On the 6th of May 2023 a Twitter user who calls himself bigolas dickolas tweeted the following, encouraging his followers to stop what they’re doing and pick up a copy of “This Is How You Lose The Timewar”. As so often with social media trends, I can’t say if and how much I contributed to the (at the time of writing) 17.7 million impressions the tweet got, but what is certain, is the fact, that the stunning cover of the book appeared a lot more often in my social peripheral vision and reminded me about the already dusty copy of the book, which just sat on my shelf.

Now, a couple of days later, I have given my copy a good dusting and have already finished reading. So, what do I think about it? It’s not that simple.

First things first. What is it actually about? The setting is the year 1950, 1601, 1409312 and maybe even -100231204. The main protagonists are agents of opposing organizations from a future so advanced, they can travel through time and have the habit of using this capability to subtly influence the past and future to suite their needs in the time war. Each chapter of the book can roughly be split in two: One half contains a bouquet of situational depictions from the point of view of Red or Blue (the aforementioned agents), the other half contains letters written from one to the other.

Can we now talk about what I think? Still: No. I first have to tell you, what the story isn’t.

The story about Red or Blue isn’t a very hard Science Fiction story, which explains the rules of the fictional universe or even how they travel through time, besides the fact, that they use the “each decision leads to multiple parallel strands of future” model. It is also not an easy read if you’re not used to complex prose. Let me give you an example out of context:

I have been birds and branches. I have been bees and wolves. I have been ether flooding the void between stars, tangling their breath into networks of song. I have been fish and plankton and humus, and all these have been me. But while I’ve been enmeshed in this ­wholeness—they are not the whole of me.

Now the time has come for me to write about what I think about the words that lay so beautifully displayed before me. In the grand scope of things, the story wasn’t anything totally new or overly complex. How complex could it have been, after all it’s only slightly above 200 pages, but those pages overflow with the most beautiful writing. It honestly feels like the author, Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone, were totally free to express their story without limits and - in opposition to my small attempt at the beginning of this paragraph - they totally succeeded. They used the prose to elegantly characterize the two protagonists of the story. It’s clearly distinguishable which one of them comes from a “clean” or “sciency” background and who is closer to nature. I have to be honest: In the beginning I was very confused about what’s happening, but in the end, the emotions totally hit.

Conclusion: I have to give it 8 out of 10 stars in general and 9.5 out of 10 stars as a book of its genre. The two general stars were deducted, as it certainly isn’t a book for everyone. Otherwise: Try it. It’s short and if it’s for you, you will be greatly rewarded. Oh. And to use the words of bigolas dickolas: Don’t let yourself be spoiled more than I already did to you. I’m very, extremely serious. ;)