A pretty and challenging read.

Red and Blue are agents from opposite sides of an ongoing time war. Red is from The Agency, fighting for a technological, machine age future. Blue is from Garden, working towards an almost fae environmental Eden future.

As they zigzag upstream and downstream through the threads of the future and past, making changes to try and turn the tide of the future in their side’s favour, they encounter each other and identify kindred spirits. They begin to communicate through covert letters, hidden in their respective battlefields, and their relationship with one another develops, cutting across times and locations, until their understanding of the war and their respective factions begins to shift.

This is an ambitious novella. The premise is compelling – two opposing time agents? Communicating through letters! And the story commits to making the most of those elements. The locations Blue and Red meet are diverse and interesting – Mongol empire? Far future tech apocalypse? Neanderthals? Yes to all of these. I can’t go too much into the plot without spoilers, but it’s a lovely trajectory and just the right length for a novella.

The methods they use to leave letters to each other are also fascinating and unique. The epistolary approach is great, allowing Red and Blue to tell each other and the reader about themselves, their experience of the war, and their feelings for each other without it feeling clumsy and much more effectively than trying to ‘show’ that through interactions would have.

I would have loved more detail about the setting, but I get that that wasn’t the focus of the book and what we did get of the wider world was fascinating.

I had mixed feelings about the prose, though. I loved in and hated it from paragraph to paragraph – I highlighted so much of this book because I kept running into lovely turns of phrase! – but I think I mostly didn’t like it. I found it beautiful and poetic, but it’s so dense as a result that I found it tough to read. The action sequences, particularly the climax, being told in senses and metaphors made it ambiguous as to what was happening. I think I got the gist of it, which is the best I can say. I know clearly how it felt, but not how it happened. This is absolutely a subjective thing and I’ve noticed a lot of readers are loving the prose style of this, but it struck the wrong balance for my tastes.

This isn’t a popcorn book or a light summer read – it requires more focus and is pushing for something more than that – but, if you’re looking for a short, art-y book about time travel and love that you’ll want to talk to someone about, this is a great option.

An advance copy of this book was kindly provided by Quercus Books and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

An interesting novella. Imaginative, well-written, and quite engaging.
The epistolary structure works very well, and the authors do a great job of giving each character - "Red" and "Blue" - distinct voices.
If you're a fan of science fiction, then I think you'll find a lot to like here.
Recommended.

This Is How You Lose the Time War is an incredible, intricately composed story of two rival agents, Red and Blue, going forwards and backwards millennia in time repeatedly trying to undo and outmanoeuvre each other’s attempts to win an endless war. The book is a masterclass in quality over quantity; without exaggeration it can be said that every line is important and beautifully written. Elegant to the point of poetry, sentences often end up being read multiple times. The reader can easily find themselves just enjoying each intricately alluring sentence before realising they’ve ignored the plot for paragraphs at a time. At only 200 pages, the time to read easily equals that of a traditional 400-page novel when the reader is almost forced to slow down and savour each word.

As is reflective of the characters’ personalities themselves, there is no hand holding here in any aspect of the storytelling. The epistolary structure is set up through increasingly intricate means that do not need to be understood to be enjoyed. The lore is vaguely teased out when one agent finds it necessary to preclude a taunt with some context. And the time travel system is not forgotten but rather scoffed at. There are mentions here and there of how time is braided together, reminiscent of Red and Blue, two lines of a helix pattern that never meet, but the mechanics are unimportant, not even given the formality of a brief explanation.

Ultimately, the book is truly a unique experience in and of itself. Incapable of being described in the format of ‘x meets y’, it is wholly and truly its own thing. It is bizarre and different and unclear and exceedingly original. This Is How You Lose the Time War may not be for everyone, but it is objectively something individual and undeniably breathtaking.

