''This Is How You Lose the Time War'' is a 2019

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel uni ...

epistolary novel An epistolary novel is a novel written as a series of letters. The term is often extended to cover novels that intersperse documents of other kinds with the letters, most commonly diary entries and newspaper clippings, and sometimes considered ...

by Amal El-Mohtar and

Max Gladstone Max Gladstone (born May 28, 1984) is an American fantasy author. He is best known for his 2012 debut novel ''Three Parts Dead'', which is part of ''The Craft Sequence'', his urban fantasy serial ''Bookburners'', and for co-writing ''This Is How You ...

. It was first published by

Simon and Schuster Simon & Schuster () is an American publishing company and a subsidiary of Paramount Global. It was founded in New York City on January 2, 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. As of 2016, Simon & Schuster was the third largest pub ...

. It won the

BSFA Award The BSFA Awards are literary awards presented annually since 1970 by the British Science Fiction Association (BSFA) to honour works in the genre of science fiction. Nominees and winners are chosen based on a vote of BSFA members. More recently, m ...

for Best Shorter Fiction, the

Nebula Award for Best Novella The Nebula Award for Best Novella is given each year by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) for science fiction or fantasy novellas. A work of fiction is defined by the organization as a novella if it is between 17,500 and 4 ...

of 20192019 Nebula Award Finalists Announced
at

Science Fiction Writers of America The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, doing business as Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association, commonly known as SFWA ( or ) is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization of professional science fiction and fantasy writers. Whil ...

, published February 20, 2020; retrieved February 20, 2020 and the 2020

Hugo Award for Best Novella The Hugo Award for Best Novella is one of the Hugo Awards given each year for science fiction or fantasy stories published or translated into English during the previous calendar year. The novella award is available for works of fiction of between ...

.2020 Hugo Awards Announced
at

The Hugo Awards The Hugo Award is an annual literary award for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year, given at the World Science Fiction Convention and chosen by its members. The Hugo is widely considered the premier ...

; retrieved August 1, 2020

Synopsis

As agents Red and Blue travel back and forth through time, altering the history of multiple universes on behalf of their warring empires, they leave each other secret messages—at first taunting, but gradually developing into flirtation and then love. When Red's commanding officer detects the interaction between Red and Blue, she forces Red to send Blue a message that will kill Blue when it is read. After Blue is killed, Red time-travels to Blue's childhood to give her immunity to the poisoned message, allowing her to survive.

Reception

Publishers Weekly ''Publishers Weekly'' (''PW'') is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers, and literary agents. Published continuously since 1872, it has carried the tagline, "The International News Magazine of ...

'' called ''This Is How You Lose the Time War'' "exquisitely crafted" and "dazzling", with "increasingly intricate wordplay", and stated that it "warrants multiple readings".This Is How You Lose the Time War
reviewed at ''

''; published March 14, 2019; retrieved October 27, 2019 ''

National Public Radio National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other ...

''s Jason Sheehan compared it to '' The Lake House'' (if one "strapped 'The Lake House''up in body armor, covered it with razors, dipped it in poison and set it loose to murder and burn its way across worlds and centuries"), and said that the book makes a virtue of what he felt to be the characteristic weaknesses of both the time travel genre and the epistolary format.Letters Serve To Bond Time-Traveling Rivals In 'This Is How You Lose The Time War'
by Jason Sheehan, at National Public Radio; published July 18, 2019; retrieved October 27, 2019 Cheryl Morgan argued that its central message — "soldiers on either side of a war often have far more in common with each other than they do with the people who sit safely at home and issue orders" — is one "that the world needs to hear".This is How You Lose the Time War
by Cheryl Morgan, at Cheryl-Morgan.com; retrieved October 27, 2019

Tor.com ''Tor.com'' is an online science fiction and fantasy magazine published by Tor Books, a division of Macmillan Publishers. The magazine publishes articles, reviews, original short fiction, re-reads and commentary on speculative fiction. From 20 ...

's Lee Mandelo considered the book to have "a

poetic Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings in a ...

internal structure", with prose that is "sharp, almost crisp" rather than "lush", and a "focus (...) on the personal as opposed to the global"; Mandelo also observed that it "has an argument to make—several, actually—about conflict, love, and resistance", and treats the time war as "an object lesson, a conceit, the unending and reason-less conflict that consumes generations, centuries, now and forever."To Encourage Reach Exceeding Grasp: This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
by Lee Mandelo, at

; published July 16, 2019; retrieved October 27, 2019 ''

Den of Geek ''Den of Geek'' is a US and UK-based website covering entertainment with a focus on pop culture. The website also issues a bi-annual magazine. History ''Den of Geek'' was founded in 2007 by Simon Brew in London. In 2012, DoG Tech LLC licensed ...

''s Natalie Zutter praised the novel's approach to

gender identity Gender identity is the personal sense of one's own gender. Gender identity can correlate with a person's assigned sex or can differ from it. In most individuals, the various biological determinants of sex are congruent, and consistent with the ...

