Hardcover, 201 pages
English language
Published July 16, 2019 by Simon and Schuster.
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.
In the ashes of a dying world, Red finds a letter marked “Burn before reading. Signed, Blue.”
So begins an unlikely correspondence between two rival agents in a war that stretches through the vast reaches of time and space.
Red belongs to the Agency, a post-singularity technotopia. Blue belongs to Garden, a single vast consciousness embedded in all organic matter. Their pasts are bloody and their futures mutually exclusive. They have nothing in common—save that they’re the best, and they’re alone.
Now what began as a battlefield boast grows into a dangerous game, one both Red and Blue are determined to win. Because winning’s what you do in war. Isn’t it?
A tour de force collaboration from …
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.
In the ashes of a dying world, Red finds a letter marked “Burn before reading. Signed, Blue.”
So begins an unlikely correspondence between two rival agents in a war that stretches through the vast reaches of time and space.
Red belongs to the Agency, a post-singularity technotopia. Blue belongs to Garden, a single vast consciousness embedded in all organic matter. Their pasts are bloody and their futures mutually exclusive. They have nothing in common—save that they’re the best, and they’re alone.
Now what began as a battlefield boast grows into a dangerous game, one both Red and Blue are determined to win. Because winning’s what you do in war. Isn’t it?
A tour de force collaboration from two powerhouse writers that spans the whole of time and space.
I rarely love a book with prose that's more acrobatic than lucid, but I loved this one. The time travel mechanics are peripheral: it's at least as much romance as SF. Funny and brainy and overstuffed with allusions and wordplay and yes, thrillingly romantic.
DNF as I wasn't finding the format enjoyable.
On one level, a lyrical and ethereal time travel romance that feels fresh. On another, a metaphysical work about the power of words to transform our selves and our world. Absolute stunner.
I think I just accidentally read an epistolary novel.
I know this novella has been optioned for a TV show, and I really don't know how that could possibly work. This Is How You Lose The Time War is the most poetic thing I have read in years, and I just can't see it.
As it's a novella, there's not a lot of context we get here. We start with Red, of the somewhat dystopian Agency. Red is traveling from time strand to time strand in order to win the time war between the Agency and the Garden. She runs into an agent of the Garden, Blue, and Blue leaves a letter for Red. From this, the two agents start to strike up being creative 'penpals' because their superiors may not know of the fraternizing. First taunting, their letters start to be more romantic, as they fall in love...
Each chapter basically describes a bit of the time war, …
I know this novella has been optioned for a TV show, and I really don't know how that could possibly work. This Is How You Lose The Time War is the most poetic thing I have read in years, and I just can't see it.
As it's a novella, there's not a lot of context we get here. We start with Red, of the somewhat dystopian Agency. Red is traveling from time strand to time strand in order to win the time war between the Agency and the Garden. She runs into an agent of the Garden, Blue, and Blue leaves a letter for Red. From this, the two agents start to strike up being creative 'penpals' because their superiors may not know of the fraternizing. First taunting, their letters start to be more romantic, as they fall in love...
Each chapter basically describes a bit of the time war, and how the respective parties find the letter, and then includes the letter. It's lyrical, beautifully written, thought-provoking.
Definitely not for everyone though, and again, I cannot imagine it on TV unless they really blow up the time war plot itself to make any sense at all. It didn't really make sense in the book, we don't get to know enough about it.
I read it with the only person I could read it with, my gay, gay girlfriend, my blue, my mood indigo.
The book was beautifully written, and the story that unfolded was well crafted. However, this wasn't a book for me.
This was absolutely lovely, one of the most beautiful sci-fi novels I’ve read in a long time. It’s a bit of a slow start, but really draws you in and sweeps you up.
Stunning. I started it not sure I was in the mood for it but it had arrived from being on hold in the library. By a few chapters in I was hooked. I loved seeing the glimpses of other timelines, the sneaky fun references to other media (sometimes changed up for a different timeline). Would reread.
Update: reread it, loved it as much the second time. Highly recommend