After being seriously hyped up for this ARC after seeing the Goodreads page and seeing this cover everywhere, I was a bit flabbergasted when I finally started it because this couldn't have been further from what I imagined this was going to be.
This is an enemies to lovers story with two non-humans, robotic beings that are on opposite sides of a Time War. Being the top operatives on their field, they start trading letters to brag about their superiority.
What made me dislike this book, in the beginning, was language, made up and archaic terms used in turns forcing you to check the meaning of half the words and try to figure out what the other half means from the context or resigning to ignorance. That and the fact that we have a very shallow understanding of the world in which the characters inhabit with only half of the book being written in normal chapters usually spent describing whatever time zone and place Red or Blue are instead of giving us the backstory to why that mission is necessary. So we know that they are trying to influence the timeline in favor of their side but not why or to what end. It is only as the story progresses and they start to like one another that we start to learn about each one of them in their letters.
It might have taken me a while, and I might have not liked them separately (Red even less than Blue) but I loved them as a couple and I preferred the people they became to the people they were before they knew one another.
Half of this book is told in letters and the way that they are written was one of my favourite things because that is where all the love story and character development happens because Red and Blue meet only once. It reminded me of gay and lesbian relationships through time, the letters filled with poetry and forbidden desire, always afraid they would be found out. As their relationship evolved so did the way they talked to each other and this book was worth it just for the way they addressed each other at the beginning of each letter and the p.s.'s at the end. It is through that relationship that they start to change indulge in small pleasures instead of being the perfect soldier devoid of any wants or defiance they used to be. Love made them "human".
This is also an extremely diverse book with one of them at least having dark skin and the people they visited being all over and even outside this planet. Favorite detail though: black Atlanteans!!!! I'm so looking forward to fanart of this and would love to see an animation or even movie of this story.
Although this is a short book I found myself having to make a few pauses once in a while to be able to unpack all the information and scream at all the plot twists.
This is a story that will defy your sense of reality, with some many maneuvers and counter-maneuvers that you will not know what to believe but Red and Blue will be there through it all and seeing them fall in love was amazing.
Thank you to NetGalley and Quercus Books for this ARC.

There are two sides of this time war: Red's side is The Agency, steeped in technology; Blue's side is The Garden, where her people are grown.

The Agency and the Garden's agents work down various strands of time, up and down, trying to undo each other's work so that a particular timeline's outcome works better in their favour. A religious icon is killed here, a mathematician on the brink of a discovery is saved here, Atlantis falls over and over again. And Red and Blue are present at all of these events. They become aware of each other - they have always known about the other side's agents of course, but these two are at the top of their game.

They start leaving messages for each other - letters! - dangerous messages that their superiors would have them killed for. What starts out as admiration turns into love, and their race through time intensifies even more.

It's a strange book (novella I believe, I read the e-version so I don't always notice these things, but it's definitely on the shorter side) - I'd recommend reading a sample of it if you can, because the prose is extremely lyrical and you'll either get on with it, or you won't.

I did, but I must admit at times I felt my understanding of the story was not where it should've been. I'm sure some of it went whoooosh over my head.

In essence, this book focuses on the messages, the communications between Red and Blue. It is NOT about, specifically, how the Agency and the Garden work, how travelling through the different strands of time works - it is unlikely (if you are at my brain level!) to fully understand the complex world they live in. But you do learn to understand how much they care for each other - and I think / hope that's the takeaway the authors intended.

It feels fresh and different, and that's worth something too, isn't it?

This is How You Lose the Time War was a very unusual read. It has sci-fi, romance, literary fiction with a beautiful, lyrical writing. It was a short and powerful book. I enjoyed the 2 characters, the romance developed. it was very original and interesting,
I definitely recommend it, and I wish it was a bit longer.

Thanks a lot Netgalley and the publisher for this copy in exchange for an honest review.

[this review will be up on my blog on July 15th, 2019]

This Is How You Lose the Time War is a novella about a love that transcends time, space and humanity. It's beautiful and lyrical and heartbreaking; it's all of these things and I loved its ending so much that I don't feel like I can do this story justice with a review. Just know that, while this is an epistolary f/f enemies-to-lovers story set during a time-travel war, calling it that feels almost reductive.

It follows two entities, "Red" and "Blue", both presenting as women but who don't strictly adhere to our definition of what a human is, and there's a time war. If you're the kind of person who needs to know the reasons and the workings of everything, this won't work for you; it's often vague, but as I didn't feel like much more context was needed, I didn't have a problem with that.

The writing in here will be polarizing. At times, I hated it: it was pretentious, and it made me feel like the authors were trying to show off how many pretty sentences they were able to string together without saying that much at all. But in other places it was beautiful and powerful, and the foreshadowing was woven into this story effortlessly - which only makes sense in something about braiding time.
And you know what else makes sense? That a story about Red and Blue writing to each other would be 90% Purple prose.

In one of my updates, I said that I wondered whether this started out as a short story. If you've ever read some short fiction on online magazines, you probably recognize the metaphor-heavy style and the vagueness of the worldbuilding, and I mean, if I'm going to read something that short, I want something really pretty that will make me feel and won't need that much background to do so. I wouldn't have minded if the authors had toned all of this here a bit down, however.

