This Is How You Lose the Time War
by Amal El-MohtarCategory
About this book
* 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.
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What readers are saying
Michelle HMind-bendingly brilliant and cell-sizzlingly romantic.
"Mind-bendingly brilliant and cell-sizzlingly romantic. It's the kind of romance strong enough to break not just this world, but all of them. If you're reading along in this one and you think, "This is too confusing, and I don't get it, I'm going to put it down." Just...don't. I'll tell you a small secret: you don't have to understand the worldbuilding for this story to take hold in you. You don't have to understand what the sides are fighting for, or even what shapes the bodies are that either of the characters wear. All you have to understand is the heart of what matters. The answer that both characters are discovering, right along with you, as the story unfolds. Once they decide what's actually important, they'll live for it, die for it, betray for it, crack the world and let it burn to ashes at their feet rather than let it go. And so will you. ["
April 5, 2026 Verified Purchase
themarsmanLetters Through Time
"Red works for the Agency. Blue works for Garden. Agency and Garden are at war with each other. Using agents like Red and Blue, each faction is trying to shape the history of the multiverse to its favor; murdering an important figure here, encouraging the birth of another there, ensuring that this chance meeting occurs...or not; Agency and Garden use Red and Blue (respectively) as scalpel, chisel, sledgehammer to shape the intertwining threads of a multitude of histories. Using letters to communicate with each other, Red and Blue spend centuries? millennia? learning about their counterpart. To survive the interminable intervening years from crafting the letter to the recipient reading, each missive is constructed in unique ways, whether it be in the subtle deviations of tree rings or in the pre-planned flight path of a bee. And so, through time, and worlds and infinite variation, Red and Blue do the jobs for which they are so uniquely prepared...and their growing communications morph from idle banter to each learning what it means to be a part of something that the other cannot ever truly know. This Is How You Lose the Time War is an interesting book. The letters were a creative way of building a story and as Red and Blue communicate through their letters, the reader learns about their lives, their jobs, their cultures, even their hopes and desires. And while the story was uniquely drawn, it wasn't without flaws. It would have been nice if the writers had spent more time clearly demarcating the personality differences between Red and Blue, at times, it felt as if each blurred into the same but from opposite sides of the far-future war. Additionally, it would have been nice if the authors had provided more background as to Agency and Garden's motives behind the war, what began the war and why continue a never-ending fight? Flaws aside, this book is lyrical in its prose, poetic and timeless with it's theme of needing to be connected to someone, to not be alone; definitely recommended to anyone interested in a quick and creatively drawn story. ["
May 31, 2021 Verified Purchase