Tildes Book Club discussion - This is How You Lose the Time War by El - Mohtar and Gladstone
This is the seventh of an ongoing series of book discussions here on Tildes. We are discussing This is How You Lose the Time War by el-Mohtar and Gladstone. Our next book will be Kindred by Octavia Butler around the end of October.
I don't have a particular format in mind for this discussion, but I will post some prompts and questions as comments to get things started. You're not obligated to respond to them or vote on them though. So feel free to make your own top-level comment for whatever you wish to discuss, questions you have of others, or even just to post a review of the book you have written yourself.
For latecomers, don't worry if you didn't read the book in time for this Discussion topic. You can always join in once you finish it. Tildes Activity sort, and "Collapse old comments" feature should keep the topic going for as long as people are still replying.
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oh wow oops i totally read kindred just in time for this discussion.... 😅
This book was not what I was expecting... at all! I thought it would be a pretty standard scifi story involving a time war, complete with all the scifi, war, and time travel tropes I'm intimately familiar with, and yet still enjoy. But even though it was almost about the exact opposite of what I expected, being essentially just love letters written between two soldiers in said time war, I still absolutely loved it!
I found their meandering through alternative timelines fascinating. The tension building all throughout was fantastic, and I was constantly worried about how and when it would start to go wrong for them. But, probably most importantly of all, I found the poetry in their letters to one another to be genuinely beautiful. Heck, even the surreal and abstract ways in which they sent their "letters" to each other was beautiful in its own way. And the paradoxical, looping nature of their love for each other was truly heartwarming. I'm also a sucker for a happy ending though, so I choose to imagine that Red successfully escaped the prison, and together they were able to carve out a place (and time) for themselves to live happily ever after together, in the end.
I can definitely see this becoming a regular reread for me!
Wow! I'm so glad you liked the book well enough to consider rereading it.
I also loved the poetic language and I have a head canon of a happy ending for them. I don't however think I will read it again soon. I did really enjoy the book.
It was an incredibly pleasant surprise! However, to be clear, I probably won't read it again "soon" either, i.e. within a year. But I will likely be adding it to the list of books I regularly reread every few years.
Time War had a discussion on the site about a year ago where I left some thoughts. Rather than write them out again, I'll quote earlier me:
Because I'd read it in the last couple years and didn't particularly enjoy it, I decided not to re-read it for the book club. I wasn't sure if I should even say anything since I didn't want to leave a negative comment, but I figure if it helps kick off discussion it may still be welcome.
I know you were a fan of the book, @boxer_dogs_dance. Did you end up re-reading it for the discussion?
Thanks for asking. I didn't reread but I will add some thoughts after more people have written something, assuming that they do. I didn't vote for this one actually and I am hoping to hear from people who did.
I will say that the ways this book surprised me when I went into it knowing nothing was part of what I liked about it.
I also went in knowing nothing, but knew I was intrigued by the idea of a "time war". It seems like a really fun scifi concept to explore. In the end it wasn't really a scifi book though, and the time war was mostly just a thematic backdrop for the character focus. And that's totally fine. I think I assumed too much from the title, and that's on me.
It does leave me wanting for an actual time war story though. Imagine, future civilizations using their advanced technologies to manipulate the past. Their ancestors getting wise to it, and leaving traps through time to fight back. Weaponized time capsules! Political espionage! Sexy aliens! Intrigue!
If anyone has any recommendations for something like that, I'm all ears! The closest I can think of is the show Travelers, which was actually pretty good.
this is a great way to put it!
actual time war is kinda hard cos time travel is such a difficult trope to get right. but the closest thing I can think of is yoon ha lee's machineries of empire. it does not have a time war but it does have a general whose persona is reincarnated at different times which I think is a cool way to have a character experience (one-direction) time travel
That sounds really neat, and reviews online all agree that it's a very unique and interesting series. So thanks for the rec, it's officially backlogged! There's a character in the Dune series that goes through a similar process. It seems like a very clever way to get exposition on the differences of each era through a familiar lens.
I just finished reading Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh, which won the Hugo for best novel. I really enjoyed it, and I'd say it fits your criteria for a time war story.