This is How You Lose the Time War was a fascinating read and something very different--certainly different from what I was expecting. It was an incredibly beautiful and poetic piece, and I particularly loved the letters the two characters exchanged. Once or twice I wished there could have been a little more world building and background information, as the story did rather throw one in with little explanation or context, but the relationship and romance shone through, which helped negate any missing backstory. This is probably not going to be for everyone, but if you fancy your sci-fi with a literary fiction/poetic bent, I recommend giving it a try.

My review will go live on 1 July.

From the moment Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone announced they were co-writing a novella, it immediately became one of my most anticipated SFF releases. I was dying to get this book, blurb unseen – because with these two authors, there was no doubt it would be amazing. And weird.

This is How You Lose the Time War is a love story – the star-crossed kind. Two enemy agents start an unlikely correspondance in the midst of a war through time. The messages are sent through improbable ways, each time a surprise for both the reader and the recipient. The tone is taunting, boasting at first, then it becomes flirty, then achingly beautiful.

It’s a study of contrasts: the horrors of an unending war, the beauty of a blossoming and fragile love. The playfulness of a new relationship, the tension of the outside world where they’re supposed to be mortal enemies. The fear, the wonder, the hope.

The setting is strange. Granted, saying “the setting is strange” when Gladstone and El-Mohtar are involved is very much like saying “water is wet”. There a mix of futuristic elements and a form of dark, fairytale-like magic which makes the reading experience unsettling. But at the same time, we’re grounded with familiar elements to pop culture and classical references. I got Blue by Eiffel 65 stuck in my head for days (thanks Amal, thanks Max…).

Both authors play to their strengths, which gives us this miracle of a book. Poetically nerdy, poignantly romantic. Surprising at every turn. I’ve never read anything like it, and I strongly suspect I never will again.

I was immediately drawn to this book -- particularly because of the phenomenal title, the gorgeous book cover, and the fact that I love time travel plots. I’ve never read anything by either of these authors so I was naturally curious about this book, and I’m so glad I gave it a try. This is How you Lose the TIme War is a lyrical, poetic, bizarre, and gorgeous tale of star-crossed lovers from opposing factions in, well, a time war.

This is How You Lose the Time War has such a unique structure that suits the novella length so well. Often I find that I’d prefer novellas to be full-length books, but this isn’t the case here. The clever structure is made up of disjointed scenes that flash through time that are both violent and peaceful, horrifying and comforting. Much like the relationship between Red and Blue, the landscape is ever changing and shifting. I’ll be the first to admit that I didn’t necessarily follow every moment of the book, but I still really enjoyed the journey. I think sitting back and appreciating the gorgeous writing is the best way to consume this book, rather than trying to follow a linear narrative because that’s just not what it is.

The book is also interspersed with the letters Red and Blue write to each other -- you see the progression of their relationship through these letters.The correspondence forms the heart of the story, allowing us to get to know these two people, their backgrounds, and their motivations. The push and pull between them, the banter, and the evolution from taunting and banter to something deeper is just wonderful -- their correspondence was my favourite part of the book.

I don’t think this book will be for everyone, but This is How You Lose the Time War is a strange and lovely tale of star-crossed lovers crossing paths across the different strands of history. If you’re looking for something unique or lyrical, you should definitely pick up this book.

This Is How You Lose the Time War is a love story across the battlegrounds of time, sci-fi turned into an epistolary romance. Red, an agent of the Commandant, finds a letter bearing the instruction 'Burn before reading'. It is from Blue, an agent from the rival side, and it sparks off a correspondence, taunting to begin with, then growing into something more, something romantic and world-defying. Soon—or not, as this is the Time War—their bond is deep and discovery would be the end of them, and the question remains, who will win the war?

Written as a collaboration between two writers and featuring two protagonists known by colours and pronouns (both 'she'), this is not your usual sci-fi story. Though there are teased out descriptions of the circumstances of each side, it is really focused on love and time and the myths and quirks of the multiverse. Packed with referenced despite its short length, it is a book that rewards its readers for spotting references and witty names as its protagonists do the same with each other. The creation of an aching love story told in improbably letters is an impressive feat, and the lyrical prose suits it well, particularly as the protagonists devolve into poetry and metaphor to try and explain their love across time through written words.

This is not your typical sci-fi, and those who aren't fans of the genre should give the book a chance, though its unusual style and worldbuilding won't be for everyone. It is forbidden love, Romeo and Juliet style, but with the complications of cause and effect and a war that seems insurmountable. It is playful and clever, almost unbearably short, and it is the pull of and between the two protagonists that brings it together.

