From the Bookshelf of The Sword and Laser…

This Is How You Lose the Time War

Amal El-Mohtar,

Max Gladstone

Start date: April 1, 2020

Finish date: April 30, 2020

Discussion: How You Lose the Time War

Why we're reading this: Won the 5th annual March Madness!
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Showing 2 of 14 topics — 185 comments total

How You Lose the Time War

TW: Poetry or Novel or Novel in Poem Form?
By terpkristin · 15 posts · 108 views

last updated May 11, 2020 03:02PM

TW: plotless book recommendations?
By Paul · 11 posts · 86 views

last updated Apr 29, 2020 11:44AM

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What Members Thought

Apr 13, 2020 Aaron rated it really liked it

Shelves: science-fiction, laser-challenge

While this novella is not my typical style (I mean, it is a Romance), it was impossible for me to come away without liking and admiring it. The more I think about it, the less I would describe it as "a great story" and the more I would say it is "a marvel to read, and gloriously constructed." While there is no shortage of tension, the "adventure-action" of the plot all takes place "off-screen" due to the epistolary format, while the focus of the writing is on the emotions of the protagonists. Re ...more

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Aug 18, 2024 Tensy (bookdoyen) rated it really liked it

Shelves: science-fiction

A unique take on a sapphic romance across time and space. Red is an emissary from a futuristic mechanical society and Blue the product of an organic society called Garden. Both societies share one attribute, they are collectives/communal, where there is no room for the individual. The two women weave in and out of time and strands of multi-universes changing one small aspect of history ("she braids and unbraids history's hair") in order to win the Time War for their respective societies. The nov ...more

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Feb 08, 2020 L. Lawson rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

4.5. eBook.

This book, man, for the first 29 pages, I fucking hated it. It began with the purplest prose I have seen in FOREVER. I literally almost put it down for good.

But then I hit page 30 and everything clicked. The prose was still purple through and, to be honest, detracted a bit from the story overall, but once I saw what the authors were doing with this star-crossed lovers and enemies in time thing, I was way in.

This novella is urgent and powerful and, by the end, edge-of-your-seat. It’s ...more

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Jun 12, 2022 Becky rated it really liked it

An enjoyable and gripping take on time travel. Walks the "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" line well.

The poetic writing made it so that it didn't really bother me that there was never any explanation of how anything worked or why most things were done or really what was going on outside of the relationship between Red and Blue at any point in time. But I am still curious about all those things.

I went back to reread previous passages several times during the ...more

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