Title: This is How You Lose the Time War
Author: Amal El-Mohtar, Max Gladstone
Publisher: Saga Press
Release Date: July 16th, 2019
Genre(s): Sci-Fi, Romance, Epistolary
Subjects and Themes: War, LGBTQIAP+ (f/f)
Page Count: 208 (hardback)
Rating: 9.5/10
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?
This is it.
After years of searching, this is the time travel book I’ve been waiting for.
This is How You Lose the Time War is a stunning achievement of prose and storytelling. It’s a love story dressed as a chess game played out on the shoulders of poetry. It’s got moments, especially near the end, that gave me full-body shivers and touched me to my core. It had me muttering “This makes me want to make out with someone” over and over to myself and to my roommate (who’s gotten used to my weird out-of-context comments about books). And I just can’t stop thinking about it.
Before I get into it, just a small note regarding the worldbuilding: this book doesn’t explain much to you–not about the nature of the war or its factions (though you do get some sense of the differences between Red and Blue’s homeland by the end, and let me tell you, they are fascinating)–and you either have to accept that ambiguity or have a very frustrating time with it.
Okay, so here’s the part that I absolutely love and something I think is genius: there are two different kinds of time travel that exist in this book.
The first is your typical “temporal and spatial movement from Point A to B.”
My issue with a lot of time travel books is that I don’t often get a good sense of the time period and setting that the characters travel to. And aside from the superficial descriptions, Point B doesn’t feel all that different from Point A. It’s like when you’re watching a school play and the castle scenery changes to a forest one, but some of the props are reused and you can still see all the scuff marks on the stage, so the illusion is kind of lost.
But here? Things feel very organic. You can see the texture of the places that Red and Blue visit–ancient pilgrims moving through a labyrinth, a Mongolian forest camp, Atlantis burning and sinking. Descriptions that snag on the most important aspects of a culture and time period and drag them forward. It’s economical and at the same time not, because of how purple the prose is, and just all around beautiful and atmospheric. El-Mohtar and Gladstone manage to convey a sense of time and space in the span of five pages better than some books do in a hundred, and I bow down to their collective talent.
The second type of time travel is done through letters.
This is the part that gets me jittery and giggling with joy–that in this future of advanced technology, Red and Blue are sending physical letters to each other, using anything they can get their hands on and being creative with it (paper, tea leaves, seeds, and lava, just to name a few). And they have such fun with it. I can’t even begin to tell you how romantic I find all that.
…And that was a lie. I will tell you.
I love exchanging letters. I love saving letters. I love letters, period. My closet contains boxes of all the letters and postcards and notes I saved from since I was a kid. I’ve made amazing, long-lasting connections through years of penpal exchanges. If you’re friends with me I’ll probably send you a letter at some point whether you like it or not. And occasionally, on rainy days, I take some of those letters out and read them, re-living memories and re-reading passages I want to commit to memory because I found them particularly beautiful or vulnerable or funny. They’re like books, in that sense. Except they’re stories about you, and me, and the path that our relationship ended up taking.
“There’s a kind of time travel in letters, isn’t there?” Red writes at one point, and there’s such truth to those words. Letters are snapshots of a person at a particular time, and when you send a letter, you’re essentially carving off slices of yourself, preserving them, and gifting them to the recipient (that sounds dramatic, but hell, this whole book is dramatic). And there is romance to that act which defies explanation. This book gets that. My god, does it get it.
“I want to chase you, find you, I want to be eluded and teased and adored; I want to be defeated and victorious–I want you to cut me, sharpen me. I want to drink tea beside you in ten years or a thousand.”
I also adore the way the authors portray the characters’ love as a kind of a mutual surrender to one another: blades to each other’s throat, exchanging vulnerabilities with vulnerabilities, and feeling content in the knowledge that one can destroy the other at any moment. Not all love is that intense and all-consuming, but for two people who have dedicated their lives to being the best and always winning and holding themselves to stratospheric standards, it fits perfectly. They need this. Surrender is freedom. And that’s so fucking sexy, I can’t even.
So please, please, please give this a try.
It’ll make you believe in love all over again.
