“[An] exquisitely crafted tale...Part epistolary romance, part mind-blowing science fiction adventure, this dazzling story unfolds bit by bit, revealing layers of meaning as it plays with cause and effect, wildly imaginative technologies, and increasingly intricate wordplay...This short novel warrants multiple readings to fully unlock its complexities.” (Publishers Weekly, starred review).

From award-winning authors Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone comes an enthralling, romantic novel spanning time and space about two time-traveling rivals who fall in love and must change the past to ensure their future.

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?

Cowritten by two beloved and award-winning sci-fi writers, This Is How You Lose the Time War is an epic love story spanning time and space.

Listening Length

4 hours and 16 minutes
Author

Amal El-Mohtar, see all
Narrator

Emily Woo Zeller, see all
Audible release date

July 16, 2019
Language

English
Publisher

Simon & Schuster Audio
ASIN

B07NF24FS2
Version

Unabridged
Program Type

Audiobook
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Product details

Listening Length	4 hours and 16 minutes
Author	Amal El-Mohtar, Max Gladstone
Narrator	Cynthia Farrell, Emily Woo Zeller
Whispersync for Voice	Ready
Audible.com Release Date	July 16, 2019
Publisher	Simon & Schuster Audio
Program Type	Audiobook
Version	Unabridged
Language	English
ASIN	B07NF24FS2
Best Sellers Rank	#15 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals) #1 in Time Travel Science Fiction (Audible Books & Originals) #1 in Science Fiction Romance (Audible Books & Originals) #2 in Time Travel Fiction

Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5

10,099 global ratings

5 star		56%
4 star		26%
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2 star		4%
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Fred Rothganger

It gets better near the end

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 16, 2023

Verified Purchase

I went into this book with a bit a trepidation, since it is bit different from the norm. It is about half narrative and half epistolary (a story told in letters). That's rather bold these days, though it was pretty common back in the 1800s. The language is gorgeous. It is also a same-sex love story, though gender doesn't really seem to play a big role in the relationship between the two frenemies.

I had two complaints about the book. One is that it seems a bit surprising for the enemies to fall so passionately in love when their only interaction is letters and operations against each other.

The other is about time-travel itself. This complaint is not unique to this book. It has to do with the pseudoscientific way a lot of scifi justifies time travel, using some variant of the "many worlds" interpretation of quantum mechanics. However, the many-worlds interpretation turns out be the most intractably deterministic theory you can imagine. Basically, all possible sequences of events exist, have always existed and always will exist. Furthermore, there is no way to hop from one "world line" to another.

All that to say I lost interest about 30% through the book, because I realized there wasn't any plot. However, something resembling action picks up in the second half, and by the end the story makes a powerful point about taking a direction that defies the system and creates a better future. That ending made the rest of it worthwhile.

6 people found this helpful

Helpful

/recon

A Romantic and Poetic Take on Time Travel That Leaves You Pondering

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 20, 2023

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"This Is How You Lose the Time War" is a beautifully written and complex novel that explores the intricate concept of time travel. The two protagonists, Red and Blue, are agents from opposing factions in a future war, who begin to leave each other messages across different eras and realities, slowly building a connection and a sense of intimacy that blurs the lines between their allegiances.

The poetic and dreamlike writing style of the authors perfectly captures the ethereal nature of time travel, and the narrative alternates between Red and Blue's perspectives, giving the reader a glimpse into their respective worlds and personalities. The book is short but packed with imagination, and the stunning descriptions of different settings and scenarios will leave you in awe.

The only downside of the book is that at times the narrative can be hard to follow, and the non-linear structure of the story can be confusing. However, this is a minor issue that doesn't detract from the overall enjoyment of the book.

Overall, "This Is How You Lose the Time War" is a unique and beautiful take on the concept of time travel, and it will leave you pondering about the nature of love and loyalty. It's a must-read for anyone looking for a thought-provoking and romantic science fiction novel.

3 people found this helpful

Helpful

Kindle Customer

Thoroughly enjoyable

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 25, 2023

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A cool twist on the epistolary novel. I enjoyed watching the shift in the relationship between Red and Blue. It was slow but steady and the tonal shift in their letters was very satisfying to see. A brisk pace and interesting glimpses into the world of the time war alongside this developing relationship made me want to keep reading. Will definitely be recommending.

Helpful

Nick Wisseman (author)

Letters = Time Travel

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 5, 2021

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Letters are many things in Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone’s This Is How You Lose the Time War. Taunts between foes. Invitations to friendship. Missives of love.

They are also, at various points, tree rings, magma, and bubbles. (Seal guts are involved at one point too.)

This epistolary novella begins as a contest between two time travelers, the preeminent members of competing organizations bent on shaping the multiverse to fit their respective visions. Red works for the Agency, a technologically advanced version of humanity that’s implanted her with weapons and armor and pseudo-skin that can change form as required. Blue works for Garden, an organic hivemind whose members have evolved natural corollaries to these tools of destruction and deception. When deployed against each other, Red and Blue are “equal and opposite reaction[s],” as Blue terms them at one point, “a microcosm … of the war as a whole.”

