Book Review: This is How You Lose the Time War

This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar


This book came recommended to me from various sources and it seemed like right up my alley: literary science fiction that defies tropes and conventions. Time travelers from two different factions alter timelines to lean reality towards their own end. Red’s faction is militaristic and orderly, headed by someone called “Commandant.” Blue’s faction is organic and wild, named “Garden.” Red and Blue send each other letters, taunting one another and extending challenges. Each is one of the best agents of their own side. As the letters go on, taunts reveal more admiration and less animosity, until the two agents form a deep and unlikely friendship.

Of course it can’t last.

The book is short (audiobook comes in less than five hours) and the prose is purple. Everything is a metaphor. Seeds are letters. Time travellers are felting needles. Timelines are twisting strands. On one hand, the book is full of sensuous details, lush descriptions of time and place and taste and smell and exotic landscapes. On the other hand, everything is a metaphor. It felt like listening to a 4 ½ hour long poem. Whether you like this book will depend on “it’s a 4+ hour poem” sounds sublime or tortuous. As for me, it got to feel like a bit of a slog in the middle and I felt like it could have been even shorter because I don’t have a lot of patience for poetry. I’m happy about the ending, and I’m glad I read it, but it’s not quite my cup of tea and I’m not sure who I might recommend it to.




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