The characters are strong and frightening at times in such a cool way too. The reveal towards the end makes everything click together and it makes me want to reread the whole book now that I have this new understanding.