Book Review: This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal el-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

This is How You Lose the Time War
by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone (Mohtar)

This is How You Lose the Time War is a science fiction novella that reads like a cross between a short story collection and an epistolary novel (plot development through letters). Two very different versions of utopia in Earth’s far future are struggling against each other to ensure their own existence across timeline strands: one focused on technological advancement, the other on biological advancement. Each side sends its agents back Terminator-style to make changes through violence, rescues, nudges this way and that but seldom through direct confrontation. Then the top agent from one future leaves a note for the top enemy with the label: “Burn before reading.”

Soon, Red and Blue — as they call each other — find that they may be the only ones across the ages who can understand each other. Structurally, this book alternates between showing Red’s current mission, then how Red finds a creatively-delivered message from Blue, then Blue’s letter…and then the next chapter switches over to Blue’s point of view for her mission, discovery, and reading of Red’s message. The missions stretch from the age of dinosaurs to an age of spaceships, and then farther on. It reminded me of Italo Calvino’s book Invisible Cities with how eager I was to explore each new setting.

Red and Blue’s chapters were written by two authors, with no indication of which author went with which character. By the end, I had a strong feeling that turned out to be correct when I read an authors interview, but I think some of the fun here is in the guessing.

If you’ve ever enjoyed the enemies-to-allies trope, this is your sugar high. I expect this to contend for awards for literary fiction, science fiction, and queer fiction.

[If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try The Honey Month, by Amal El-Mohtar, Three Parts Dead, by Max Gladstone, Use of Weapons, by Iain M. Banks, Red, White & Royal Blue, by Casey McQuiston or Invisible Cities, by Italo Calvino.]

[ publisher’s official This is How You Lose the Time War web site ] | [ official Amal El-Mohtar web site ] | [ official Max Gladstone web site ]

Recommended by Garren H.
Bennett Martin Public Library

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