Wonderful, my Blue and Red
5 stars
I love this book so much. Just gorgeous in execution, and a story delightful in its telling.
paperback, 208 pages
Published July 18, 2019 by Jo Fletcher Books.
This is How You Lose the Time War
Amal El-Mohtar, Max Gladstone: This is How You Lose the Time War (Paperback, 2019, Jo Fletcher Books)
- ISBN:
- 978-1-5294-0523-1
Copied ISBN!
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 …
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.
Weird and beautiful but not always up to its own ambition
4 stars
The letters that make up about half of this book are gorgeously written, and I love the story they tell. The basic idea of the time war is clever, and the descriptions of placetimes the characters find themselves in evocative, sometimes reminiscent of Calvino's Invisible Cities. I devoured this book in a few days.
And yet... something about it felt a little thin or hollow behind its fireworks. I think it was a good artistic choice to leave all technical details out, but I couldn't help but get hung up on the time paradoxes. Not that it's the authors' responsibility to necessarily avoid or solve them, but for me personally they intruded on the suspension of disbelief.
The letters that make up about half of this book are gorgeously written, and I love the story they tell. The basic idea of the time war is clever, and the descriptions of placetimes the characters find themselves in evocative, sometimes reminiscent of Calvino's Invisible Cities. I devoured this book in a few days.
And yet... something about it felt a little thin or hollow behind its fireworks. I think it was a good artistic choice to leave all technical details out, but I couldn't help but get hung up on the time paradoxes. Not that it's the authors' responsibility to necessarily avoid or solve them, but for me personally they intruded on the suspension of disbelief.
Merovius reviewed This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar
Review of 'This Is How You Lose the Time War' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
Hauntingly beautiful. A love-letter to the written word.
kerry reviewed This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar
Review of 'This Is How You Lose the Time War' on 'Goodreads'
Got to 15% and gave up. Was uninterested in continuing.
bookafnd reviewed This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar
probably not for everyone, but it's very good
5 stars
it's a magical realist (?) romance in a science fiction Time War setting, an unusual choice, but one that works well, given how strange the consequences of warping causality would be. If you can get ahold of the audio book, it's pretty good, has different readers for Blue and Red.
it's a magical realist (?) romance in a science fiction Time War setting, an unusual choice, but one that works well, given how strange the consequences of warping causality would be. If you can get ahold of the audio book, it's pretty good, has different readers for Blue and Red.
Review of 'This is How You Lose the Time War' on 'Storygraph'
4 stars
I don't know if this was fantasy or science fiction. It was maybe weirder than I'm ready for.
I don't know if this was fantasy or science fiction. It was maybe weirder than I'm ready for.
Review of 'This Is How You Lose the Time War' on 'Storygraph'
4 stars
I don't know if this was fantasy or science fiction. It was maybe weirder than I'm ready for.
I don't know if this was fantasy or science fiction. It was maybe weirder than I'm ready for.
