This is How You Lose the Time War: The epic time-travelling love story and Twitter sensation

by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

Cynthia Farrell (Narrator) and Emily Woo Zeller (Narrator)

WINNER OF The 2020 Hugo Award for Best Novella, the Reddit Stabby Award for Best Novella AND The British Science Fiction Association Award for Best Novella

Two time-travelling 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?

(P)2019 Simon & Schuster

• ISBN10: 1529405564
• ISBN13: 9781529405569
• Publish Date: 16 July 2019
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: GB
• Imprint: Arcadia Books
• Edition: Unabridged edition
• Format: Audiobook (MP3)
• Duration: 4 hours and 16 minutes
• Language: English

Reviews

[nannah]

This is one of the most original novels I've ever read, and it's definitely the best romance novel I've ever read. I'm not a huge fan of these, but if people write more like this one, I may just change my opinion.

Content warnings:
- self-harm

Representation:
- both protagonists are sapphic
- one of the protagonists is a person of color

Two sides fight a war using time and potential futures, trying to win the best possible future for themselves. What begins as an agent from one side writing a mocking letter to another on the opposite side ends with both of them falling in love. But in this war in which winning means losing a love, is it possible to find a happy outcome?

I don't think I've ever read an epistolary novel … it gets a bit tedious, to be honest, but perhaps that's just because I'm not used to it. That said, I fell in love with the writing style(s) at the very first line. And there are some absolutely gorgeous lines, too — my favorite being "I want to meet you in every place I ever loved." The main characters also give us information about things, even about themselves, at a very satisfyingly slow rate. It's a good way to keep the interest up.

Another interesting thing about this book is the lack of any described setting, or not much of it. Another reviewer said it very well (and I can't remember who it was, sorry!): "We never get a setting, because the setting doesn't matter. This is, in essence, a pure romance book." What matters is not the war around them, but the relationship developing between these two agents themselves.

I do wish, however, that the two leads had more distinct voices. I don't doubt that they're two different people, Red being a robot or cyborg who's kind of stiff and not used to being social, and Blue being an organic shape-shifting creature with a sense of humor and a love for pop culture. But very little of this comes through the actual language of the letters themselves. I don't think I could tell their voices apart if I was shown an example (which is funny, because each author wrote a different character — they work really well together!).

Afterthoughts: after sitting on this for a couple months, I think one of the reasons people love this book so much is that apart from 2-3 character traits, the MCs don't really have fully fleshed personalities to distinguish them. In this way, it's easy to project onto them as a sort of wish fulfillment. And this isn't a criticism. Because this book is so unique, I think it works here.

[winterlily]

"suppose that we defected, not to each other's sides, but to each other?"

what an ending??? I don't think I was expecting to get that?

[bookperson]

everybody is obsessed with this book and for a good reason!
it's sci-fi, but so subtle and beautiful, without pew-pew and dumbassery. it's written almost entirely in letters, one agent to another, one woman to another (if you can call them that?), one soul to another.
writing is unworldly, beautiful and flowery, it's so good it hurts.

[celinenyx]

An original concept, but I couldn't get on with the writing style.

[Quirky Cat]

I received a copy of This is How You Lose the Time War through BookishFirst in exchange for a fair and honest review.

This is How You Lose the Time War wins my award for best novella for 2019. Seriously, this novella was absolutely amazing. Beautifully written, whimsical, witty, everything. I had high hopes for this one, but they sincerely exceeded them.
It’s not every day you see a novella written by two authors, so this one obviously caught my attention. It helps that I’m a fan of both Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone as well. This collaboration was so much more than I could have ever hoped for…day I say that I hope we see more from these two authors working together in the future? Because I think that needs to happen.
This is How You Lose the Time War is the tale of two rival agents. Red and Blue. They’re both fighting in the same war. But at some point, the war changed for them. Something changed. They changed.
I absolutely loved reading every page of this novella. It was beautiful and intricate, and oh so human in ways that I could only begin to explain. I can’t recommend it highly enough.


This is How You Love the Time War is without a doubt one of the most beautifully written novellas of the year. It’s eloquent and emotional, and tells the story of the threads that tie us all together.
This novella wasn’t at all what I expected. It was better. I knew it would be the tale of two agents, and based on the description, I knew that their rivalry would change into something different through the course of time. But that description doesn’t do it justice.
Part of the reason this telling worked so well was because of the storytelling techniques used. The novella switched between two perspectives, Red and Blue. But it also told the story through a series of letters and notes they exchanged. This was not only beautiful, but it helped resolve a lot of the show/tell issues.
Considering what this story turned into, I’m so happy that the element of letters was included. It took so many things that could have been considered a trope, and forged it into something new. And of course, it gave plenty of opportunity to playful banter between the two, while keeping their actual contact to a minimum.
There was a lot to love in this novella. The rivalry turned love story was there, of course. And it was powerful. But the time travel elements were fun as well. They showed a strong understanding of both time and alternate dimensions – and showed an interesting combination of the two.
What I especially loved was the comparison and contrast between the two sides. Red versus Blue. Technology versus nature. Traveling through time versus rooting through time. It was both intricate and intuitive. In many ways, it felt like I had been reading of this battle for years.
I was truly sad when this novella concluded. Not because the ending itself was sad – I actually loved how they finished it – but because I didn’t want to see it end. This was an absolutely brilliant read. Nothing like anything else I’ve read. Yet I find myself craving more like it.


For more reviews check out Quirky Cat's Fat Stacks

[kalventure]

ARC sent by Saga Press via Bookish First for my honest review!

"Wars are dense with causes and effects, calculations and strange attractors, and all the more so are wars in time."

This is a beautifully written and poetic experience masquerading as a novella.

This Is How You Lose the Time War is a character-driven story; it is all about Red and Blue and their unlikely correspondences through time and space. There is much that you can glean from these letters about the world of this story, bits that you can piece together into a tableau. But this is not a book you strive to understand or pick apart. Its beauty lies in the purple prose, the story within two characters on opposing sides of war.

"Adventure works in any strand - it calls to those who care more for living than for their lives."

I was captivated by the adventures both Red and Blue take. There isn't one reality but multiple; strands and threads of possibiities woven together as opposing sides undo the work. We see Pompeii and Atlantis and countless other places in time, missions to save or doom the people depending on the desired outcomes.

As a person who loves worldbuilding, I will admit I struggled at first. I had no idea what was going on, but I had the feeling this is a book you are just supposed to experience. You won't understand the logistics of time travel (how they move downstrand and up), how the war started, or why the Garden and Agency are at odds. Those things really aren't the point. My recommendation is to just relax and let the poetic writing flow over you. This is a story to be experienced, and one I ultimately enjoyed.

✨ Submit your receipt by July 15, 2019 for the pre-order incentive! (US and Canada only, sorry friends.)

ARC provided by the publisher via Bookish First in exchange for my honest review. Quotations are taken from an uncorrected proof and subject to change upon final publication.

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[ross91]

Sadly not for me