[REVIEW] This Is How You Lose The Time War, by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

(Buy it from Bookshop)

This may be the unlikeliest romance novel I have ever read.

Red and Blue are super soldiers in the time war, traveling across the 4th dimension bending history through sheer violence. Somehow, they begin a mocking correspondence, taunting each other while busy sinking Atlantis and riding with Genghis Khan to manipulate various timestreams. The taunts turn to banter; the banter to confessions; then, like all good romances, after girl-meets-girl there’s contrived misunderstandings, heartfelt declarations and sacrifice of near-Shakespearean scope. However, when all is said and done they are dimension-traveling human bioweapons, so the shape that these time-honored tropes form around Red and Blue are often unfamiliar, surprising and very entertaining.

It took a while for this to gel for me, but I’m glad I stuck with it. Time War is creative, well-crafted and–dare I say it?–kind of cute. Red and Blue’s sappy hyperbolic letters to each other drew quite a few unexpected smiles from me. Also, I can’t remember the last time I read something in English that made me look words up while reading–but this book stretched my vocabulary delightfully. This is clearly a book by, for and about the nerdiest sort of bookworm and I dig it.

I liked this a lot but I didn’t love it entirely. I want to, but the start is so slow I almost quit reading. Also, after working hard to keep readers on our toes through the intertwining plots, the ending is rather predictable. I can’t give this book my whole heart, but I might write it a letter or two, see where things go.

4.5 stars and a drawerful of paper and ink to This Is How You Lose The Time War.

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