This Is How You Lose the Time War

”Five years back, none of these warriors had seen such a forest. In their home stand sacred groves were called zuun mod, which means "one hundred trees," because one hundred trees were all the trees they thought might be gathered in one place.” Absolutely stunning. The format of the novel is pseudo-epistolary with the letters preceded by establishing vignettes. The vignettes are nebulous and lyrical and whisper the ideas of events in subtext and allusion and, in taking this approach, are -- all of them -- able to suggest entire histories and cultures and the aspirations of their eras with shocking brevity and punch. Even were this not ultimately a subform of romance, its poetry is quintessentially romantic; it's agile and wispy and aching whether it's painting an owl's prowess or a sick child or a spine being ripped from a body. I understand why this will not "be for" every reader and why some people will (and have written that they do) dislike or hate it or think it's terrible or pretentious or confusing, but I am exactly the target audience for this, and I've never read or experienced anything quite as potent as it. I am in love with this book.

𝒜𝓁𝓁 𝓉𝒽ℴ𝓊ℊ𝒽𝓉𝓈 𝒶𝓃𝒹 𝓇ℯ𝓋𝒾ℯ𝓌𝓈 𝒶𝓇ℯ 𝓈ℴ𝓁ℯ𝓁𝓎 𝓂𝓎 ℴ𝓌𝓃. 𝟒.𝟓 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐬 (4.𝟓 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐬 for audiobook with narration by Cynthia Farrell and Emily Woo Zeller) 𝐑𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰: 𝐀𝐮𝐝𝐢𝐨: The back and forth format of This is How You Lose the Time War with Cynthia Farrell and Emily Woo Zeller as narrators was engaging and gave the feeling of love letters passing between the two time agents. Cynthia and Emily were fantastic in their personas and I loved the differences between them. Flirty Red teases and lovingly taunts the stoic Blue, pulling her out of her shell. Feeling and hearing these two characters embodied so well was amazing. 𝐒𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲: While there was a lack of depth in the book that I felt prevented it from reaching 5 stars, I absolutely loved This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone. Such a short book at less than 200 pages, it’s incredible that you are swept up in the drama and love of two opposing time agents so quickly. The back and forth letters that bridge their relationship are what love and friendship should be about. The prose are quick but beautiful. Not long flowing verbiage, but staccato punctuations that stab into your heart and linger there. “This feels like being cut off, again, in the strangest way - feels like teetering on the brink of something that will unmake me.” “Red, I love you. Red, I will send you letters from everywhere telling you so, letters of only one word, letters that will brush your cheek and grip your hair, letters that will bite you, letters that will mark you.” “I want to meet you in every place I have loved.” Beyond the love story that wraps around me so gorgeously, there is the time travel and how they escape both their captures and their cages which I love. Being a HUGE timey whimey fan, I adored the subplot for how they battled each other and how they escaped together. Going back to the beginning and seeing the pattern hidden there all along. Chief’s kiss! 𝐖𝐡𝐨 𝐰𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬: ~ You love a beautiful, sharp romance of words more than actions. ~ You’re looking for something that isn’t defined by a single genre. Sci-Fi. Romance. Action. ~ Looking at the end of a mystery, when you find out how it was done, is something you love but you want to add some enemies-to-lovers. 𝐖𝐡𝐨 𝐰𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝𝐧’𝐭 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬: ~ You want kisses, spice, and everything nice all wrapped up with a bow. ~ You’re looking for a longing love story with action, adventure, romance, and two people that are happily together in secret. ~ You’re searching for a strong Sci-Fi book with time travel (though we do get a little Timey Whimey).