A writer I mostly love collaborates with one I barely know, but about whom I've heard very good things. Their theme: that old tale of love across the barricades. Except that this time it's Juliet and Juliet, and it's not just this time, it's up and down the timelines as two agents plot and counterplot to precede and encompass and outmatch each other. Red and Blue, science and nature, Agency and Garden hatch empires and dam volcanoes and tweak things just so to ensure their own futures come to pass, and along the way the ingeniously coded messages pass back and forth, shifting gradually from taunting to curiosity to friendship to something more. It's an epic conflict conveyed strictly in kaleidoscopic background glimpses, a pattern of fragments much like its own hidden communiques. What started as surprises and jabs become eagerly sought, even longed for – "I watch the world for your signs, apophenic as a haruspex." And the messages always had to be a secret, because loyalties are jealously watched by the high command, but at some point they really do start to become more important than the mission. There's more than a little Killing Eve to it, except where that could be told in glances and changed postures, on the page this needs the older chassis of an epistolary romance, even as it's shattered into something far less formally straightforward. Utterly gorgeous.

(Of course, any mention of a Time War is going to capture the attention of a certain subset of geekdom. Is it the same Time War as seen in various forms in Doctor Who and its spin-offs? As far as I'm concerned, of course it is, even before that reference to all the Atlantises that keep sinking. Because all Time Wars are, even if the writers were entirely unaware of it; Who is the overstory within which all other stories take place, whether or not they know it, back as far as stories go: you think it's coincidence that the first original novel of Who's 1988-95 Golden Age wrapped itself around the first story we have and brought in Gilgamesh? Not that you need to buy my reading, or have the least interest in Who, to enjoy this book. Which is for the best)

(Netgalley ARC)

A charming, short, albeit occasionally slightly over-lush queer genre romance, mostly in an epistolary format, what This Is How You Lose The Time War lacks in depth - it feels slightly hurried and emotionally superficial, and it's ironically hard to differentiate the voices of its leads despite the collaborative authorship - it more than makes up for in style.

Esperaba con gran expectación la llegada de This is How You Lose the Time War, principalmente por la coautoría de Max Gladstone, un escritor que me encanta, pero también por la temática de viajes en el tiempo, uno de los grandes temas clásicos de la ciencia ficción

Al contrario de lo que imaginaba, no se trata de una obra exclusivamente epistolar, porque aunque las cartas que se envían las dos agentes temporales de bandos enfrentados sustentan la novela corta, también hay variedad de pasajes descriptivos que no utilizan este formato.
Lo que si destacaría es la belleza de la prosa utilizada, capaz de hacer que te entretengas en captar los distintos matices y referencias imbuidos en las frases. Este mismo juego de referencias puede llegar a cansar a algún lector que busque una aproximación más directa. Creo que en esto se nota la influencia de Amal El-Mohtar pero Gladstone no se le queda atrás.
La intrincada forma en que las agentes se van dejando mensajes en las distintas líneas temporales que modifican según los planes de cada una de sus facciones es una fuente constante de sorpresa y regocijo para el lector, en una vuelta de tuerca constante cada vez más hiperbólica.
Sin embargo, la información que acabamos recibiendo de un futuro o de otro, o de la propia guerra que libran las agentes Rojo y Azul, es muy escasa. Es señal de gran maestría por parte de los autores ser capaces de desvelar tan poca información pero que aún así nos veamos arrastrados por el flujo de la narración, rebuscando pequeños detalles para hacernos una composición de lugar que por la propia naturaleza de la historia no va a quedar completa.
Es esta una historia romántica unida de forma inseparable a la ciencia ficción de sus viajes en el tiempo. Es una apuesta arriesgada para los autores, pero creo que merece la pena dedicar nuestra atención a esta pequeña joya.

After hearing about this book a few time on Writing Excuses I was thrilled to finally be able to read it.

It's everything I expected it to be and then some.

I really liked the characters and the circular nature of the story.

The world(s) details were enough to make the locations recognisable but subtly different.

The book stand alone really well but it also comes across as a part of a wider, bigger story. this nagging feeling that I was missing something is the only reason I gave 4 stars rather than 5.

Well worth reading.

Two opposing Time Agents battle each other through the time streams through the old fashioned warfare of ... epistolary?!? With the occasional help from Mrs Leavitt's Guide to Etiquette and Correspondence, letters have never been so lovely ... or deadly.
<b><blockquote>PS. The keyboard's coated with slow-acting contact poison. You'll be dead in a hour.
PPS. Just kidding! Or... am I?</blockquote></b>
Who knew that in the hearts of warriors were the souls of poets.

