After giving This is How You Lose the Time War a five star review, I started scrolling through other reviews and I found thoughtful, well reasoned arguments for the other side. This is a thoroughly crafted well written book that is not going to be to everyone’s taste.
The premise is two opposing secret agents, saboteurs, time and history manipulators who work for conflicting civilizations become aware of each other and start to exchange letters. It becomes a love story.
The nature of the work each main character does to manipulate history across many centuries and many parallel universes makes the narrative confusing. I can’t imagine it done effectively any other way, but I also like other confusing time shifting stories where the story starts to make sense later.
The characters only meet through their letters with a couple of exceptions, so some say the love story is unbelievable. For me, it reflects the extreme isolation and loneliness of their work and how even minimal tenuous companionship of a peer would satisfy a gaping need.
The writing includes extravagant romantic feelings and poetic literary allusions to go with the science fiction and time travel aspect. I appreciated it, but people who like romance and poetry don’t always like science fiction and time travel and vice versa.
The authors lean into the epistolary format. It’s not exclusively letters but a significant percentage of the writing is the letters these two characters exchange.
This book reminds me of some classic novels that also are somewhat polarizing.
!Romeo and Juliet, (I know a play), Tale of Two Cities, O Henry Gift of the Magi!<
The creative forms the letters take were fun for me and seemed like a valid extrapolation of actual historical spycraft if you assumed much greater ability to manipulate matter. However some people find them over the top.
It is an exuberant, enthusiastic book that is fun if you like it and possibly cringy if you don’t
The characters only meet through their letters with a couple of exceptions, so some say the love story is unbelievable. For me, it reflects the extreme isolation and loneliness of their work and how even minimal tenuous companionship of a peer would satisfy a gaping need.
This is a perfect summary of that point.
I read this book last winter, and I absolutely loved it. But, like you, I can see how it would not appeal to everyone.
I also really really enjoyed this book! It wasn’t necessarily my favorite in any of the categories it belongs in but it felt like a little capsule I was in with these two very isolated characters, I was super invested.
I feel like I need to read it with the audio book going at the same time. It’s just a little too convoluted for how I imagine books in my head. I just can’t seem to grasp what’s going on for visual pictures.
It reminded me of Pratchett’s Thief of Time. But yeah, epistolary novels like plays don’t give you the reader a lot of visual cues to go on.
As for convoluted, I was definitely relying on my experience with Time travel novels and with spy novels to make sense of their motivations, actions etc. The letters themselves reminded me of love poems I have studied both from English literature and from the Middle East.
I read this not too long ago and completely forgot anything about it. Oh well
Oh hey, wasn’t this that book with the bigolas dickolas thing?
I googled bigolas dickolas, and yes it was. Interesting how social media can increase word of mouth exposure exponentially or logarithmically in unpredictable ways.
I googled bigolas dickolas, and yes it was. Interesting how social media can increase word of mouth exposure exponentially or logarithmically in unpredictable ways.
Yeah I did not enjoy it at all
I loved the plot and I typically like poetic writing but the style for this didn’t fully work for me, it was almost overwritten or felt like they were trying too hard to be poetic. Some of the sentences felt clunky and didn’t flow very well.
If it was executed better I would love it, still enjoyed reading though!
I just read this two days ago. I thought I’d split it up between Saturday and Sunday but just got through it in one day. I even thought about reading it again on Sunday but my eyes were too tired lol I returned it to the library, but I do kinda feel like I should have held onto it to re-read at some point over this coming long weekend. Seems like something that would be great to re-read.
It was stylistically unlike what I normally read. Which I didn’t know would be the case going into it. However, I think that’s what I enjoyed most. I’m a “go with the flow” kind of reader, which might be weird for someone who mainly reads epic fantasy, and I think that’s the type of reader who will get the most enjoyment from this novella.
What I really liked about this book is that the language is very synesthesic/ sensory based. Like others have said, if you’re into reading as a sensory experience rather than a plot experience, it’s great but I can understand why others may struggle with that kind of language.
I feel like both elements were interesting, but neither was given the time to thrive
The writing is undoubtedly beautiful, but I think I might just be too smooth brained to full relate to/comprehend the style, plus I love dialogue lmao. It’s still objectively a great book though
It definitely helps to have some familiarity with the history of technology and with history in general to have a sense of what these agents are trying to do.
The style is extremely poetic. They make the reader work.
I am so confused by this book. I am reading so slowly and carefully and I still feel like I have no idea what’s going on. I’m only 35 pages in, but I’m already losing patience. Does it get easier to read? Does it start to make sense at a certain point?
TLDR, two secret agents, working for opposing sides, are time traveling and attempting to shape history to their specific, contrasting purposes. I liked it, but I plan to read it again because I missed a lot that I would understand better after having read the story. The perspective is based on these two individuals and they themselves don’t know much about the broader context.
This author expects you to pick up from context clues within the letters, where you are in history, and what the agent is trying to do to either promote or interfere with technological development in a timeline. It honestly would help a lot if the editor had added footnotes with wikipedia links related to the history of technology.
I first read it and really enjoyed it. And then listened to it several months later and enjoyed it even more.
“…some say the love story is unbelievable…” LOL, it’s a f___ing time travel story – but the love story? Totally not realistic.