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    This Is How You Lose the Time War
    This Is How You Lose the Time War
    This Is How You Lose the Time War
    Ebook181 pages2 hours

    This Is How You Lose the Time War

    By Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

    4/5

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    • Time Travel

    • Identity

    • War

    • Love

    • Survival

    • Epistolary Novel

    • Chosen One

    • Star-Crossed Lovers

    • Time Travel Romance

    • Enemy Mine

    • Pen Pals

    • Epistolary Romance

    • Power of Friendship

    • Power of Love

    • Enemies to Lovers

    • Betrayal

    • Sacrifice

    • Letter Writing

    • Friendship

    • Nature

    About this ebook

    * HUGO AWARD WINNER: BEST NOVELLA * NEBULA AND LOCUS AWARDS WINNER: BEST NOVELLA *

    “[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.

    Editor's Note

    Hugo-winning novella…

    This Hugo Award-winning novella contains the chaos of all of time and space within its beautifully short, never-ending love story. Two women, named Red and Blue, fight for opposite factions in the ceaseless time war, flowing from the past to the future, from timeline to timeline. Through a series of letters sent via tea and lava and other delightful delivery systems, Red and Blue fall for each other, and combine for some of the best purple prose around.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster
    Release dateJul 16, 2019
    ISBN9781534431010
    Author

    Amal El-Mohtar

    Amal El-Mohtar is a Hugo Award-winning author of science fiction, fantasy, poetry and criticism, and the co-author of the New York Times bestseller This is How You Lose the Time War, written with Max Gladstone, which has been translated into over ten languages. Her reviews and articles have appeared in the New York Times and on NPR Books. She lives in Ottawa, Canada.

    Read more from Amal El Mohtar

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    Reviews for This Is How You Lose the Time War

    4/5

    2,080 ratings128 reviews

    What our readers think

    Readers find this title to be a heart-breakingly beautiful love story that spans lifetimes. The writing is stunning and the story is powerful, making readers think and feel. It is almost painfully beautiful and demands an immediate reread. The book is filled with metaphors and emotion, and the enemies to lovers trope is masterfully executed. While some readers found it confusing at the beginning, the love between the characters kept them interested. Overall, this book is a delightful, witty, and heartwarming read that is highly recommended.

    What did you think?

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    • 5/5

      Jan 26, 2025

      so good!! i was savoring this for months. the prose is buttery, the voice work equally so!!
    • 5/5

      Nov 16, 2024

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    • 2/5

      Mar 10, 2024

      I liked the concept of this book, but to be honest I think the letters became a bit tedious for me. It is beautiful writing, but I just didn’t feel like the relationship between red and blue was very authentic. A bit of a struggle to get through!
    • 2/5

      Jan 30, 2024

      Structurally an ill constructed work. The plot is not clear and depends in an outside explanation.
      The language usage pretends to be poetic but is quite elementary.
    • 5/5

      Jan 2, 2024

      Beautiful. Read reviews and it did not disappoint. A lovely adventure worth reading (in one sitting!)
    • 5/5

      Apr 25, 2023

      After a few chapters, I had to revisit the book again because I somehow couldn't distinguish who Red and Blue were fighting for. I also can't imagine how they look like. But the little allusions to their colors... I love those. The passion between these two just overwhelms me in the best way. And it ended in the most beautiful way. This is one novella I know I'll revisit soon.
    • 5/5

      Dec 25, 2022

      This has to be my favourite book ever. It is simply perfection.
    • 5/5

      Jul 23, 2022

      Beautiful. A heart-breakingly beautiful love story, that literally spans lifetimes.
      Red and Blue are enemies. Fighting a time war from rival sides. Chasing each other and fighting to win for their side. But what happens when a correspondence is started? When taunting leads to something more? More than either expected but something that was in the making down to their very cells.
      Are you a coward? Or a soldier? Or your own being?
    • 4/5

      Apr 28, 2021

      Eine gelungene Mischung aus Dr. Who, Briefroman und Romanze. Dass das gelingen kann, beweist dieser vorzüglich komponierte Roman.
    • 5/5

      Jun 26, 2020

      Beautiful, rich with metaphors and emotion. I am spellbound and broken.
    • 5/5

      Jun 25, 2020

      I loved everything about this book. It’s was just so beautiful and the last few chapters took my breath away.
    • 3/5

      Nov 11, 2019

      This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone is a very descriptive, unique and beautifully written story about two rival time travelers — Red and Blue — who end up falling in love through the letters they exchange oftentimes in very discrete and creative ways). The characters were well developed through their narrative and the storyline was interesting but I felt that the novel was lacking in some ways. Throughout the book I was curious about their backgrounds, Red and Blue’s history, the details of the worlds and the factions each was fighting for and ultimately why they were at war. I would have liked some more “meat” to the story even though I suspect that was not the intention of the authors. The ending was good and left me a bit more satisfied with the story. Overall I give it 3.5 out of 5 stars.
    • 4/5

