208 pages
English language
Published July 16, 2019 by Simon and Schuster.
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 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.
If you like books where you don't get all the answers, that aren't necessarily linear, and are more about prose and gut-wrenching heartache, you'll enjoy this book. It's art. If you don't like artsy books, you probably should pick something else to read.
I loved it.
I could not stop listening. This book is SO good. Intricate and lovely. Prose this delicious is rarely written.
"This is How You Lose the Time War" asks the reader to perch on the shoulders of two operatives on opposing sides of a time-traveling war.
Each chapter follows "Red" or "Blue" as they scurry up and down timelines and across dimensions. The book is both sweepingly broad and extremely contained and personal.
The settings flit by, dizzying: a temple for mechanized humans, an ancient holy cave, the assassination of Caesar - each sketched with broad, emotional strokes to give the setting an aesthetic. One gets the sense that a great web of cause and effect is being constantly constructed, altered, and destroyed, without ever seeing the full picture.
Against these backdrops, the characters "Red" and "Blue" write to each other - as nemeses, then as friends, ever deeper entangled even as they demolish each other's plans and forces. The letters make up an enormous part of the experience, and …
"This is How You Lose the Time War" asks the reader to perch on the shoulders of two operatives on opposing sides of a time-traveling war.
Each chapter follows "Red" or "Blue" as they scurry up and down timelines and across dimensions. The book is both sweepingly broad and extremely contained and personal.
The settings flit by, dizzying: a temple for mechanized humans, an ancient holy cave, the assassination of Caesar - each sketched with broad, emotional strokes to give the setting an aesthetic. One gets the sense that a great web of cause and effect is being constantly constructed, altered, and destroyed, without ever seeing the full picture.
Against these backdrops, the characters "Red" and "Blue" write to each other - as nemeses, then as friends, ever deeper entangled even as they demolish each other's plans and forces. The letters make up an enormous part of the experience, and they are comic, intimate... poignant. I didn't give a damn about the war - I just wanted these two characters to be alright.
I loved it. I stayed up past midnight every day I was reading, which wasn't long because I had to see what came next and kept reading.
How do you have a love story between two beings separated by war, time and dimensions? With covert letters. They may be written in seeds or lava flows, but letters nevertheless.
I love this book so much. Just gorgeous in execution, and a story delightful in its telling.
I really enjoyed most of Max Gladstones work and I love everything this on paper but in practice it didn't grip me (maybe it was the letter format?)
I've had this sitting on my Kindle for a while, but I'm glad I waited in a way as it was the perfect choice for my last book of the year. Somewhere between a simple love story (but see Blue's thoughts on Romeo and Juliet) and the saving of the entire universe, it fits so much in such a small space and creates so many thoughts and images. A wonderful book, heartily recommended.
Une chasse à travers le temps, une histoire d’amour construite à travers les époques. Assez unique et parfois très beau, égarant à certains moments mais finalement émouvant.
Hauntingly beautiful. A love-letter to the written word.
... 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 ._.
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.
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.
