A study in love letters and yearning : This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone (Review)

A/N: This review contains mild spoilers for This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone. This is your spoiler warning.

An eternal war between two agencies being fought across multiple universes and generations. Two of their best agents, locked in combat, competition and eventually passion. And love letters written, carved and burnt into histories and possible futures.

This is How You Lose the Time War is an award-winning, science fiction, epistolary novella set in a war between two factions- Garden and the Commandment, where the agents of each faction move across time and space through alternate universes and historical events to build a future favourable for their agency. Caught in the expansive war are Agents Red and Blue who scheme and plot to sabotage each other, crossing paths and taunting each other through letters. They each twist and braid the threads of time, alone in their missions which eventually leads them to seek the other as company. The letters of mockery turn into ones of understanding and eventually to confessions of love. A love that is forbidden and impossible, a love for their worst enemy.

We follow Agent Red and Agent Blue as they uncover Atlantis, fight along with Genghis Khan, help build and destroy civilisations, trigger volcanic eruptions and stab Caesar for fun(?). They live lives undercover, slowly shaping a desired outcome as they change the course of events, often alone with few friends to speak off even back home- they find solace by writing to each other and hiding their words in unlikely pockets of time and space. We uncover letters written into the rings of old trees, written onto beetles and carved into the heart of geese. The longing to be understood and their yearning for love left me with an ache in my bones.

Max Gladstone and Amal El-Mohtar craft a story with complex wordplay and intricate metaphors. The sci-fi world-building with its nod to history, mythology and physics was absolutely chef’s kiss. I can’t fathom the brain power required to come up with such genius ideas. This book made me understand how layered writing can be because it delivers on language, plot and character development while hitting every emotional beat. 

In all honesty, I was absolutely frustrated and devastated by the ending. I wanted more closure after all the pain and metaphors the authors put me through. I can objectively acknowledge the beauty of this book and still be a little hater about the ending. But I’d honestly encourage you to give this book a shot, that’s why I tried really hard to not spoil it in the review. 

This Is How You Lose the Time War made me laugh, cry and scream. If art is supposed to make you feel, this book is an excellent portrait of love and yearning. I highly recommend this to people who enjoy enemies to lovers, love letters, epistolary stories and poetic writing. 

A/N: I’m going to pretend that I did not disappear and pray that you didn’t notice either. Thank you for reading the fourth installment in my ‘Nebula Novella’ series where I read and review novellas which have won the Nebula Award in the past few years. 

To read the previous installment, here’s my take on Ring Shout by P. Djèlí Clark.

I mildly regret choosing to review the novellas without adding quotes and annotations because I have a hundred for this book. I wish I could show you how beautiful the writing truly was, and I’m hoping you discover it for yourself.

I’m including a few just as an exception.

“Some days Blue wonders why anyone ever bothered making numbers so small; other days she supposes even infinity needs to start somewhere”

“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.”

“To paraphrase a prophet: Letters are structures, not events. Yours give me a place to live inside”

“I love you and I love you and I love you, on battlefields, in shadows, in fading ink, on cold ice splashed with the blood of seals. In the rings of trees. In the wreckage of a planet crumbling to space. In bubbling water. In bee stings and dragonfly wings”