      Jan 31, 2025

      Another re-read. First read this in 2020, and absolutely loved it but found myself a little less enamoured upon rereading. Still extremely romantic, and full of beautiful prose, but apparently I've changed and simply found it less engaging this time. This is definitely a “me” problem, however, and I'd still recommend this to anyone who enjoys lovely words, yearning, and science fiction.
    • 2/5

      Dec 18, 2024

      This is an implausible love story between two implausible people behaving implausibly in an implausible situation. It’s quite elegantly written, and I didn’t dislike it, but I didn’t become engaged in it, because I couldn’t believe in any of it.

      The two protagonists fight on opposite sides of a seemingly endless and ruthless time war; they come from very different societies. They begin a sort of correspondence, very much at arm’s length and without meeting each other, and despite their differences and their remoteness from each other, they somehow fall in love with each other. Could this really happen? Maybe, but I’m sceptical; and the authors failed to convince me.
    • 5/5

      May 27, 2022

      This reminded me a lot of the night circus
    • 5/5

      Feb 8, 2022

      This is the most beautiful, many-layered, unconventional love story I’ve ever read. I demands an immediate reread.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5

      Jan 26, 2022

      Words can not express how much I love this book!

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5

      Jan 20, 2023

      did i understand this properly? who's to say.
      i was here for the stunning writing, to be honest.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 2/5

      Oct 18, 2024

      Ralph guinea-pigged it for me, as it's short and on audio. He says confusing, pay attention, but worth the time and effort.
      ---
      on hold ebook cuz it looks to win poll for TT group August 2021
      ---
      It did win the poll. More discussion there.

      I'm disappointed. Difficult to parse the writing style, the 'poetry' took a long time to read - all for what felt to me like an ending that was a foregone conclusion.
    • 5/5

      Apr 12, 2022

      A really well-crafted book. Tells the story of two protagonists from antagonistic futures who travel back and forth among different timelines, trying to bend the arc of history towards their own future. The "sci" part of sci-fi is groundless but serves as a perfect framing for a very inventive plot.
    • 5/5

      Jan 7, 2023

      Lovely writing, unique and poetic . Like honey and razor blades mixed together.
    • 5/5

      Apr 15, 2020

      Fenomenal!

      A true ode to the enemies to lovers trope as well as mastery of the purple prose. Don't try to understand it too much -- some things are meant to be slightly vague. Just let yourself experience it.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5

      Jan 4, 2023

      This is a great epistolary novella set with the two main characters on opposite sides of a war that spans through time and various parallel worlds. What starts as taunts back and forth from both Red and Blue it slowly evolves to friendship and respect and then something more. As each message is written to be read once and then destroyed in so many different ways a mysterious third person has been collecting both sets of notes and reading them. By the end of the story the third party is revealed, and it makes for a great read.
    • 5/5

      Oct 26, 2024

      This is how we win
    • 5/5

      Feb 19, 2022

      An absolute love poem of a time travel novel.
    • 3/5

      Dec 1, 2022

      My hopes were way too high for this.

      The premise of star-crossed lovers on different sides of a time war is a delicious one, and I'm always one for an enemies to lovers storyline. I was expecting profound scifi, but that's not really what I got.

      The writing was way too, lets say ambitious, for me. I'm sure it's beautiful to a lot of people, but for me it got in the way of what was actually being said.

      And in the end, it all got a little too predictable and cliched for me.
    • 3/5

      Nov 17, 2022

      I thought this book was solidly good. The writing was gorgeous, which was one of the reasons why I liked it so much. I also really liked the back and forth of the letters and how witty and beautiful they were. I think I was expecting more of a solid connection between Red and Blue, though, so I think that's why I didn't love it as much. I'm used to more drawn out romances rather than a strange, budding connection between strangers. Very fast read, I will say that. I read this in two days. I think that if this book had just been entirely letters it would've had a more emotional impact on me, but I liked it nonetheless.
    • 5/5

      Sep 19, 2021

      A truly strange piece of work, but also addictive and fresh and surprisingly delightful.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5

      Jul 15, 2023

      I was given a recommendation to read this blind, shout-out to Bigolas Dickolas. While I admit it took me the first 20 or 30 pages to really "get" what was going on, I will admit it hit me like a truck once I did. The story itself isn't anything too groundbreaking, but what will stick with me wasn't the plotting or meticulously crafted twist, it was the characters and their poetic letters to each other with phrases and prose that shifted my outlook on life. I consider myself a romantic, so perhaps this hits harder for me than others, but seeing phrases like "I want to meet you in every place I have ever loved" in a queer love story espouses a profound beauty wrapped up in a quick novel.
    • 5/5