This book is absolutely beautifully written, for starters. It’s also often indescribably weird… but not in a bad way. Not at all. This book basically follows two agents from rival sides in a war across time as they communicate with each other, becoming closer with each letter. Most of the letters are very uniquely presented, whether in tea leaves, or lava from an erupting volcano about to engulf Atlantis, and so on and so forth. They are in different periods of time, or places on Earth, some of which only happened in some times, and some of which did actually occur in our own timeline, and Red, an agent of The Agency, and Blue, an agent of Garden, always just miss each other, or are observed from afar by the other. Red and Blue are both strange and interesting people. They are human, or, at least humanoid (most of the time. At least one of them is a shapeshifter, you see). Both female, and both either genetically modified and grown, decanted, and heavily modified with cybernetic implants. So, it is obviously super unique, and it was, in fact, unlike anything I’ve ever read in my life. Seeing these two women get closer and closer, and their letters get more and more intimate as the book goes on was really, really enthralling. The letters were absolutely stunningly written (but then, so were the parts between them), and I was clamoring for the next one and the next one as the book went on. There were times that I would have literally no idea what was going on, but, and this is going to sound odd, but stay with me here… it was all part of the experience. Example: “What is the value of pi to sixty-two decimals?” “‘The sedge is withered from the lake, / And no birds sing.'” A fistful of snow skitters across Siri’s face. “If train A leaves Toronto at six p.m. travelling east at one hundred kilometers an hour, and train B leaves Ottawa at seven p.m. travelling west at one hundred twenty kilometers per hour, when will they cross?” “‘Lo! the spell now works around thee, / And the clankless chain hath bound thee; / O’er thy heart and brain together / Hath the word been pass’d—now wither!'” This is only part of the scene, but what is basically happening here, is that Blue is responding to mathematical problems by quoting famous poems (Keats and Lord Byron in this case). But I have no idea why! There is no explanation to why poetry is the solution to math problems in these riddles, only that they are, and that’s just how it is. And at first, I will admit that I stumbled on it, haaard. “What the fffuu-” said I, at first. But I shrugged it off as a weird book being weird and continued on reading. When I finished, and started writing this review, I looked up that quote on my kindle again and was like ‘Heh… awesome.” like it wasn’t the most random event ever. It was just… part of the whole. So this book isn’t going to be for everyone, but it was certainly for me, in the end, even if I had to take a bit of time in the beginning to really get my bearings on what exactly was happening. I really enjoyed this book, but like I have no idea why poetry solves math, I have no idea what it was about it (other than the beautiful writing, good gods) that captured me and wouldn’t let me go. But that’s what happened. Thanks to the authors, as well as Saga Press via NetGalley for the review copy.

I’ll post a full review to Fable, but I didn’t love or hate this book. It was more of an experience to read than anything. I’m glad I finished it.

Left me wanting more and with so many questions about the imagined universe. But beautiful and poetic and fulfilling in a very unique way.

