‘This is How you Lose the Time War’ by Max Gladstone and Amal El-Mohtar

Overall Rating: Highly Recommended (How I Rate Books)

Personal Rating: Re-read. Still one of the best books I’ve ever read

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Genres: Sci Fi, Time Travel, LGBT, Fantasy, Romance, Adult, Novella/Small Novel, Literary Fantasy, Literary SciFi

Similar books:

• Circe, in the sense of being a semi-episodic, character based story, with beautiful prose, told over a scope and scale of hundreds if not thousands of years.

Previous books by the author/in the series I’ve reviewed:

• Max Gladstone:
  • Full Fathom Five by Max Gladstone
  • Body Problems
  • Three Parts Dead
  • Last First Snow
  • Two Serpents Rise
  • Four Roads Cross
  • This is How You Lose the Time War
  • Full Fathom Five
• Amal El-Mohtar:
  • None (Yet)

Spoilers below. You’ve been warned!

I’m re-reading this as a part of the Sword and Laser bookclub. To see my initial review, click here.

This book is as good as I remember. I suggest you check out my initial review for further, because I stand by it.

I’ll add that as I read it this time I was marveled by the fact that this book was written by two people. I’m left wondering how they planned this story out, or if they took the gardener’s path of letting the story grow for itself as they wrote it. The fact that both POVs had such a consistent narrative theme/authorial style really does make the overall finished product feel that much stronger. I liked how you could tell that Red and Blue’s segments were written by different people, but that they were similar enough that it felt like something from the same universe of style.