This is How You Lose the Time War

         

Title: This is How You Lose the Time War

Author: Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

Publisher: S&S/Saga Press, July 16, 2019

Pages: 223

Genre: LGBT Epistolary Sci-Fi

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?

This book has everything going for it. It's epistolary. It's sapphic. It's sci-fi. What more could you ask for?

Red and Blue are so cool. The way that the authors give voice to these characters is really cool. I kind of love that we only get crumbs of world-building, but it's still feels like the authors know exactly what's going on. The use of time was really neat. These are time travelers, so while their stories move forward for the most part. The "timeline" as it were is all over the place. They're time soldiers, actively working to change the timeline in favor of their respective armies. 

So they're jumping around and it was really interesting when you learn just how intertwined they become, or is it that they've always been? It was woven together perfectly. I know that the authors have done a ton of interviews on how they handled the co-writing aspects, and I get why. Red and Blue do have such distinct voices and idiosyncrasies, but the story is so masterfully enmeshed as well. 

Don't even get me started about that audiobook production. It was really really well done!

Ratings

Stars: 5/5