"This Is How We Lose The Time War" can also be titled "This Is How We Do Mozart or Monet, Using The Printed Word". Seldom have I read something that created such vivid, incredible images in my mind as this book has done. Amal el-Mohtar and Max Gladstone, amazing with their own books, have created something truly precious with this collaborative effort.
The story revolves around two agents, tops in their field, from warring dystopian/empyrean organizations, who travel time's threads in a continuous, effort to take any advantage for themselves and wreak havoc on the other side. Some of these actions are shockingly bloody, yet the beauty of the prose transcends sensationalism or "ick" factors. The story gets going when one agent leaves a letter for the other, sort of a "ha-ha, I won this round", taunting message. Of course, the other agent needs to do the same the next time around. This continues, and with each letter, one opens up a little bit more to the other, and both discover a kindred spirit and a blossoming, powerful love.
I am not a huge fan of epistolary novels, but the format works here. Through this medium, each agent feels the loneliness and empty works of themselves and the other, an unacknowledged hunger for each other's love in the midst of a bloody war, with leaders who would destroy them if their empathy and feelings for one another became known. The reader feels their struggle and, despite the odds, their burgeoning happiness...no matter how it ends.
This is, simply, one of the most wondrous novels I have ever read. Highly recommended.
The story revolves around two agents, tops in their field, from warring dystopian/empyrean organizations, who travel time's threads in a continuous, effort to take any advantage for themselves and wreak havoc on the other side. Some of these actions are shockingly bloody, yet the beauty of the prose transcends sensationalism or "ick" factors. The story gets going when one agent leaves a letter for the other, sort of a "ha-ha, I won this round", taunting message. Of course, the other agent needs to do the same the next time around. This continues, and with each letter, one opens up a little bit more to the other, and both discover a kindred spirit and a blossoming, powerful love.
I am not a huge fan of epistolary novels, but the format works here. Through this medium, each agent feels the loneliness and empty works of themselves and the other, an unacknowledged hunger for each other's love in the midst of a bloody war, with leaders who would destroy them if their empathy and feelings for one another became known. The reader feels their struggle and, despite the odds, their burgeoning happiness...no matter how it ends.
This is, simply, one of the most wondrous novels I have ever read. Highly recommended.