i just lost the time war
Aug. 7th, 2019 05:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jazzfishThis Is How You Lose the Time War, Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
Beautiful. Exhausting, in a way, but rewarding.
A time-traveling agent discovers that her latest gambit in the time-travelling war between the Garden and her own Agency has been foiled. Expecting success, she instead finds a taunting letter from a Garden operative. She responds in kind. Respect, and then romance, blossom; complications ensue.
I was told this was an epistolary novel(la). I expected it to consist of letters between the two protagonists. Which it does, but those letters alternate with more traditional fiction vignettes. Red does a thing, Red finds and reads a letter from Blue. Blue does a thing, Blue finds and reads a letter from Red. Repeat. The snippets of plot twist and turn, providing some insight into the characters and a nicely solid background for the time war. And the letters... I'm glad they structured the book as they did. I don't think I could have made it through a whole book's worth of the letters, not at their escalating level of emotional intensity.
Of course they both have chances to save each other, of course things go wrong, of course there's a big tense denouement. I know Max Gladstone from the intricately-plotted Craft sequence; I don't know Amal El-Mohtar's work except by reputation but I understand she's an accomplished poet. Time War reads like a perfect fusion of plot and poetry. It is the best thing I've read all year.
Beautiful. Exhausting, in a way, but rewarding.
A time-traveling agent discovers that her latest gambit in the time-travelling war between the Garden and her own Agency has been foiled. Expecting success, she instead finds a taunting letter from a Garden operative. She responds in kind. Respect, and then romance, blossom; complications ensue.
I was told this was an epistolary novel(la). I expected it to consist of letters between the two protagonists. Which it does, but those letters alternate with more traditional fiction vignettes. Red does a thing, Red finds and reads a letter from Blue. Blue does a thing, Blue finds and reads a letter from Red. Repeat. The snippets of plot twist and turn, providing some insight into the characters and a nicely solid background for the time war. And the letters... I'm glad they structured the book as they did. I don't think I could have made it through a whole book's worth of the letters, not at their escalating level of emotional intensity.
Of course they both have chances to save each other, of course things go wrong, of course there's a big tense denouement. I know Max Gladstone from the intricately-plotted Craft sequence; I don't know Amal El-Mohtar's work except by reputation but I understand she's an accomplished poet. Time War reads like a perfect fusion of plot and poetry. It is the best thing I've read all year.