I'll assume that you're familiar with The Terminator movies? Not a book, but they are definitely time war, and at least the first two are classic. There was also a TV series with Summer Glau as the Terminator that was pretty good, though it had a disappointing cliffhanger ending.
Thank you for the recommendations. I'm looking into Some Desperate Glory now.
I've watched the first two Terminators, and definitely enjoyed them. I wasn't so into the franchise to also watch the associated TV show but I have to admit to being a huge Summer Glau fan. So good recs, thanks!
Have you seen Tenet? I think it's almost exactly what you're asking for.
I actually haven't. I'd definitely be willing to watch this in movie form instead of book form though, so thanks for suggesting it!
Loving how many recommendations this comment has already generated. Thanks everyone!
oh yeah if we're including movies then Looper for sure
To me this book is mostly vibes and I'm ok with that because to me it's beautiful. But I don't really analyze this one because I'm just existing with it. the idea of the spies who fall in love is not unique but I've never read a book that hits quite the surrealism of a time war so well. Nothing makes sense because it couldn't possibly make sense as the timelines change with each action.
Idk I really enjoy this one but I'm not sure how I can talk about it.
Mostly vibes feels like a good description. While I was reading I kept thinking how this would probably make a good Terrence Malick movie.
I agree with the "mostly vibes" sentiment. It didn't feel like a fully complete story but did remind me of serialized stories that people would post on their own websites in the 90s and I think that is part of the vibes-ness of it for me.
I, too, liked it and can't really figure out how to talk about it. I have discussed it a bit in real life and mostly just direct people towards or away from it based on how excited they are by the title, which seems to get the wrong audience really excited.
You know that feeling right after you wake up, where the dream you just had is now slipping through your grasp, and the things that made perfect sense in the dream don't make any sense at all now that you're awake?
That's kind of what reading this book felt like to me.
That's not a criticism, but a commendation. The book was surreal, dreamlike, hazy. It didn't feel a need to explain itself, which I appreciated, because it managed to maintain a mystique throughout. I didn't ever fully understand what was going on, but I also always had enough of a grounding that I wasn't ever too bothered by that either.
I, like many others, knew nothing going in, so the fact that it was a romance book took me by complete surprise.
Romance is not my usual genre. I connected with a few romance books when I was younger and more of a lonely heart, but they tend to fall flat for me now. I appreciated that this one was unlike any other romance book I've ever read or even heard of. I even hesitate to call the love expressed between Red and Blue "romance" because it felt like their connection was something altogether different -- something that can't be experienced in our world.
There's a Laura Veirs song called "Galaxies" that I thought of while reading this book. I first fell in love with the song for the wrong reason -- I misheard one of the lyrics. What she actually sings is
She's describing crying (the good kind!).
Well, I misheard that section of the song, and I thought she said:
It was such an arresting lyric for me at the time -- a powerfully cosmic eroticism. For quite a while, I had no idea that I'd misheard it. After all, it fit thematically with the song. Stars fill up her eyes, and galaxies pull down her jeans. Makes sense. The song itself is filled with bold, sci-fi inspired romantic imagery, so it felt right at home. I loved that phrasing and thought it was really clever songwriting -- a unique variation on intimacy I'd never encountered before.
I was, of course, wrong about the lyric, but my feelings about it were true to what I thought Veirs was saying. I bring it up because this book provoked the same feeling in me. Red and Blue didn't feel like people so much as they felt like cosmic entities, supreme beings, powerful super-somethings, and their affinity for one another had an intensity and an inaccessibility that matched that. Their love didn't feel like human love. It felt other-worldly; extra-dimensional. I thought that was compelling and interesting.
I also thought of Tildes while I read the book. What is commenting if not leaving messages that we hope other people will read? Blue and Red knew each other through their words, and they developed a striking connection. I think a lot of us here have developed connections, exclusively through words. They certainly aren't as intense as Red and Blue's but are nonetheless real.
I power-read the book very quickly. I wasn't intending to, but when I saw this topic go live and I realized I hadn't started on it (and that my library loan was going to be due soon), I barreled through as quickly as I could. I think this was a mistake, because this is a book to be sipped, not guzzled. It feels like you're supposed to sit in it and think about it. I wish I'd done that more.
What do you think about the author's choice to provide limited background knowledge about the war and its strategy?