"Like your victory, love spreads back through time"

* * *
3 / 5

First off, I want to praise the title of this book to heaven and back. This is How You Lose the Time War. I love it. I stayed up at night thinking about how great it was (no joke). The cover is also beautiful. The book itself gave me mixed feelings.

"She climbs upthread and down; she braids and unbraids history's hair."

I expected a typical sci-fi novel focusing on time travel. What I got instead was a very artsy, purple prose filled quasi-poetic novel that mostly consists of letters. I loved the letters. To be honest, this book could probably just have been written in the form of the letters and how they were delivered. The beginning of the book put me off. It is very artsy and vague and not a bit confusing. But as I got into the swing of it I was enveloped.

So, what is it about? Red works for the Agency, an organisation that promotes technology. Blue works for Garden, which values the environment. The two sides are at war, up and down the timeline. They send out agents across the multiverse to braid the timelines to their liking; Red works on the surface of history, a murder here and there to change the shape of time, whilst Blue melds into history, taking up and living a whole life, wreaking changes from within.

"I have been birds and branches. I have been bees and wolves. I have been ether flooding the void between stars, tangling their breath into networks of song. I have been fish and plankton and humus, and all of these have been me."

Red finds a letter on an intergalactic battlefield that isn't supposed to be there. It is from Blue, her enemy. They begin to communicate in letters, but these letters take unusual forms to avoid detection from their superiors; they find notes to each other in the stomach of a seal, in the flying pattern of a bee, engraved into a tree, and running through poison. I loved this. Another thing that I definitely appreciated is that this isn't a classic case of technology=bad, environment=good. Both sides are violent and manipulative and cruel.

The writing itself was very divisive. At some points I loved it - the letters, the sentiment, the passion and the fear. At other times I thought it was weird, off-putting, and deliberately trying to make things confusing for me as a reader. I definitely didn't understand all of it and I feel like this was a decision on behalf of the writers for whatever reason.

All in all, I loved the title. I loved the letters. I liked and disliked the writing style. I'd have loved to understand more about the time-travel and the war. I think that I will be thinking about this one for a while.

My thanks to Netgalley, the publisher, and the authors for an ARC of This is How You Lose the Time War.

Last night I almost missed my stop. I had just finished this book and I was sat there among all the commuters, lost in thoughts of just how beautiful this book is. I suddenly thought to myself "Shit, where am I?" and glanced out the window. The train was sat, with the doors open at my station. So I had to rush off.

I can't remember the last time a book did that to me.

Poetry and war and love and time-travel and so many letters.

Glorious.

An unusual read for me as although I’m not completely without romance (my wife may argue that point) I generally don’t lean towards “romance” novels per se, however I do like books that make my brain do something other than just sit there twiddling it’s thumbs, I’m not sure if I “like” this book but I didn’t dislike it and kept me coming back to it till the end

This book is an epistolary f/f time travel enemies-to-lovers romance. And if that hasn't hooked you already, then I don't know what will.

This is How You Lose the Time War is about two agents on opposite sides of the war and what starts out as something like a game trying to best one another, leaving behind gloating letters, but becomes something more like an obsession and then a desperate kind of love.

This isn't a book with a lot of plot. It's a character-driven, slowburning romance, with a science fiction twist to it. There are only two characters in it (although more are mentioned), it's more like a conversation between the two of them, in which they slowly undo all the hatred they have for the other side and fall in love.

One of my favourite things about this book was how well developed the romance was despite the two characters not meeting face to face for the most of it. And then when it does come it has that intensity and obsessiveness that you don't get to see a lot of in f/f romances. And, honestly, I have no idea how to describe the feeling that gave me. When you've had romance after romance that's soft and gentle (which, obviously, is no bad thing, but when that's all you get?), and suddenly you get this one that's not gentle but is intense and desperate in a way that you've only ever seen m/m and m/f romances be and it just kind of leaves you speechless (in an amazing way, sure, but not conducive to writing a review). Anyway, it's like that. And when I say intense, I mean, "will literally tear apart space and time to get to you" level intense.

And this is all developed without having the characters meet face to face until right at the end. This book is gonna be my yardstick for good relationship development from now on.

Besides all that, this is also just a really really good book. It's compulsively readable - I meant to do a thread on Twitter while I was reading it, but I completely forgot because I just didn't want to put it down at all. Part of that is because the writing is so lovely and the other part is the characters just drawing you in, and making you invested in them.

This book was one of my most anticipated reads this year since I found out about it, and it really did not disappoint one bit.