      Feb 19, 2023

      i loved everything about this book. if the genre “post-apocalyptic murder wives” makes your soul sing, this is the book for you

      1 person found this helpful

    Book preview

    This Is How You Lose the Time War - Amal El-Mohtar

    Cover: This Is How You Lose the Time War, by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

    Amal El-Mohtar

    This Is How You Lose the Time War

    This book has it all. —MADELINE MILLER, New York Times bestselling author of Circe

    Max Gladstone

    Logo: Book Club Favorites. Reader’s Guide

    Seditious and seductive. —KEN LIU

    CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP

    This Is How You Lose the Time War, by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone, Saga Press

    Publisher’s Notice

    The publisher has provided this ebook to you without Digital Rights Management (DRM) software applied so that you can enjoy reading it on your personal devices. This ebook is for your personal use only. You may not print or post this ebook, or make this ebook publicly available in any way. You may not copy, reproduce, or upload this ebook except to read it on your personal devices.

    Copyright infringement is against the law. If you believe the copy of this ebook you are reading infringes on the author’s copyright, please notify the publisher at: simonandschuster.biz/online_piracy_report

    .

    To you.

    PS. Yes, you.

    When Red wins, she stands alone.

    Blood slicks her hair. She breathes out steam in the last night of this dying world.

    That was fun, she thinks, but the thought sours in the framing. It was clean, at least. Climb up time’s threads into the past and make sure no one survives this battle to muddle the futures her Agency’s arranged—the futures in which her Agency rules, in which Red herself is possible. She’s come to knot this strand of history and sear it until it melts.

    She holds a corpse that was once a man, her hands gloved in its guts, her fingers clutching its alloy spine. She lets go, and the exoskeleton clatters against rock. Crude technology. Ancient. Bronze to depleted uranium. He never had a chance. That is the point of Red.

    After a mission comes a grand and final silence. Her weapons and armor fold into her like roses at dusk. Once flaps of pseudoskin settle and heal and the programmable matter of her clothing knits back together, Red looks, again, something like a woman.

    She paces the battlefield, seeking, making sure.

    She has won, yes, she has won. She is certain she has won. Hasn’t she?

    Both armies lie dead. Two great empires broke themselves here, each a reef to the other’s hull. That is what she came to do. From their ashes others will rise, more suited to her Agency’s ends. And yet.

    There was another on the field—no groundling like the time-moored corpses mounded by her path, but a real player. Someone from the other side.

    Few of Red’s fellow operatives would have sensed that opposing presence. Red knows only because Red is patient, solitary, careful. She studied for this engagement. She modeled it backward and forward in her mind. When ships were not where they were supposed to be, when escape pods that should have been fired did not, when certain fusillades came thirty seconds past their cue, she noticed.

    Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action.

    But why? Red has done what she came to do, she thinks. But wars are dense with causes and effects, calculations and strange attractors, and all the more so are wars in time. One spared life might be worth more to the other side than all the blood that stained Red’s hands today. A fugitive becomes a queen or a scientist or, worse, a poet. Or her child does, or a smuggler she trades jackets with in some distant spaceport. And all this blood for nothing.

    Killing gets easier with practice, in mechanics and technique. Having killed never does, for Red. Her fellow agents do not feel the same, or they hide it better.

    It is not like Garden’s players to meet Red on the same field at the same time. Shadows and sure things are more their style. But there is one who would. Red knows her, though they have never met. Each player has their signature. She recognizes patterns of audacity and risk.

    Red may be mistaken. She rarely is.

    Her enemy would relish such a magic trick: twisting to her own ends all Red’s grand work of murder. But it’s not enough to suspect. Red must find proof.

    So she wanders the charnel field of victory and seeks the seeds of her defeat.

    A tremor passes through the soil—do not call it earth. The planet dies. Crickets chirp. Crickets survive, for now, among the crashed ships and broken bodies on this crumbling plain. Silver moss devours steel, and violet flowers choke the dead guns. If the planet lasted long enough, the vines that sprout from the corpses’ mouths would grow berries.

    It won’t, and neither will they.

    On a span of blasted ground, she finds the letter.

    It does not belong. Here there should be bodies mounded between the wrecks of ships that once sailed the stars. Here there should be the death and dirt and blood of a successful op. There should be moons disintegrating overhead, ships aflame in orbit.

    There should not be a sheet of cream-colored paper, clean save a single line in a long, trailing hand: Burn before reading.

    Red likes to feel. It is a fetish. Now she feels fear. And eagerness.

    She was right.