Their struggle is the next thing to endless. Both are essentially immortal, capable of playing the longest of long games in one “strand” (i.e., potential timeline) after another. They might live out an entire life advising a variation of Genghis Khan, for example, and then skip to a resulting future to alter the outcome of a space battle, before circling back to a connecting past to ensure that the wind in an underground labyrinth “whistles over the right fluted bones,” so that “one pilgrim will hear the cry as an omen that will drive him to renounce all worldly goods and retreat to build a hermitage on a distant mountain slope, so that hermitage will exist in two hundred years to shelter a woman fleeing with child in a storm, and so it goes.” Sometimes these actions seem noble, like immunizing Native Americans centuries before contact with Europeans. But in other missions Red and Blue massacre millions.

And it wears. Early in the time war, it was probably easy for these adversaries to shrug off the psychic toll levied by their work—why bother with morality when there are multitudes, when London has so many incarnations they’re labeled with numbers and letters? Yet after eons of plotting and maneuvering and killing, the war goes on, and Red and Blue have little to show for their service.

Except their rivalry.

One-upping each other becomes a new challenge. Not just in the field—although they do plenty of showing off there too (subtle and otherwise). But after Blue rubs in a victory by sending Red a letter that can only be read by burning it, Red responds with a message that can only be read by boiling. From there, they concoct increasingly elaborate ways to continue their correspondence. In the process, their relationship changes, morphing from competition to curiosity to … something more.

It’s a fascinating tale.

The prose borders on poetry—mostly to the good, although I occasionally had trouble following the action. And I’m not sure all the time travel mechanics add up. (If Red and Blue can pinpoint their communications to the exact time and place the other will receive them, how have their parent organizations not figured out when and where to assassinate each other’s agents?) But I loved the ways El-Mohtar and Gladstone play with the concept of letters. “There’s a kind of time travel in letters, isn’t there?” muses Red at one point—words you can reread to take you back to a specific moment, no matter how long it’s been since you first read them.

The paper can vary. Same with the ink. But the transportive quality of letters endures. I only wish we wrote more of them in our current “strand.”

6 people found this helpful

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G. Wilson

I expected nothing and could not put it down

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 11, 2023

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I was told, "read this, it's 200 pages and look up nothing." And I trusted that stranger and I am greatful.

Wow. Beautiful, intriguing, wonderful.

3 people found this helpful

Helpful

Sara Machado Silva

Recommend for sci-fi and romance fans

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 29, 2023

Verified Purchase

<i> Dearest, deepest Blue— At the end as at the start, and through all the in- betweens, I love you. </i>

Time travel always gets my head in a knot.

I was expecting more from the worldbuilding but once you let go and just focus on red and blue relationship the book becomes very good.

Recommended for sci-fi and romance fans.

Helpful

Sravani Hotha

Greatest love story ever told

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 10, 2023

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Impossible to describe this book, but it’s the greatest love story ever told. Don’t read about it. Just read it.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Dylan Haston

one of the best books. hard to even say more

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 10, 2023

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love these two. there's quite nothing like this book

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

Simon Haine

No Time Lords

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on November 22, 2019

Verified Purchase

I didn't like this book. There were too many words to describe so little. I found it hard to read, to feel interested in the outcome.

Then it just clicked into place just after halfway through. The words were spun in such a way that kept me reading, long past times when I should have stopped. A finale so perfect that not to have read it would have been a crime in itself.

I loved this book. The characters were perfect as they fell in love through ingeniously created letters to each other; the traps, the Shadow, just all of it.

It's difficult to know how a book will grab you at the end. Had this book been longer, I might have stopped reading it. I'm glad I didn't, and I would certainly recommend you read it.

For the way this book caught me in the second half, I would have awarded five stars, "but I reserve a star, to encourage reach exceeding grasp."

29 people found this helpful

Alex

Beautiful prose, lack of substance

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on January 28, 2020

Verified Purchase

I had a real mixed experience with this book. What I want to make clear from the outset is that there are a lot of people who will absolutely love this 200 page novella. There were parts I loved, and there were parts I really couldn’t get to grips with or I felt let it down as a whole, which only gave me average overall enjoyment. I was in fact going to stop reading at 50% but am glad I continued as it improved past the halfway mark.

The main positive I found was the stunning prose. I have never read a more beautifully written book. It reads like poetry, like Shakespeare. The words ooze from the page like a meandering river of molten gold. For that alone I can recommend this book to at least experience this! The descriptions just make you feel good, the effect the same as looking at a beautiful painting or a sunset over the ocean.

The problem is, the abundance of flowery language can border on whimsical and pretentious, especially when prioritised at the expense of the plot. Eventually it becomes exhausting and overbearing. I found myself becoming frustrated with the lack of focus on the story and subsequently not appreciating the beauty of the prose.

On the plot, for the first half of the book at least, it feels pretty vague. Where in most stories the plot is at least in part a driving force, it feels more of an afterthought here, more of a “how can we fit a story around the interactions of these two characters and base it on time travel?” It is a backdrop for the story of the two characters’ developing relationship, which is the only thing looked at in detail.

