"This Is How You Lose The the Time War" Great Premise, With A Lot To Be Desired

 

    If you named this book "Sapphic Encounters in the Time-Space Continuum" it'd sound like a really campy 60's flick, but that's also how I'd describe this entire book. The reason I decided to read it for my one mandatory book of the month was because I had heard about it before, I had seen it's cover, and for some reason people were clamoring about it on Twitter. If you think I base too much of my hobbies on what Twitter recommends you're probably right but still. I vaguely recall it being described as "some people call it really great, others call it too pretentious." So imagine my surprise when I pick up this book from the library, only to find that it's not even 200 pages long, and it's labeled as "Science Fiction Elementary." Let's talk about it.

    On that last point for a quick paragraph. I can see why one might describe this novel as "for kids." I mean when I say it's short I do mean it, not just in page length, but the spacing between the words, and the generous margins do give it the appearance of a novel you'd hand a child learning to read longer works. Of course, that doesn't mean it has to be for kids, I've read some pretty short novels about pretty serious topics. Would you describe Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe as for children? Of course not. It also doesn't help that the book contains a section at the end providing discussion questions for "book clubs" though, which suspiciously read as questions I would be assigned by an English teacher. Lastly, this book simply is not particularly graphic? The most it will do is briefly talk about guts and viscera, other than that it's intentionally vague, annoyingly so I might add.

    Which brings me to my next point. I would argue this book leaves a lot of meat left on the bone. I don't just mean the ending, which basically is hopeful, but also a little cliffhangery, leaving the authors an exit ramp in case they want to do some sequel shenanigans. I mean in terms of the worldbuilding. I don't know how else to put this, but I came into this novel expecting a high-concept sci-fi novel with themes about the enduring universality, or different circumstances/forms love can manifest itself in. What I was greeted instead with was a romance novel about two lesbians with a backdrop of a high-concept sci-fi novel that the authors choose not to go into. On a very long side tangent, part of me feels a little icky calling them lesbians, not because I'm homophobic it's pride month as I write this. Rather because nothing about this story requires any of the two main characters to be of any gender, and considering how futuristic and amorphous their identities are supposed to be, it would make more sense if they actually had no gender to begin with. 

    I digress, but part of the reason I feel this way is that you never really learn much about the two sides: The Garden and The Agency. Partially because narratively the entire book is written through letters that are meant to be rushed and secretive, so not overly long. But also because (let's be honest here) time and time traveling/altering time is a very hard concept to not make confusing so I kind of understand trying to steer away from explaining it from a writing perspective. What little you do get is fed from the characters asking each other about their own experience with their respective agencies. 

    That's not to say I was annoyed by reading the book. Ultimately, I think this book does a lot of things well. I think the format was well done, and helped keep the novel relatively snappy through the chapters. I blasted through the novel in record time, practically reading it in a day, even with all the caveats about how "long" this book really is. I think the premise of this book is fantastic, the idea of two time travelers learning to fall for each other from two differing agencies slowly but surely is a great concept, and they execute it relatively well. 

    I will say that I do agree with the sentiment that I couldn't really feel like it was written by two different authors. I do like the writing in this novel don't get me wrong, but I don't think I could differentiate between the two characters enough, or could tell when one author was writing and the other wasn't. Like at first Blue seems like the one whose much more in tune with their human side, and Red is the more robotic one, but you quickly lose that feeling as the novel goes on. I also do kind of wish that if they were going to focus on the romance, they'd focus on it more, talk about how difficult it is to connect when you literally can't see anything but the fleeting wisps of each other.

    Tying this all back to earlier, that's why I can't completely say that this book was written for children in mind. I'm not asking for a graphic description of someone masturbating, but I just feel like if you fleshed out the concept more, it could have been so much better. Longer chapters, exploring each new "timeline" just a little bit more, their experiences and training with their respective groups, and then still ending on a letter from their new found lover. I'm not calling this book surface level, but I just wish it dug a little deeper on all fronts.

Final Score: 65/100

    I do vaguely remember this being a tumblr book which is how I remember the cover art more than the name. Or maybe I'm going insane I've blocked out many of my teenage memories. I don't think this book is that pretentious though, to answer the original question posed on twitter. The prose can be a little flowery and poetic, but I don't think the book suffers for that reason. I've been pretty extensive in my criticism of this book, but it's mostly because if it was a like a 300 page or 400 page novel with more words, you could have really done something with it. In it's current iteration, it can be a little hard to feel as if the love story between Blue and Red is as strong as the readers want you to be, especially when it's as distant and nonphysical as theirs. Still, it's short enough that I say give it a twirl, you'll probably finish it quickly just like I did.