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This Is How You Lose The Time War by Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone

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This Is How You Lose The Time War

by Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone

Length 4 hours 15 minutes

Language English

Narrators Cynthia Farrell & Emily Woo Zeller

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Bookseller recommendation

“How to begin a letter? How to begin a letter to your best enemy? This story takes place through the ages, between two-time traveling agents who must braid and unbraid the fabric of time in an effort to usher in their opposing futures. I read this twice before finishing it. This book is a book to savor.”
— Lafe • Oblong Books

Bookseller recommendation

“This book was beautifully written in love letter style. While it was slightly confusing for the first few chapters once I sunk into the plot I couldn't stop until it was finished. It was beautifully complex while still simple. 10/10 recommend. ”
— Lindsay • Plot Bound Books

Bookseller recommendation

“For Science Fiction lovers we have the Nebula awards, released at the end of May each year. Winning Best Novella in 2020, THIS IS HOW YOU LOSE THE TIME WAR by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone is one of those books that uses the science-y elements of time travel and other worlds to tell a very familiar story about human nature and the unpredictable and identity-shaping effects of falling in love. This is a book I recommend listening to especially, because the two readers help you to hear the nature of the two characters shift, as they hunt each other in a cosmic battle across eons, while also seeing the brilliance in the other. Their plight is alluring, dangerous, and romantic. The writing is cutting and fierce. You will listen to this story, and then want to start over and listen to it again.”
— Kim • Lark & Owl

Bookseller recommendation

“Agents for opposite sides of a war without an end or beginning find themselves drawn to one another. It starts as a little deadly competition, but it quickly becomes clear that it's more than just fascination. Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone work together like steak and a fine wine. Some of the most beautiful prose, and two of the most complex characters ever written, This is How You Lose the Time War is a tragic love story wrapped in science fiction. Emily Woo Zeller and Cynthia Farrell narrate with such emotion that the listener believes every word they say. This is one of my favorite Audiobooks of all time.”
— Sophie • Cavalier House Books

Bookseller recommendation

“This has become my comfort audiobook... it's perfect for a road trip and is just barely over 4 hours long. Co-authored by a poet and a science fiction author, it's a story told in alternating points of view through letters that bridge the infinities between space and time. This isn't, by any means, hard science fiction, nor is it a book of poems... it's some fantasy hybrid of the two, and features two time agents, Red and Blue, who are waging an ancient war against one another. It's the type of story I immediately wanted to reread, to retrace my steps and appreciate the nuance woven throughout with the ending in mind. It's weird, visceral, disarming, romantic, and full of fantastically witty banter. Don't walk into this story expecting to get all the answers. Just enjoy the ride through time. ”
— Amber • Banned Wagon Books

Bookseller recommendation

“Mood readers will love this book. It’s all vibes, with the plot coming in secondary and mattering very little. Symbols upon symbols, time travel and experimentation with writing form. What an experience. ”
— Alecia • Wallflower Bookshop

Bookseller recommendation

“Such an interesting futuristic story! The battle of Red versus Blue - tech vs. garden - through time was a fun trip to read. I especially enjoyed how the main characters by fighting each other grew to love each other. It was also super nice to read a sci-fi book that isn't 1,000 pages long and still have enough detail that you aren't lost in the physics.I listened to this story on libro.fm. It was especially easy and enjoyable to follow as there were different voice actors for the different characters.”
— Kelly • M. Judson Booksellers

Bookseller recommendation

“I was so enchanted by this book that once I finished it, I started it over from the very beginning. I have reread it many times and each time I find something new to marvel. It's beautiful, lyrical, gripping, epic and incredibly romantic, leaving its scent on readers like a fragrance transferred between loves.”
— Zinna • A Great Good Place for Books

Summary
About the authors

#11 in Bestselling Science Fiction Audiobooks

* HUGO AWARD WINNER: BEST NOVELLA * NEBULA AND LOCUS AWARDS WINNER: BEST NOVELLA *

“[An] exquisitely crafted tale...Part epistolary romance, part mind-blowing science fiction adventure, this dazzling story unfolds bit by bit, revealing layers of meaning as it plays with cause and effect, wildly imaginative technologies, and increasingly intricate wordplay...This short novel warrants multiple readings to fully unlock its complexities.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

From award-winning authors Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone comes an enthralling, romantic novel spanning time and space about two time-traveling rivals who fall in love and must change the past to ensure their future.

Among the ashes of a dying world, an agent of the Commandment 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, becomes something more. Something epic. Something romantic. Something that could change the past and the future.

Except the discovery of their bond would mean the death of each of them. There’s still a war going on, after all. And someone has to win. That’s how war works, right?

Cowritten by two beloved and award-winning sci-fi writers, This Is How You Lose the Time War is an epic love story spanning time and space.

Fiction Romance Science Fiction Fantasy

Amal El-Mohtar is an award-winning author, editor, and critic. Her short story “Seasons of Glass and Iron” won the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus awards and was a finalist for the World Fantasy, Sturgeon, Aurora, and Eugie Foster awards. She is the author of The Honey Month, a collection of poetry and prose written to the taste of twenty-eight different kinds of honey, and contributes criticism to NPR Books and The New York Times. Her fiction has most recently appeared on Tor and Uncanny Magazine, and in anthologies such as The Djinn Falls in Love & Other Stories and The Starlit Wood: New Fairy Tales. She is presently pursuing a PhD at Carleton University and teaches creative writing at the University of Ottawa. She can be found online at @Tithenai.

Max Gladstone is the author of the Hugo-nominated Craft Sequence, which Patrick Rothfuss called “stupefyingly good.” The sixth book, Ruin of Angels, was released September 2017. Max’s interactive mobile game Choice of the Deathless was nominated for the XYZZY Award, and his critically acclaimed short fiction has appeared on Tor and in Uncanny Magazine, and in anthologies such as XO Orpheus: Fifty New Myths and The Starlit Wood: New Fairy Tales. John Crowley described Max as “a true star of 21st-century fantasy.” Max has sung in Carnegie Hall and was once thrown from a horse in Mongolia.