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

**I received an ARC from Netgalley. These are my honest opinions, and in no way was I compensated for this review.**

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

Release Date: July 16, 2019

My Rating: 3.5 stars

Summary: Among the ashes of a dying world, an agent of the Commandant finds a letter. It reads: Burn before reading.

And 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.

Except discovery of their bond would be death for each of them. There’s still a war going on, after all. And someone has to win that war. That’s how war works. Right?

I'll admit, I was confused by much of This Is How You Lose the Time War; it's set during a war, one that's throughout time, so there's a lot of jumping around and whatnot. I found myself skimming the chapters, and this is a novella so there's not much to skim.

However, it's in the letters where this book shines. Red and Blue are soldiers on opposite sides of the war, and they play a cat and mouse game across time, slowly falling in love. Their letters portray an ache that only gay literature can capture, honestly. I highlighted so many lines in both of their letters because it was hard not to feel their yearning and hunger for more, for a better life together. This book was truly peak gay literature.

Here are some of my favorite quotes so you can see what I'm talking about:

     Ten years into deep cover, having joined the horde, proven her worth, and achieved the place for which she strove, she feels suited to this war.
     She has suited herself to it.

Do you sleep, Red, or dream?

Tell me something true, or tell me nothing at all.

And this letter is a knife at my neck, if cutting's what you want.

You wrote of being in a village upthread together, living as friends and neighbors do, and I could have swallowed this valley whole and still not have sated my hunger for the thought.

     Your letter, the sting, the beauty of it. Those forevers you promise. Neptune. I want to meet you in every place I ever loved.
     Listen to me — I am your echo.
     I would rather break the world than lose you.

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About the Authors: Amal El-Mohtar is an award-winning author, editor, and critic. Her short story "Seasons of Glass and Iron" won the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus awards and was a finalist for the World Fantasy, Sturgeon, Aurora, and Eugie Foster awards. She is the author of The Honey Month, a collection of poetry and prose written to the taste of twenty-eight different kinds of honey, and contributes criticism to NPR Books and The New York Times. Her fiction has most recently appeared on Tor.com and Uncanny Magazine, and in anthologies such as The Djinn Falls in Love & Other Stories and The Starlit Wood: New Fairy Tales. She is presently pursuing a PhD at Carleton University and teaches creative writing at the University of Ottawa.

Max Gladstone is the author of the Hugo-nominated Craft Sequence, which Patrick Rothfuss called "stupefyingly good." The sixth book, Ruin of Angels, was released this September. Max's interactive mobile game Choice of the Deathless was nominated for the XYZZY Award, and his critically acclaimed short fiction has appeared on Tor.com and in Uncanny Magazine, and in anthologies such as XO Orpheus: Fifty New Myths and The Starlit Wood: New Fairy Tales. John Crowley described Max as "a true star of twenty first century fantasy." Max has sung in Carnegie Hall and was once thrown from a horse in Mongolia.