: Red and Blue "both use she/her pronouns, but neither fits the

heteronormative Heteronormativity is the concept that heterosexuality is the preferred or normal mode of sexual orientation. It assumes the gender binary (i.e., that there are only two distinct, opposite genders) and that sexual and marital relations are most ...

mold of femininity", with each "perform(ing) gender in a dozen different ways", such that "(t)he more that (they) appear in different forms, the less their gender actually matters."This Is How You Lose the Time War Solves the Time Traveler’s Wife Problem
by Natalie Zutter, at ''

''; published July 15, 2019; retrieved October 27, 2019 At ''

Strange Horizons ''Strange Horizons'' is an online speculative fiction magazine. It also features speculative poetry and nonfiction in every issue, including reviews, essays, interviews, and roundtables. History and profile It was launched in September 2000, and ...

'', Adri Joy noted that "the Time War itself (...) is largely incomprehensible beyond its most basic points", faulting the novel for its paucity of "direct tension" and lack of "coherent picture", and for its "poetic obfuscation" which was "hard to understand" and not "relevant to the story being told here"; however, Joy nonetheless lauded the novel as "an absolute emotional masterpiece, sending readers on a gut-wrenching feelings rollercoaster of the highest calibre."THIS IS HOW YOU LOSE THE TIME WAR BY MAX GLADSTONE AND AMAL EL-MOHTAR
reviewed by Adri Joy, at ''

''; published September 9, 2019; retrieved October 27, 2019 '' Black Gate'' found it to be neither "a riddle to parse" nor "a tangled, hard sci-fi puzzle-box of time travel to unravel", with its final revelation being "fairly obvious from the first chapter", but emphasized that the revelation in question was nonetheless "quite ''emotionally'' fulfilling", ultimately concluding that "it's fun to watch goddesses fall in love (...) and Blue and Red feel very much human."''This Is How You Lose the Time War'' by Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone
reviewed by Steve Case, at Black Gate; published July 14, 2019; retrieved October 27, 2019

Awards

''This Is How You Lose the Time War'' won the

for Best Shorter Fiction, the

of 2019, the 2020 Locus Award for Best Novella, the 2020

, the 2020

Prix Aurora Award The Aurora Awards (french: Prix Aurora-Boréal) are a set of primarily literary awards given annually for the best Canadian science fiction or fantasy professional and fan works and achievements from the previous year."Literary glow of Auroras lur ...

for short fiction,2020 Aurora Awards
at

File 770 ''File 770'' is a long-running science fiction fanzine, newszine, and blog site published/administered by Mike Glyer. It has been published every year since 1978, and has won a record eight Hugo Awards for Best Fanzine, with the first win in ...

; by

Mike Glyer Mike may refer to: Animals * Mike (cat), cat and guardian of the British Museum * Mike the Headless Chicken, chicken that lived for 18 months after his head had been cut off * Mike (chimpanzee), a chimpanzee featured in several books and documen ...

; published August 15, 2020; retrieved August 15, 2020 and was a finalist for the 2019

Shirley Jackson Award The Shirley Jackson Awards are literary awards named after Shirley Jackson in recognition of her legacy in writing. These awards for outstanding achievement in the literature of psychological suspense, horror and the dark fantastic are presented a ...

in the Novella category. Additionally, it was a finalist for the inaugural

Ray Bradbury Ray Douglas Bradbury (; August 22, 1920June 5, 2012) was an American author and screenwriter. One of the most celebrated 20th-century American writers, he worked in a variety of modes, including fantasy, science fiction, horror, mystery fictio ...

Award for Science Fiction, Fantasy & Speculative Fiction at the 2019 ''Los Angeles Times'' Book Prizes; and for the 2019

Kitschies The Kitschies are British literary prizes presented annually for "the year's most progressive, intelligent and entertaining works that contain elements of the speculative or fantastic" published in the United Kingdom. Awards and criteria The Ki ...

in the Novel category; and achieved second place in the 2020

Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award The Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award is an annual literary award presented by the Theodore Sturgeon Literary Trust and the Center for the Study of Science Fiction at the University of Kansas to the author of the best short science fiction story ...

Creation

Red's letters were written entirely by Gladstone, and Blue's by El-Mohtar; although they wrote a general outline beforehand, "the reactions of each character were developed with a genuine element of surprise on receiving each letter, and the scenes accompanying he letterswere written using that emotional response".

Adaptation

El-Mohtar announced in 2019 that the book has been

optioned In the film industry, an option is a contractual agreement pertaining to film rights between a potential film producer (such as a movie studio, a production company, or an individual) and the author of source material, such as a book, play, or s ...

for television, with scripts to be written by herself and Gladstone; she also specified that the genders of the characters "are not up for negotiation".

References

External links

Audio interview with Amal El-Mohtar
at CBC.ca {{Nebula Award Best Novella 2019 American novels 2019 Canadian novels Novels about time travel Temporal war fiction Epistolary novels Collaborative novels LGBT speculative fiction novels Saga Press books Nebula Award for Best Novella-winning works Hugo Award for Best Novella winning works Canadian LGBT novels 2019 science fiction novels