This is How You Lose the Time War – Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone

Occasionally, particularly after devouring a long series, I like to treat myself to something a bit more immediate, something that doesn’t require a map, a glossary, or a cast list. A bit of a palate cleanser, if you will, before digesting the next course, variety is the spice of life and all that. There’s a few sources I tap for this sort of a read, kid’s books are always reliable sources of upbeat storytelling, alternatively a novella can be a nice way to revisit some old friends or enjoy a brief liaison with new ones.

This is How You Lose the Time War, unlike its title, is certainly brief, two- and a-bit hours brief. The book is a sequence of scattered vignettes, initially abstract snippets of seemingly unrelated narrative, set in different worlds at different times. The only common thread being the alternating presence of Red or Blue, agents of opposing forces in the Time War. Each chapter ends with a letter exchanged between Red and Blue, this correspondence acts as exposition and over the course of several chapters the plot slowly materialises.

Once I’d overcome my early bewilderment, I was mesmerised by the imagination required to create the variety of settings and the quality of the writing necessary to bring these locations to life in a relatively miniscule amount of words. It helps of course that the emerging story is a bit of a page turner. On the subject of which, I’d recommend reading this book in one hit if you can, I feel that to do otherwise would diminish the enchantment somewhat.