Review copy provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
Looooved your review, Kathy! ❤ Seriously, I did. More than the book, I fell in love with your writing. "when you send a letter, you’re essentially carving off slices of yourself, preserving them, and gifting them to the recipient" – made my day. Are you an aspiring writer?
On a second note, I have heard good reviews of this book. Is there any way to contact the publisher to get a review copy?
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Oh my goodness, you made MY day with this comment!! You’re too kind, thank you!! I have several WIPs that I’m chipping away at right now and I’d definitely love to publish one of them in the future. 😊
I requested mine on Netgalley, but since its release date was yesterday it would be unavailable right now, so you could try emailing Saga Press directly: SagaPressPublicity@simonandschuster.com
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Thanks for the e-mail address, Kathy! 🙂
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Any time! ❤
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So happy to see another person reviewing this book; I really enjoyed reading your review because it does the book justice. It was such a good read!
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Aww thanks so much, Cynthia! Anytime I review a book that I really really love, I never feel like I’m doing it justice, so that makes me super happy. ❤
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yes!!! i loved this book so much, great review!!
– charlotte
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Ahh I’m happy to hear you loved it as well! Thank you!
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It’s an extraordinary book, isn’t it? You can always tell when a sub-genre is properly growing up, by the way the concepts are being stretched and played with… I found it an engrossing, beautiful and highly disturbing book and will also be reviewing it soon:)). Though my review isn’t nearly as passionate or inspired as yours, which is lovely!
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I am so incredibly happy with the direction that SFF books are moving towards right now. I feel like so many writers are pushing themselves (and each other) to think bigger and broader and stranger, and it’s just super exciting. I’ll be looking forward to your review, Sarah!
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You’re absolutely right, Kathy. SFF is just getting better and better – there is such a variety and breadth and depth of talent throughout all genres and sub-genres, it’s great!!
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OMG! That quote! I swooned!
I love how you said letters are a snapshot of a person at a particular time. In elementary school I would buy cute stationary, write random things, fold them up all fancy, and send them to my cousins and classmates. I think I just wanted to do what other people were doing at the time, but I’ve kept a few. Some are super embarrassing but some bring back fun memories I forgot about lol.
As always, I loved your review and you make me want all the books lol. My cousin said she would loan me her copy and now I’m trying not to drop my current read to get into this one ><!
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IKR??? And there are so many more like that!!
Oh, I totally used the fancy stationary stuff, too! And I would organize these super covert operations where I would have my friends deliver love letters to my crushes without them knowing. Which was as ridiculous as it sounds. 😂
And omg yesss to your cousin! *whiispering* you should totally drop your current read for this one~ er, I mean, TAKE YOUR TIME. Seriously, it’s so cool that you have family members who are not only blogging but SHARING books with you. Ugh, I’m jealous 😛
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Wonderful review! I’ve been skipping past this book when it pops up in my recommendation lists (for no apparent reason) — but I think you’ve convinced me that I need to read it!
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Ahh that’s so great to hear!! Thanks, Lisa! And yeah, recommendations lists can be weird. Strange books have popped up on mine from time to time.
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Yup, I loved this too – I did wonder how others would feel – I can see it probably won’t be for everyone, but it worked for me on so many levels.
Lynn 😀
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Yeah, I’ve seen some people having trouble getting into it. Aside from the vague worldbuilding, I think the prose might be a little off-putting for people because it’s one of those in-your-face kind of purple. I personally loved it, but there are definitely a few moments where it gets a bit overpowering.
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Haha – in your face purple. I’m totally stealing that. so funny.
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Fantastic review, Kathy! I’ve been so excited for this one and now I’m even more excited. My copy just arrived. Hoping to squeeze it in this weekend, but it all depends how much time I get to spend reading vs catching up on things. 😀
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Ahhhhh that’s awesome news, Lisa, I hope you love it!!!! It seems to a bit of a hit or miss for people so far, but fingers crossed you’ll land on “hit”! The romance is just soooo deliciously intense and I don’t see that often with f/f.
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Well, now I’m looking forward to it even more, LOL 😀
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Wonderful review! I love a good time travel story so I will definitely be adding this one to my TBR.
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Thanks, Suzanne!! I hope you get a chance to check it out! It’s definitely one of my top 5 reads of the so far.
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