Counter to what most other people here are saying, I kind of liked that the time war and the strategies were not fleshed out. It reminded me of Obi Wan mentioning the Clone Wars and giving not other explanation: we aren't meant to dwell on the time war, the factions, or the reasons behind the war. Similar to Romeo and Juliet, it doesn't seem like the reason for the feud is important, just that it's a story of two characters on either side of the feud. I think, in some ways, this can make a story deeper in some ways by allowing a reader to project their own feelings and interpretations on the war into the story. How well did it work here? I can't really say because I also feel that the War itself is meant to be specifically a non-character and that we, the readers, were meant to not get caught up in the details.
I agree, I think it would be really incredible to have a story about the war itself, but a series of letters would probably be a sub-par way to learn that, and the limited information from both Red and Blue and our learning about the characters is the magic of the story.
Meta question, would you liked to be added to the notification list for the book club? I'm also asking @tanglisha and @nefara would you like to be notified going forward?
Yes, please.
Oh, sure, if you want to add me to the notifications. I'm not sure I'll get to all/many/any of the books, I'm a horrendously slow reader. But I love reading the discussions and will add in when I can.
Thanks! I'll decline, I usually follow my own reading list, I just hopped in since I had read this particular book in the past year.
I came into reading this book not knowing much but intrigued by the title.
So, where I'd been expecting a story about time travel, I was surprised by the narration from the perspectives of only the two characters and their letters.
This obviously works to keep the focus on the characters and their love story, which was intriguing in itself, but also sometimes disorienting for me with the jumps from scene to scene.
Overall I think I'd have preferred a story that took a little time to add a few more details, but then of course it wouldn't have been the book it is.
I think I assumed that was because the nature of the war meant that the background and strategy would change like any other future would change. Any real background would be a point in time that could be completely different from chapter to chapter. It would need to be described many times.
The author didn't really go over time travel rules. The characters and their organizations seemed fixed, but since the orgs' goals include wiping each other out nothing is really fixed. It's kind of surprising to me that both characters continued to exist with the same personalities through so many changes.
I really liked this story, although I understand how it may not be every sci-fi reader's cup of tea. Would I like to read an epic that really delves into a time-war, with its lore-rich universe, its politics, its factions, its technologies, and its mind-bending strategems? Yes! But I don't think it needs to be this one.
The focus of this story is the developing relationship between the two main characters, the unusual circumstances in which they interact, and how they eventually abandon their old lives for each other. I think it succeeds here, on the strength of its 'vibes' as another user commented.
Why do you think red and blue take the risk to open each other's letters, in spite of threats of poison and the risk of lethal consequences?
There are many vague allusions that give clues to when the characters might be in history or in relation to the history of technology, and also to pop culture. Do you think you identified some of these? Did you find this choice by the author to be interesting or frustrating or both?
I enjoyed all the clues and references that were dropped throughout the book. I like how they explained Atlantis as always being there but always being destroyed, a hint to why we can never find it. Plus you had the references to Shakespeare and Socrates.
They also alluded to one of them working with Ghengis Khan's army at one point, and I believe someone was with the Russians in WW2. I found it interesting to use these clues to piece together where Red or Blue might actually be at that point in time.
I'm pretty sure I spotted the French revolution.
Did this book match your expectations for it or did it surprise you and if so how?
I read this several years ago, it was one of the first recs I got from /r/fantasy after coming back to fiction reading. tbh I did not love it, I expected something with complex worldbuilding where you have to do a lot of textual analysis to figure out what happened, but instead the worldbuilding felt pretty incidental and the "time war" was just a bit off wall drapery.
If it had a bit less exciting of a title, I think I would've had different expectations and enjoyed it more but as is it was not what I wanted & I've always had a pretty negative feeling about this book
I knew that the book was supposed to be a love story, but I didn't realize just how much of it was dedicated to the back and forth between the two characters. I was expecting more "time war" and some sort of battles and strategies and background into why and what exactly that they were fighting for.
I must say that I normally wouldn't pick a book like this, but I was pleasantly surprised. I found it easy to read and everything was well written, so I didn't feel like it was a drag or anything. So even though my expectations were different, I did enjoy the story in the end.
Why do you think the author chose to use Atlantis as an
element within the story?
