Review: This Is How You Lose The Time War by Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone

Blurb:

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.

Review:

This Is How You Lose The Time War has absolutely taken me by surprise in a time when I desperately wanted to enjoy shorter novels and novellas more than I do. Without any context or spoilers going into it, I got taken apart and shown something that I wasn’t prepared for—and it was all the better for it. Time War is science-fiction given heart and love. It rejects the need to explain every small aspect of how its world works in favor of a gut-punch and intrigue, with characters you will love whether you understand why or not. The most surprising aspect of this novel was how it tackled romance.

I am not typically a romance reader. There’s a multitude of reasons for this, but the most relevant one is that there typically isn’t enough to hold my interest or keep me reading. They can be predictable, relying on falling in love with the characters or the book’s scenes rather than an intricate plot or strong development. This is not indicative of the genre as a whole, and rather just a consequence of what I’ve exposed myself to in the past and what I was led to believe all romance was.

This Is How You Lose The Time War is striking, shocking, and endlessly engaging. In less than two hundred pages, authors Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone manage to craft an exhilarating journey that ends in a way I could have never imagined. I had the privilege of going into this novel completely spoiler-free and I would love to preserve even some amount of that experience for those who have yet to read this novel. So I will tell you that Red and Blue are two of the most interesting characters I have read as of late, but not precisely why, because I think discovering their history and the lore surrounding them is a part of the joy of this novel. Learning about how they feel, humanizing characters who would feel larger than life from any other perspective, becomes the core enjoyment of this novel. Despite almost never interacting on-screen throughout the novel, you feel a connection and bond between Red and Blue that’s unrivaled in stories composed of nothing but their characters interacting. I cried for these characters, and as someone who almost never cries in novels, movies or otherwise, that is a sign of power present in this narrative.

I could at least discuss the prose, which I think pulls this book together by its threads and ties it in an intricate pattern, weaved by two genius wordsmiths. El-Mohtar and Gladstone utilize writing techniques I’ve dreamt of using myself for a long time, cutting unnecessary words, making the writing feel snappy, confusing at times, or even poetic. The prose contributes as much to this novel as its actual content, what the authors develop. The way words flow helps to paint a picture in the reader’s mind and twist the world in a way that keeps it from ever feeling stale or generic. Nothing about each scene feels the same; every scene is a new location, new situation, some new world to imagine and craft in your mind, and the authors are willing to let their readers interpret the prose and worlds in their own unique way. I love that my interpretation of this novel is likely very different from someone else’s. My vision for this world will not match the authors’, nor other readers’. It reads like a futuristic sci-fi movie; like a movie that cannot yet exist, something that no one will be able to create in my lifetime. Each scene reminded me more and more of how creative these authors are, and how much I’m glad they were willing to express so much creativity in this one short novel. Whether we are placed into an alternate reality version of a famous piece of mythology, or a grounded scene in a London tea shop, there is never a moment where the reader is taken out of the story or believes there was a jarring shift. The authors weave the tale of their characters’ lives and what they must do.

I think there is something special about a novel that can grip me and hold me tight for several hours all the way to its conclusion. I don’t dare sling what I might assume are flaws at it; This Is How You Lose The Time War is not flawless, but it is something I think executes its ideas and delivers beautiful promises without a hiccup. I feel privileged to have read this book and I can’t wait to reread it in the future, whether my heart can take it or not. Please give this wonderful book a chance, whether you are a science-fiction and fantasy reader, or you’re just looking to get soul-crushed.