The time travelling aspect for example, which was one of the main marketing sells, wasn’t explored in any depth. There was even a point where an Apatosaurus (a genus of Sauropod – not one of the dinosaur groups theorised to have feathers) was described as “ruffling its feathers” which suggests that the time travel wasn’t taken all that seriously. There was no real explanation into how it worked, what the agents were doing exactly or what the characters of Red and Blue were really trying to achieve (other than playing their part in the minimally described war between the Garden and the Agency in influencing and guiding their preferred version of history.) These historical and future events could have been explored to add more substance to the book, especially given in the synopsis the characters are apparently “hellbent on securing the best possible future for their warring factions.” Within the space of about 5 letters they seem to have disregarded the importance of this war and their role within it, consumed by their blossoming romance. Despite this, the romance is a plus point in many ways and it is enjoyable to witness a mutual intelligence and appreciation for the nuances of life drive two opposing agents towards one another. It is at times heartwarming, and heart wrenching, and you do definitely feel a strong desire to see Red and Blue find happiness and a solution to their situation.

The series of letters, which is what most of the book consists of, is a novel technique and certainly has its merits. It does stop it reading like a traditional novel/novella though which may affect the feeling of immersion for some readers. As mentioned above this also limits the worldbuilding or overall depth of the story and world this is taking place in. It’s certainly possible that the authors never intended to do much worldbuilding or give much information about the world, clearly choosing to focus on the characters. For me personally, I just couldn’t fully enjoy it due to an enticing and intriguing time travel war only being a backdrop to the story. If you don’t care about the events or the Time War so much as this character relationship told within it, this could be a 5 star read for you. And for those who don’t mind a divergence from the story but are looking for a page turner, after the 50% mark, it does get more exciting and more things do actually happen in the story. Just don’t expect a great deal of focus on anything past the love of the two characters or for their thoughts to be on anything but the other one of them.

For readers looking for the ‘fast paced’ ‘tour through time,’ ‘science fiction adventure’ described in this book’s description, you’d probably be better looking elsewhere.

11 people found this helpful

J. Ang

Love Transcending the Space-Time Continuim

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on July 24, 2022

Verified Purchase

I’ve always been a little wary of co-written works, because I’m skeptical about the cohesiveness of the writing. However, this slim and totally absorbing novel cast those apprehensions away. Much has been mentioned about the co-authors’ writing process, which I will not belabour here, but the epistolary structure of this novel lends itself well to it.

This is essentially a love story, but with a key difference, in that the two protagonists do not even exist in the same spatiotemporal dimension.

Blue and Red, as they are rather functionally named, are operatives from opposing camps in a multi-dimensional battle that spans millennia and realms, which is little hard for me to grapple with at first.

Blue is from “Garden,” which suggests nature, growth and life itself, while Red is from “Shift,” whose business appears to be to tamper with or engineer the “natural” course of history. We are told that Garden thinks “Shift relies too much on tricking time, evading it, skimming across its stones, dipping its distasteful toes, thinking to divert its currents by rippling its surface.”

Red, an agent of Shift, carries out these diversions by being an assassin of sorts, picking out those individuals whom the Agency determines should not be there, in order to redirect or “braid” the strands of time together.

She traverses these dimensions, moving “upthread” or “downthread” in her missions. Red reports to a Commandant, and though all the characters take on female pronouns, they do not always assume (human) physical forms.

They are bonded by the letters they send each other, which are embedded in a seed, in a fallen star, etc. But the fact that Red and Blue are time travellers also mean things don’t always have to be linear, so when one is forced to betray the other, this quality gives the whole story enough twists to keep the reader captivated.

This is an unusually entertaining sf novel that is intelligent yet does not set out to obfuscate with its cleverness. The writing is top notch, and the inventive vocabulary is so aptly used to convey refreshing insights. I only wish there was more of it to read, when i reached the end of it.

3 people found this helpful

Greatgreenbird

Didn't quite work for me but still extremely good

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on December 31, 2019

Verified Purchase

I can't say I'm massively surprised to discover that this novella, which a lot of people I know have raved about, is another of those books which just didn't quite work for me. I suspect that This is How You Lose the Time War stands a reasonable chance of picking up next year's Hugo but it left me cold - this happens more often than you'd think!

Anyway, the main plot is about time travel, two different authorities sending agents into the timeline to mess with things in the hope that they'll come out on top. Two particular agents, referred to as Red and Blue all the way through the novella, start a correspondence alongside their efforts to mess with each other's plans and end up falling in love. That's a very bare bones recital of a much more twisty plotline that really can't be explained without spoiling the whole thing.

In the end, I think for me the problem I had was that I liked the time travel aspect but really couldn't care less about the romance storyline, and then the whole thing was told in language that was at points intentionally opaque. If I wanted verbiage I needed to untangle, I'd stick to literary fiction, so I'm really not the audience for this novella. Best of luck to both authors, whose individual works I've really enjoyed, but this book just makes me have to work way too hard and I'm not here for that.

6 people found this helpful

Flex Mentallo

...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on September 23, 2019

Verified Purchase

Quite good, if you can handle 5-dimensional abhuman entities falling in love like two pretentious divorcees hitting it off at a creative writing evening class.

20 people found this helpful

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