I was curious to read several reviews by readers who more or less said that this book was lost on them, and having read it now, I have a sense of why they might say that. However, it's a bit of understanding what you're getting into here. First, this is a co-written text, so you're getting two author's styles and approaches to prose, which can throw one a bit if you're looking for a consistent feel to the read. Second, this is written in an impressionistic style, in which the tricks of the trade of the poet are deployed as much as those of a novelist. To understand what I mean, I encourage you to think of Monet's latter paintings--the famous ones, where it's beautiful, blurry, clearly referring to a scene of flowers on a pond and whatnot, but not caught up in clarity and precision. It's a sense of the bridge on his pond down the hill from his garden at Giverny, but not a snapshot of it. Similarly, This is How You Lose the Time War is an impressionistic approach to a two-character, first-person novel about time traveling historical manipulators (if you're a sci-fi reader, this will be a familiar plot premise to you, such as in Asimov's End of Eternity, etc.). You get the edges of what's going on, but not a clear picture, which is achieved through two writerly methods. First, they don't actually give you a set-up of what's going on in their universe or how things work here. What's the war? Who are these two characters? What sides are they on? What's the work they do as time or history or whatever manipulators? Nope, the authors aren't going to tell you, neither on the front end nor by the end of the book. Second, the book is littered (and not lightly littered; we're talking municipal garbage dump-littered) with references. Sometimes to things in our world, such as historical events and figures familiar to you if you are a student of history (Genghis Khan, Victorian England, I believe, Tolkien, etc.), and sometimes to things native to the fantastical world the authors have envisioned as the setting for this story. But the references are never explained, and often it's unclear why they're there. Perhaps there's some allegorical intent on the part of the author at the moment, or perhaps it's just whimsy, but either way, they're so plentiful, unexplained, and unclearly connected as to feel like you've been served an enormous platter of red herring. So, you can be put off by it, or you can just embrace it entirely, let yourself be subsumed by it, and keep reading. I recommend going with the flow. It's like reading complicated poetry where the poet never actually reveals to you fully, or even partially, what the hell they're talking about but the language is so rich you can't put it down anyway, and you get what you get out of it, which is something, maybe something very grand, so it's worth it. I'm thinking T.S. Eliot, for example. Certainly you can spend your career trying to decode or translate and then decode and get to the bottom of it, and if that's your scholarly area, have at it. But for the rest, it's read, take what we can, and move forward in the universe. This is How You Lose the Time War reads, and again, you can say, "I'm lost," and wish they were going to ground you in all the details and explain their references and the point of their references, or you can just read and enjoy. Can you, you might ask, actually read and enjoy, if you don't get all of their references? Absolutely, because at the heart of this is a basic romance of the star-crossed lovers variety (they do tell you this about 2/3 of the way through, where they talk about Romeo and Juliet, just in case you hadn't picked up on the plot yet). And then it becomes a bit of a simple will they or won't they. I won't spoil the end, and as you might imagine, it may not give you the clear conclusion you're looking for (they wrap up everything in a rushed, lightning-speed final scene anyway, with some open-endedness on tap, in case the sequel question comes up from the publisher/audience/etc.). I'll conclude with a couple of actual thoughts, rather than explanations. First, would I recommend this? Yes. It's different and, once you get their angle, enjoyable. I found the increasing attraction of the two characters to each other and the challenge of that attraction, given the competing interests of their employers (?) compelling enough to buy into the romance novel aspect of it. Could it use a little bit of work? Sure. The characters don't develop enough of a distinct feel to make them separately memorable. What I mean is, I can't tell you what makes Blue Blue and Red Red. I know Blue and Red are in alternating chapters, but I literally can't tell you which one was which. The authors work in the last quarter of the book to try to help clarify this, somewhat by finally explaining a little bit of the mechanisms in the world inhabited by them, but it's too little too late. And the sheer number of elusive descriptors and unexplained references for a long, long time in the novel read more like an early world-building writer who has so much detail in their heads that they insist on sharing that it becomes gratuitous and distracting, largely because it just doesn't do anything to forward the story--or the read itself, story be damned--along. It's their authorial choice, and I respect that, and they have created an overall memorable work, which is a huge accomplishment. And they have the beginnings of what could also be a meaningful work. They spoke in the Acknowledgments section about being pressed for time, and god knows what's left of the publishing industry (heavy emphasis on the word industry) is doing what it can to stay open, imposing deadlines when perhaps literature would benefit from time to breath in its development, but that's how the first half of this reads--something an author brought to a creative writing workshop in draft form that needed a bit more time in the oven to cook before printing. Whatever. What do I know? Would I recommend it? Yep. Would I buy a copy and give it to a friend? Yep. Would I read it again? I could see that happening sometime. Has it moved me? Partially. Could a revision change my life? It has the potential to do that. If a sequel's in the works, I'd do anything possible to get the big team who produced this to take the time to let it find its full power as a narrative object.

There are enough layers to this book that I kind of just want say: you should read it. So: If you would enjoy an artistically told story, you should read it. If you’re not normally a speculative reader (like you’re thinking, wait time travel? war?) - it’s essentially a romance. Not sure about that? Ok, beyond romance and fantasy and sci-fi and spy book and thriller, it’s also literary. And historical. And wit and humor. (Yay for ignoring genres, this is one of my favorite things!) It’s artfully complex. It’s strikingly simple. It’s just…wonderful. This Is How You Lose The Time War is a tale told by two characters (agents for two societies who are at war) through a mix of written letters and poignant, deeply poetic scenes where the characters await their next correspondence. It’s intriguing, romantic, and epic. It's immersive and sensory. The prose is lovely and the imagery so stunning. And it’s better than I’m describing it! Just go read it. There are so many elements I loved and so I don’t want to spoil them. I guess I’ll just say that the way the concept of traveling time strands (in time-travel, time can almost feel irrelevant) was juxtaposed with the sweeping time scale of the scenes (the time was not irrelevant; it drew out in breathtaking scope) was brilliant and evocative. So many other elements were so expertly done, but I’d rather you just go experience it. My only point of less excitement (which is also my content warning) is that there are a few small elements of torture that I personally (me, the non-violence writer) would have preferred the story (and think it could have worked fine) without. I’m real sensitive on that stuff; I’m sure by most standards it’s not even descriptive and most readers would prefer it as-written. Thanks to the authors for the really wonderful experience (one that will not leave me soon) of these characters and this story. It’s just exceptional.