What are your theories or conclusions regarding the differences between
blue and red as cultures?
What did you think about the poetic, effusive, romantic communication style?
I read the book recently and it wasn't for me. It was florid to the point of obfuscation. I like a clever turn of phrase and I can appreciate poetic prose in the service of story telling but it felt so heaped in flowery language it became meaningless to me. I was numb to it by the end. I finished the book and just thought "ok then". It was quite surreal and fanciful, and I can see how other people might like to just get lost in it, but to me it felt hollow and substanceless.
What makes you believe or doubt that the shadow figure is real during the story?
Given that it was a time travel story, I guessed that the seeker was one or both of the main characters coming back through time pretty early on. I suppose despite being tropey, the time travel aspects and mechanics were one of the things I enjoyed most. Another was, early on, thinking about how Red and Blue could have pulled off the interesting ways they wrote their messages, like spending decades embedding a letter in the rings of a tree. That got less and less interesting though as the story progressed and the methods got more and more outlandish and absurd.
Romance isn't a genre I typically go for, so I don't feel equipped to really comment on that aspect of the story. As far as the sci-fi aspects go, there were some neat ideas, and I'm usually a sucker for time travel, but it was all a little too insubstantial and vague for me to really get into. It was well written though, and there were enough nuggets of great imagery to get me through to the end, so despite not really being its target audience I guess I land at slightly above neutral towards the story.
I was the opposite of you, I was panicking that they were going to get caught the entire time. In my head I am thinking is anyone going to notice this "seeker" before you get caught?!
I really thought that the Seeker was someone from the Agency trying to put a case together against them.
What do you think about Red's final letter and the dramatic resolution to the story?
Is the falling in love aspect of this story believable if you assume Red and Blue get to know each other under
these circumstances?
A little yes, and a little no.
On one hand, people are incredible our ability to form connections and find meaning. Fighting in a time war would presumably be a very lonely stressful experience. Hopping from time to time and then on solo missions, only to find a glimmer of connection with someone who understands your experience. In this sense, it feels believeable to me to want and make a connection that can blossom into greater feelings
On the other hand, what does it means to know someone, and to love them and not an image we've built in our heads? Through such limited interactions and communications, and regardless of the grandiose gestures (... taking the poison and dying), I kind of question how much red and blue could love the other and not (at least in part) the idea of the other.
That's very well said. I had similar thoughts when reading the novel, but couldn't put it quite so eloquently. How well can you really get to know somebody through grand gestures? A love based entirely on demonstrations of affection seems, honestly, quite fragile and hollow. Real compatibility can only be tested through time meaningfully spent together.
Perhaps that doesn't meet the romantic notions of love, though, and I recognize that this is first and foremost a romance novel. Certainly, "young love" is often described as hopeless, intense, and without reason. Though it's hard for me to view Red and Blue as so young and naive as to meet that description, particularly as they were trusted warriors of their respective clans. But maybe that is the point. Maybe the naive trust they put in each other is meant to contrast against the cold, calculating, unloving nature of their war. Maybe naivete and love are intrinsically linked in this way.
Do I really buy that? Not really. But I'm willing to allow it for the sake of the story.
Their isolation really stood out to me. I like your point about the idea of a person - they don't really have anything else.
What else would you like to say about this book? What did you think?
I thought this book was one of the stranger things I've read. Often I would pause at a description of some odd and strange world and wonder more about it, which isn't something I'm used to when reading! The flashes of worldbuilding that we got were so intriguing. As for the actual plot itself, I thought it was quite lovely but also in a sense very slow-moving; you can arguably summarize the whole book in a few sentences and it would capture most of the plot. But as a vehicle to deliver beautiful prose and settings, I thought it worked wonderfully. A very meditative sort of story.
Thanks for this, I think it captures the positive feelings I had about the story but wasn't able to put into words.
I read this a while ago. I found it to be a nice conceit and well executed, though I'm glad it is not longer then it is for how simply it is executed.
I am always intrigued by the idea of stories that resolve the time travel causality paradox by making it a closed loop, which raises the idea that somehow it is all fate and that free will is an illusion.
My favorite story that explores this is The Time Traveler's Wife. If anyone hasn't read that one, I highly recommend it.