Scan barcode
A review by dragonarmy
This Is How You Lose the Time War by Max Gladstone, Amal El-Mohtar
5.0
I have a BookTube channel where I review books, give reading suggestions, and more! Check it out here: https://www.youtube.com/dragonarmybooks
---
Actually kind of amazing.
I honestly had no idea what I was reading. I came to this book in the very best way, blind as a bat. And while I still didn't know what exactly to make of the story at the halfway point, once I reached the conclusion, I was enamored.
In brief, This Is How You Lose the Time War is a wholly unique story of two agents from rival agencies set on manipulating the timeline in order to thwart the efforts of the other. The two agents, Red and Blue, are the best in the field. They taunt each other with coded letters left in unexpected times and places. Gradually, their taunts turn into something more...
This is an incredibly quick read. The chapters are extremely short, typically setting the scene before one of the characters finds a coded letter. Then, we get a few pages with the letter's contents before moving on to the next chapter and the next character. It goes back and forth like this until the end when the pacing and drama both pick up and bring us to a climactic conclusion.
If the story and approach aren't special enough, the dueling authors took a poetic, abstract approach at prose. The writing style is certainly going to be divisive. It is abnormal. It took me a long time to get use to and by the end there was still many things said, explained, or described that I still couldn't make sense of. Nevertheless, the prose is beautiful. El-Mohtar and Gladstone really do a stellar job creating a world that is both familiar and foreign, dreadful and beautiful. A theme that carries through the prose to the story to the inevitable fates of the agents, Red and Blue.
---
Actually kind of amazing.
I honestly had no idea what I was reading. I came to this book in the very best way, blind as a bat. And while I still didn't know what exactly to make of the story at the halfway point, once I reached the conclusion, I was enamored.
In brief, This Is How You Lose the Time War is a wholly unique story of two agents from rival agencies set on manipulating the timeline in order to thwart the efforts of the other. The two agents, Red and Blue, are the best in the field. They taunt each other with coded letters left in unexpected times and places. Gradually, their taunts turn into something more...
This is an incredibly quick read. The chapters are extremely short, typically setting the scene before one of the characters finds a coded letter. Then, we get a few pages with the letter's contents before moving on to the next chapter and the next character. It goes back and forth like this until the end when the pacing and drama both pick up and bring us to a climactic conclusion.
If the story and approach aren't special enough, the dueling authors took a poetic, abstract approach at prose. The writing style is certainly going to be divisive. It is abnormal. It took me a long time to get use to and by the end there was still many things said, explained, or described that I still couldn't make sense of. Nevertheless, the prose is beautiful. El-Mohtar and Gladstone really do a stellar job creating a world that is both familiar and foreign, dreadful and beautiful. A theme that carries through the prose to the story to the inevitable fates of the agents, Red and Blue.