This Is How You Lose the Time War

Name: This Is How You Lose the Time War
Price: 9.39 USD
Availability: InStock
Rating: 4.3 (19600 reviews)
Author: Amal El-Mohtar

by Amal El-Mohtar

4.3

Published Mar 17, 2020

About this book

Red and Blue are elite agents serving opposing sides in an endless, reality-altering war that spans the threads of time. Red is a creature of the Commandment, a rigid, technological empire; Blue is an operative of the Garden, a sprawling, organic collective. They are bitter rivals, constantly undoing each other’s work across history’s most pivotal moments, from the rise of civilizations to the cooling of dying stars.

The conflict shifts when Red finds a letter left behind by Blue at a battlefield. What begins as a taunt—a way to gloat over a tactical victory—evolves into a clandestine, dangerous correspondence. As they trade messages through time, hidden within the cracks of their respective missions, their professional rivalry softens into an intense, intellectual intimacy.

They are two lonely souls finding a mirror in their greatest enemy. However, their growing bond is a death sentence. To be discovered by their superiors is to invite erasure.

In a universe where history is a weapon, Red and Blue must decide if their love is worth the cost of betraying their factions and potentially unraveling the very fabric of time. This is a story of obsession, transformation, and the defiance of destiny.

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What readers are saying

Michelle H

Mind-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

themarsman

Letters 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

Trevor

Everyone Should Read This

"Words cannot explain how much I love this book. It reads like poetry with some of the best line level writing I've ever read. A beautiful love story transcending time and space. I can't count how many times I've re-read it. It's not really a book you read for the plot, in my opinion. Reading this book is experiencing how vast love can be, if you let it. ["

April 30, 2026 Verified Purchase

darswords

Not What I Hoped

"Time travel is interesting. Yeah, but here we have one more reason for war. The espionage is too much. I can't handle more reasons to feel paranoid. I read to escape the heavy stuff or to study writing. But this didn't do either job for me. Cynthia Farrell's (the Narrator) voice was good for the story, but sadly, I didn't feel she saved it. A friend recommended this to me. Time travel piqued my interest. Here, take a look at the blurb: Goodreads Choice AwardNominee for Best Science Fiction (2019) Two time-traveling agents from warring futures, working their way through the past, begin to exchange letters—and fall in love in this thrilling and romantic book from award-winning authors Amal-El Mohtar and Max Gladstone. Among the ashes of a dying world, an agent of the Commandant 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, grows into something more. Something epic. Something romantic. Something that could change the past and the future. Except the discovery of their bond would mean death for each of them. There’s still a war going on, after all. And someone has to win that war. 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. Maybe it was the COVID brain. Maybe I'll try it again someday. Maybe you will love it. It just didn't do it for me. ["

September 24, 2024 Verified Purchase