I grew up reading science fiction and fantasy. Over time, science fiction took a back-seat to Tolkien, Jordan, and William (to name a few). Although I’ve dabbled in Golden Age Sci-fi, This is How You Lose the Time War was a return to contemporary science fiction for me.

Time War is a epistolary masterpiece. It was written by two authors (Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone) as an exchange of ‘letters’ between Red an Blue—two rival operatives fighting for control of time and existence itself. Simon and Schuster Audio made the right decision casting two narrators—Cynthia Farrell and Emily Woo Zeller—to record the letters.

Two plot devices operate simultaneously here. On the one hand, I wanted to know who would win and how they’d accomplish it. Would it be Red’s technological efficiency or Blue’s verdant garden. More important is the relationship that develops between the letter writers. All of this is couched in evocative language that strikes the reader a sense of otherness and beauty.

Time War is the sort of book I’ll return to more than once, if for nothing more than to soak in the poetic language of El-Mohtar and Gladstone.

El-Mohtar, Amal and Max Gladstone. This is How You Lose the Time War. Narrated by Cynthia Farrell and Emily Woo Zeller, audiobook ed., Simon and Schuster Audio, 2019.