This is How You Lose the Time War

📘 About This Book

WINNER OF Hugo Award for Best Novella Nebula Award for Best Novella Reddit Stabby Award for Best Novella British Science Fiction Association Award for Best Novella SHORTLISTED FOR 2020 Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award The Ray Bradbury Prize Kitschies Red Tentacle Award Kitschies Inky Tentacle Brave New Words Award Co-written by two award-winning writers, This Is How You Lose the Time War is an epic love story spanning time and space. Among the ashes of a dying world, an agent of the Commandant 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, grows into something more. Something epic. Something romantic. Something that could change the past and the future. Except the discovery of their bond would mean 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? 'A fireworks display from two very talented storytellers' Madeline Miller, author of Circe 'An intimate and lyrical tour of time, myth and history' John Scalzi, bestselling author of Old Man's War 'Lyrical and vivid and bittersweet' Ann Leckie, Hugo Award-winning author of Ancillary Justice 'Rich and strange, a romantic tour through all of time and the multiverse' Martha Wells, Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author of The Murderbot Diaries

📖 Summary

This Is How You Lose the Time War, co-written by Amal El-Mohtar, is an epic love story spanning time and space that captured the literary science fiction world by storm, sweeping major accolades including the Hugo, Nebula, British Science Fiction Association, and Reddit Stabby awards for best novella. At a mere 166 pages, the 2019 fiction release presents a dazzling, poetic narrative that reimagines time travel and cosmic conflict through an intensely intimate lens. The premise of the book centers on two rival agents who find themselves on opposite sides of a vast, sprawling war for the control of reality. One agent serves the Commandant, an entity of rigid structure and technological supremacy, while the other represents a rival faction rooted in organic, shifting futures. Across countless timelines, ruined landscapes, and dying worlds, these two brilliant operatives cross paths as mortal enemies, tasked with dismantling each other's work and securing the absolute dominance of their respective futures. The conflict takes a transformative turn among the ashes of a dying world when one of the agents discovers a physical letter left behind by the other. The message bears a simple, tantalizing directive: Burn before reading. What starts as a cautious battlefield taunt, a clever way to mock an adversary across the corridors of time, slowly evolves into something far more dangerous and profound. It grows into a secret correspondence, an unlikely conversation between bitter foes who begin to recognize the mirror image of their own loneliness, brilliance, and exhaustion within each other. As the letters multiply, hidden in increasingly inventive ways across pasts, presents, and futures, the two agents share pieces of their lives, their doubts, and their secret longings. They trade observations on the various realities they traverse, mocking their superiors while drawing closer through ink and clever concealment. What began as a game of psychological warfare transforms into an epic romance. They become tethered to one another, finding a rare and fragile intimacy in the vast emptiness of an endless war. Yet, this love affair takes place under the watchful, unforgiving eyes of opposing factions where sentimentality is treated as a fatal vulnerability. To love the enemy in a war spanning eternity is to invite absolute destruction. As the correspondence deepens, the agents must confront the terrifying reality of what it means to choose each other over the programmed futures they were created to serve. The novella explores the weight of duty versus desire, demonstrating how human connection and tenderness can persist even in the coldest, most mechanical reaches of space and time. Through its lyrical prose and breathtaking scope, the book offers a masterclass in modern science fiction storytelling, proving that the most powerful force in the universe is not technology or temporal dominance, but love.

🎯 Key Lessons

⚖️ Pros & Cons

✍️ About the Author

Amal El-MohtarView all books →

❓ FAQ

💬 💬 Reader Comments (0)