This Is How You Lose the Time War

by Amal El-Mohtar, Max Gladstone

No cover — Amal El-Mohtar, Max Gladstone: This Is How You Lose the Time War (AudiobookFormat)

Audiobook

Audible ASIN:: B07NF24FS2

(31 reviews)

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 …

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.

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.

5 editions

moving to outside.ofa.dog reviewed This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar

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.

Tak! reviewed This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar

This Is How You Lose The Time War

5 stars

The first quarter reminded me of Doomsday Book and One Day All This Will Be Yours, and the last quarter reminded me of that Iain M. Banks book (I won't say which one because it would spoil either this or that if you haven't read both, but go read Culture (except for Consider Phlebas)).

The prose was everything I've come to expect from Max Gladstone, and now I'll have to try something else by El-Mohtar.

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.

Brian Plunkett 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'

4 stars

This was a fresh take on time travel for me and I enjoyed it. Also, the word play and epistolary format were fun.

tlppi reviewed This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar

Not for everyone...

5 stars

... or to be honest most people, but I really liked it. I took it SLOW though, finishing it in about twice my average pace, i believe... which allowed me to really enjoy the beautiful poetic nature of the book and really rather incredible writing. And then i read it again... and possibly enjoyed it more? that's not happened before ._.

Marya 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

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.

Kadomi 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

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.

Michael Gouker 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'

4 stars

A very strong story about two pawns in a game who fall in love while trying to thwart each other and must then imagine a situation where they can both win. Beautiful writing. Brilliant imagining.

Jeff McNeill 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'

2 stars

Too esoteric

Koven Smith 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

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.