I don’t know that I have sufficient words to explain the depth confusion, desperation, love, emotion, that you feel or reading this book. The format was confusing at first, but once you get used to it, and you consume each piece, and the seeds that are planted begin to bloom in your mind, and all of these threads start to make sense. At the same time with every new entry, you still feel confusion, you still feel a depth of emotion you can’t quite grasp, and you become attached to characters that for the most part, you can’t quite fathom. Red and Blue are agents on opposite sides of a post human time war. You follow them through their time traveling missions in which their actions change and redirect outcomes, they seem to both witness experience and celebrate each action in a detached dismissal and also reverence. They both notice each other’s fingerprints, actions, and methods in each mission, actively thwarting each other and each sides plans in this grand scheme that feels both personal and excessively depersonalized. they gain appreciation for each other, and so they start to reach out and converse and through these words and conversations they fall both for each other, and for their images of each other. It’s interesting to watch how they fall in love with parts of them selves that they’ve never before connected to, or had forgotten, and how they fall in love with this adversary who also feels like a complement. I started to read this book at my normal pace until I started realizing that while I was reading, I was incapable of absorbing each piece, and it’s totality. So I slowed myself down, and I tried to absorb the words on the page, the actions of the characters, the minutiae in the references, and the details that both the authors created, and the images I invoked from the words. This novel was definitely overwhelming, it was a lot to process. There were so many layers and details to absorb that I found myself going back and rereading to fully comprehend as much as I could. I feel like I haven’t fully grapsed the entire text and while that could be confusing and frustrating for some, I find that it may just be a promise of continued enjoyment. I highly recommend this novel, for anyone that wants to be challenged in their reading, who wants to explore the depths of a world, not even fully realized, and find promise both real and imagined between two people in the tapestry of a larger setting. I am both exhausted and exhilarated by this story, and I look forward to diving into it again soon.

Op tijd geleverd en in goede staat, dankjewel.

Reading this book, sometimes I didn't know what was happening, sometimes I laughed and smiled, but I also sobbed a lot. This book is so beautiful, I have no words. I'll read it again for sure!

Like many people, I first heard about this book when legitimate and professional news readers had to repeatedly say the username "Bigolas Dickolas Wolfwood" on TV and over radio. I remember finding the whole thing utterly hilarious back then, and mentally added the book to my 'to read' list. It was actually much later that a close friend mentioned the book again as something she thought I would like that I actually went out and bought a copy to read. I wish I hadn't waited so long honestly, because I think this might now be one of my absolute favourite books. The story is a scifi, written in the epistolary style between two agents of rival factions in a time war. It starts with them taunting one another, then the language begins to soften, and it's done so artfully that sometimes you don't notice and have to go back a letter and read it again to see the subtle changes in language. It's so poetically written as well, truly lyrical by the end, and the idea and themes are so clever and well executed throughout, I feel like I'm going to re-read this book hundreds of times and still fall in love with it all over again. I've got to admit, usually when I write book reviews I tend not to worry too much about spoilers, simply because I tend to read books that have been out for a few years already. This time I'm being deliberately vague though, because I really think this book is better if you go into it with no expectations. It takes so many twists and turns in the narrative and the ending honestly broke me - I genuinely sobbed all through the last forty pages, I'm not kidding. It's a true enemies to lovers sapphic romance, written in the most dazzling way, with so much poignant yearning dripping from the pages that it destroyed me and healed me over and over again as I read it. It's not a big book, by the way. I think it took me four or so hours to read? I would recommend this book to anyone really, but especially people who enjoy clever narration and beautiful wordplay. I'm excited to read it again!

This book was perfect and beautifully written. It's one of the most romantic books I've ever read, it had fun literary references that satisfied my english lit brain, and the plot and world building was gripping and amazingly done. This is a short book but there is so much packed into it, it felt like it was much longer. Despite this, my only complaint is that I want more, sooo much more.