    She searches shadows for her hunter, her prey. She hears infrasonic, ultrasound. She thirsts for contact, for a new, more worthy battle, but she is alone with the corpses and the splinters and the letter her enemy left.

    It is a trap, of course.

    Vines curl through eye sockets, twine past shattered portholes. Rust flakes fall like snow. Metal creaks, stressed, and shatters.

    It is a trap. Poison would be crude, but she smells none. Perhaps a noovirus in the message—to subvert her thoughts, to seed a trigger, or merely to taint Red with suspicion in her Commandant’s eyes. Perhaps if she reads this letter, she will be recorded, exposed, blackmailed for use as a double agent. The enemy is insidious. Even if this is but the opening gambit of a longer game, by reading it Red risks Commandant’s wrath if she is discovered, risks seeming a traitor be she never so loyal.

    The smart and cautious play would be to leave. But the letter is a gauntlet thrown, and Red has to know.

    She finds a lighter in a dead soldier’s pocket. Flames catch in the depths of her eyes. Sparks rise, ashes fall, and letters form on the paper, in that same long, trailing hand.

    Red’s mouth twists: a sneer, a mask, a hunter’s grin.

    The letter burns her fingers as the signature takes shape. She lets its cinders fall.

    Red leaves then, mission failed and accomplished at once, and climbs downthread toward home, to the braided future her Agency shapes and guards. No trace of her remains save cinders, ruins, and millions dead.

    The planet waits for its end. Vines live, yes, and crickets, though no one’s left to see them but the skulls.

    Rain clouds threaten. Lightning blooms, and the battlefield goes monochrome. Thunder rolls. There will be rain tonight, to slick the glass that was the ground, if the planet lasts so long.

    The letter’s cinders die.

    The shadow of a broken gunship twists. Empty, it fills.

    A seeker emerges from that shadow, bearing other shadows with her.

    Wordless, the seeker regards the aftermath. She does not weep, that anyone can see. She paces through the wrecks, over the bodies, professional: She works a winding spiral, ensuring with long-practiced arts that no one has followed her through the silent paths she walked to reach this place.

    The ground shakes and shatters.

    She reaches what was once a letter. Kneeling, she stirs the ashes. A spark flies up, and she catches it in her hand.

    She removes a thin white slab from a pouch at her side and slips it under the ashes, spreads them thin against the white. Removes her glove, and slits her finger. Rainbow blood wells and falls and splatters into gray.

    She works her blood into the ash to make a dough, kneads that dough, rolls it flat. All around, decay proceeds. The battleships become mounds of moss. Great guns break.

    She applies jeweled lights and odd sounds. She wrinkles time.

    The world cracks through the middle.

    The ash becomes a piece of paper, with sapphire ink in a viny hand at the top.

    This letter was meant to be read once, then destroyed.

    In the moments before the world comes apart, she reads it again.

    Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!

    A little joke. Trust that I have accounted for all variables of irony. Though I suppose if you’re unfamiliar with overanthologized works of the early Strand 6 nineteenth century, the joke’s on me.

    I hoped you’d come.

    You’re wondering what this is—but not, I think, wondering who this is. You know—just as I’ve known, since our eyes met during that messy matter on Abrogast-882—that we have unfinished business.

    I shall confess to you here that I’d been growing complacent. Bored, even, with the war; your Agency’s flash and dash upthread and down, Garden’s patient planting and pruning of strands, burrowing into time’s braid. Your unstoppable force to our immovable object; less a game of Go than a game of tic-tac-toe, outcomes determined from the first move, endlessly iterated until the split where we fork off into unstable, chaotic possibility—the future we seek to secure at each other’s expense.

    But then you turned up.

    My margins vanished. Every move I’d made by rote I had to bring myself to fully. You brought some depth to your side’s speed, some staying power, and I found myself working at capacity again. You invigorated your Shift’s war effort and, in so doing, invigorated me.

    Please find my gratitude all around you.

    I must tell you it gives me great pleasure to think of you reading these words in licks and whorls of flame, your eyes unable to work backwards, unable to keep the letters on a page; instead you must absorb them, admit them into your memory. In order to recall them you must seek my presence in your thoughts, tangled among them like sunlight in water. In order to report my words to your superiors you must admit yourself already infiltrated, another casualty of this most unfortunate day.

    This is how we’ll win.

    It is not entirely my intent to brag. I wish you to know that I respected your tactics. The elegance of your work makes this war seem like less of a waste. Speaking of which, the hydraulics in your spherical flanking gambit were truly superb. I hope you’ll take comfort from the knowledge that they’ll be thoroughly digested by our mulchers, such that our next victory against your side will have a little piece of you in it.

    Better luck next time, then.

    Fondly,

    Blue

    A glass jar

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