Happy new week, friends! Have you ever read a book that was never meant to be completely understood and imagined? The one I am sharing about today is that book for me. Ariel recommended This is How You Lose the Time War to me a couple months back. I loved the audiobook and the story. And this post is what I think it is about.
This is How You Lose the Time War
By Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone | Goodreads
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.
This is How You Lose the Time War – Review
A time war is in our midst. There are two factions with the influence on time: there are the androids, the artificial bio-engineered machines like Red (I think of them as Murderbots) and the organic, earthy shapeshifting elf-like creatures that Blue is one of.
Blue makes first contact with Red through a letter as Red is getting ready to leave at the end of a mission. Thus begins a very creative correspondence between Red and Blue over the course of multiple timelines, worlds, cities and substances. Handwritten letters are rare in this book. Red and Blue communicate through seeds, flowers, bones and chemicals. There is so much care in how they communicate. Sometimes it takes 6 months for Blue to make something Red will read and destroy after reading. The bottom line is that it does not matter that I don’t get it how they do what they do. I know what they are doing.
Their correspondence grows into something more and they hold a special place in each other’s hearts. It takes them a while to realize and confess it. Red is more forward than Blue. Blue has more violent fantasies than Red. They are enemies who have never met each other face to face and have yet spent a long time being each other’s shadows. They know their unique signatures. Through their questions and answers, they start to learn about each other and their factions. There may be a doubt that this is a set up and one will betray the other but I never felt that way and neither did they. They are smart and highly qualified agents, one of the best that their factions have got. They are not fools. Or are they?
The worlds and timelines that Red and Blue visit as they receive these letters is peripheral to the story. Sometimes, they stay in a place for years. They take on roles of wife, warrior, forest, sometimes, they are there with the sole purpose to destroy everything, staying just for the time to cause and finish havoc. There are dinosaurs, Geghis Khan, Julius Caesar, London, old books and places I no longer remember. The familiarity was helpful. Red and Blue’s uncaring attitude towards their environment and existence in the timeline as they focused on the messages the other had left for them was religious. I loved the violence around which their love grows. They start off as being in different factions but at some point, the ‘you’ in This is How You Lose the Time War starts to mean their factions.
I quite enjoyed the play on colours and use of synonyms as endearments. So many ways of saying blue and red! One of my favourites was the hex codes and ‘Miskowaanzhe’, Anishinaabemowin for “red light”. The phrases and words represent a world of culture and nature.
With time travel science fiction, I always want to know how time travel is happening. What enabled it? How long has it been around? This is How You Lose the Time War made me forget all my general questions. The story is mesmerizing and I did not care how any of it came to be. The pieces of personal history from Red and Blue about their creation was enough. I would scream this from the top of a building (though probably social media would have a better effect) that this book is stellar and I have never read a love like the love between Red and Blue.
I collected many quotes about Blue and Red’s love and am slowly sharing them on Instagram.
“I love you. I love you. I love you. I’ll write it in waves. In skies. In my heart. You’ll never see, but you will know. I’ll be all the poets, I’ll kill them all and take each one’s place in turn, and every time love’s written in all the strands it will be to you.”
“Love is what we have, against time and death, against all the powers ranged to crush us down.”
Other quotes:
“Books are letters in bottles, cast into the waves of time, from one person trying to save the world to another.”
“To paraphrase a prophet: Letters are structures, not events. Yours give me a place to live inside”
Song for This is How You Lose the Time War: The Great War by Taylor Swift
“You drew up some good faith treaties
The Great War by Taylor Swift
I drew curtains closed, drank my poison all alone
You said I have to trust more freely
But diesel is desire, you were playin’ with fire
And maybe it’s the past that’s talkin’
Screamin’ from the crypt
Tellin’ me to punish you for things you never did
So I justified it”
Have you read This is How You Lose the Time War? Add it to your Goodreads shelf.
I also mentioned it in my recent post about Books with LGBTQIA+ Representation which I adore – the speculative fiction edition that you can check out for other books I love. This book was also a Nominee for Best Science Fiction (2019).
Thanks for reading! 🙂 Have a great day!
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