This is How You Lose the Time War: The epic time-travelling love story and Twitter sensation
£5.70
WINNER OF
Hugo Award for Best Novella
Nebula Award for Best Novella
Reddit Stabby Award for Best Novella
British Science Fiction Association Award for Best Novella
SHORTLISTED FOR
2020 Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award
The Ray Bradbury Prize
Kitschies Red Tentacle Award
Kitschies Inky Tentacle
Brave New Words Award
Co-written by two award-winning writers, This Is How You Lose the Time War is an epic love story spanning time and space.
Among the ashes of a dying world, an agent of the Commandant 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, grows into something more. Something epic. Something romantic. Something that could change the past and the future.
Except the discovery of their bond would mean death for each of them. There’s still a war going on, after all. And someone has to win that war. That’s how war works. Right?
‘A fireworks display from two very talented storytellers’ Madeline Miller, author of Circe
‘An intimate and lyrical tour of time, myth and history’ John Scalzi, bestselling author of Old Man’s War
‘Lyrical and vivid and bittersweet’ Ann Leckie, Hugo Award-winning author of Ancillary Justice
‘Rich and strange, a romantic tour through all of time and the multiverse’ Martha Wells, Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author of The Murderbot Diaries
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Additional information
| Publisher | Jo Fletcher Books, 1st edition (16 July 2019) |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| File size | 1093 KB |
| Text-to-Speech | Enabled |
| Screen Reader | Supported |
| Enhanced typesetting | Enabled |
| X-Ray | Enabled |
| Word Wise | Enabled |
| Sticky notes | On Kindle Scribe |
| Print length | 209 pages |
by A. Whitehead
A war is raging through all of time and space, spanning an infinite number of universes. Two great powers – the Commandant and the Garden – are clashing, their agents fighting one another in the stone age and a distant future of galaxy-spanning empires. Two agents, Red and Blue, clash again and again without ever exchanging a single word…until the day they decide to start writing letters.
This is How You Lose the Time War is a novella depicting a war fought through time between two implacable forces, each represented by one of their agents. It’s a short book, at under 200 pages, and also an interesting one structurally, mixing traditional third-person narratives with the letters the two rival agents exchange on a regular basis. It’s not quite an epistolary novella, more of a mix between it and more traditional narration, but the letters form an integral part of the story.
Although short, the novella covers a lot of ground. Multiple settings, from deep space in the far future to a sinking Atlantis to contemporary cities, are used as battlegrounds by the warring sides, and we see both the hard end of their fighting and meet the vast and almost staggering forces leading the wars. That said, there isn’t a lot of exposition in the book. The reasons for the war – given that billions, if not trillions, of branching timelines exist for the two factions to coexist in – are never really given and it’s unclear who is winning and losing (although both Red and Blue are prone to boasting of their side’s achievements, at least early in their relationship). To be honest, it’s not really important. More important is how alone and isolated both agents feel, and the only person they can relate to is their opposite number, doing the same thing and feeling the same feelings, just in a different cause.
The writing is poetic, with both agents keen to use creative language in their letters, which start off as verbal fencing matches but later become more flirtatious and intellectually challenging. There is humour in the book but also an air of bitter-sweetness. There’s also tension: agents from the two forces are forbidden from communicating with one another out of fear of corruption, and it’s not always clear it the agents are genuinely becoming enamoured of one another or each is trying to trap the other in an unexpected reversal. It feels a bit like Spy vs. Spy with added romantic tension, all set in the middle of Doctor Who’s Time War.
This is How You Lose the Time War (****½) is short, focused and energetic, playful in tone and compelling in execution. Those who like books packed with exposition with every I dotted and every T crossed will probably be unhappy with the book’s unapologetic lack of context; those who enjoy stories for their emotion and wordplay will be very satisfied.
by Jade
“You’ve always been the hunger at the heart of me, Red—my teeth, my claws, my poisoned apple.”
My brain hurts. I’ve read sci-fi before but this made me question my intelligence.
I’m struggling to process this book never mind try and write a coherent review.
First of all this is a story of how Blue and Red are rivals of different sides from different multiverses?? The best I can explain it is that Red represents technology and Blue the earth. Or at least that’s the world’s in which they respectively come from, were grown as weapons etc. They are worthy opponents and thus their story grows through the letters in which they send over many timelines. It’s hard to say how many years that their story unfolds over but I would guess it’s over a couple of centuries. With each letter and each life time these two rival assassin time travellers fall in love. Amidst lots of casual murder and a time war.
Now why is this time war happening? Who knows! Do I grasp the concept of power and how it can apply here to events that unfold and how each timeline impacts the world therefore giving that power to the “winners”? Absolutely. But the authors don’t really give depth to that here.
This book is written mostly in letters which I had no issue with actually. It is also a love story that unfolds slowly. Then there’s the non existent world building; you get details here and there to try put it together but overall I’m still very confused. I don’t often seek out books that I feel will hit me emotionally, that will pack a punch. However, I wanted that with this book but I didn’t get that. This book is written in a way which is to be understood as attempting to be beautiful and philosophical and to pull certain emotions out of the reader. However the prose were too much so much so that they read as pretentious to me. It offered lots of imagery and potential for swooning but when I.actually stood back and tried to understand the flowery writing it would be nonsensical. I was so busy trying to understand what was happening, what was being said, trying to decipher meaning from it that I couldn’t actually feel the connection with the book and with Blue and Red and their love story. And that was the issue for me besides it being overwhelming to read was that there was too much reliance on the flowery writing itself, to get so trapped up in the confusion that it sounded pretty but what was actually happening?? How were they falling in love? How does this world work from timeline to timeline? Don’t get me wrong, the yearning and the pining between these two women was so good but beyond that? I was just confused. I was hoping by the end it would all click for me. That I’d have understanding and clarity on what the story was. That I’d feel this book in my chest. And while some things slowly came to light, for the most part I was confused. Still am.
Perhaps that’s the point. Maybe the over poetic writing is for a very particular group of readers and I’ll just be over here being dumb for not getting it. Also I think your perception on the world and on love and time could dictate how you connect with this story.
But I have to be completely honest at times I wondered if the authors themselves even fully understand the world in which they created and maybe it’s more about the characters and this supposedly other worldly love. I also went into this expecting more antagonism but didn’t get that.
I have no qualms about quitting on a book. Clearly even though this book was stressing me out and even now my brain feels like it has melted for trying to understand how this world works, I enjoyed the concept and finished the book. I wanted to actually feel this love story and while that didn’t happen and I still don’t know what I read really, it certainly was an intriguing read and it’s probably gonna make me have weird dreams now.
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