"This Is How You Lose The Time War" First Impressions *No Spoilers*

[SFFBC, Ancillary Mod]

Come share your initial, spoiler free thoughts about this book!

Please save all discussion of particulars, details from the story, character choices, plot questions, etc. for the full spoiler thread.

Content warnings for those who want them: (view spoiler)[ animal death/cruelty, gore, violence, death, war (hide spoiler)]

User-submitted content warnings on Storygraph: https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/9...

(More about CWs here.)

[Shain]

This one is really interesting with a nonstandard structure of storytelling!

[Maria]

Just started it, and I must admit I'm already getting a bit confused, but hopefully things will clear up as I continue reading :D

[Leonie]

Have just begun listening to this one. Am wondering if there’s any kind of underlying story to all the snippets, or if they’re just window dressing.

Will listen on, reserving judgement.

[Doug]

I'm not a big time travel fan, but This is How You Lose the Time War really got me. It's a beautifully written love story. Fun stuff: it references Travel Light, also not the kind of story I'd normally pick up, but absolutely delightful as well.

[a.g.e. montagner]

I'd like to join for this since it's short, but as usual I have a long queue.

[Richard]

My first impression: What?

I’m less than 20% in, and my daughter liked it so I’ll press on and see if I get the hang of it.

[Leonie]

I'm about halfway through now. I've been listening via audiobook, and although I'm enjoying some of the lyrical language, I'm still quite undecided if I'm actually enjoying the book itself.

I'm looking for an actual story that holds the whole thing together, rather than two characters sending letters to each other with no underpinning something. Clearly they have some kind of connection, be it enemies to friends/lovers or something else.

The problem is, I'm not sure I can be bothered finding out.

For perspective, I'm reading Witch King at the same time, which pops back and forth between two times, but in that case, I'm really enjoying both stories in that particular book.

I often read/listen to two different things at the same time.

[Ann]

I’m about half way through reading this and really enjoying the love letters between these two, interesting world being built. I wonder if this is a better eyeball read than audio listen because being able to see the names helps to keep it straight early on but once I got further in it was easier to tell who was who.

[a.g.e. montagner]

While coming to accept the fact that I might possibly not like this novel in the end, the polarised responses it is eliciting are frankly becoming a draw in themselves (this is based mainly on what people are writing in the other thread, but I decided to post this here because, well, I still haven't read a single page).

[Leonie]

Ann wrote: "I’m about half way through reading this and really enjoying the love letters between these two, interesting world being built. I wonder if this is a better eyeball read than audio listen because be..."

That is a distinct possibility.

[a.g.e. montagner]

So I've started yesterday, and read about a third.

Already I can see the seeds of what people say about this novel. Like, both factions, all at once.

I can see why some say that skimming on the worldbuilding is a wise choice, while others respond that some good old worldbuilding would have been nice rather than the mostly weak wordplay we get instead. I can see why people say it's a romance, and that it isn't. That it is somehow both abstruse and concise.

I'm coming to think that polarising the readership into warring factions was their intent all along.

[DivaDiane]

LOL, Ale! You may be onto something there.

[Olga]

I’m at Chapter 4 and though it has been on my TBR for a while and I voted for it, I seem to be unable to get into the story. I expected to devour it in a few days, instead it’s been almost a wee already and some days go by without me even opening the book. I hope that as I get more comfortable in the world and around the characters, I’ll see that amazing innovative thing people talk about.

[a.g.e. montagner]

That's what you get for not voting for my Delany!

On the other hand, I'm having no problem in proceeding quickly with this book. I've started yesterday and plan to finish tomorrow (which is quick, for me).

[Sarah]

Ha! I think it should be called This is How you Lose the Pun War 😜

[Leonie]

I think I've given up (and I also voted for this one), as the lyrical language and love notes just aren't enough to keep me interested.

[Pierce]

I'm enjoying this book a great deal! It's fascinating to see the writing styles used by both characters, and I'm having fun with the concepts introduced in the worldbuilding and overall situation. Can't wait to finish on my next day off work so I can digest everything and give a proper review.

[Aga]

Sooo… I think I’ve made a mistake.

I was going to read this book bilingual, switching between an original English version on my iPad (I have an ebook) and a paper copy from my local library - a Polish translation. I frequently do that. And I’ve started with a translation yesterday. And now my first impression is ruined, because of some translation choices.

I decided to switch to an English version pretty quickly, because I thought, maybe it is not the writing that I don’t like, perhaps it is the translation. Well, it is better, but what is done is done.

So far it is a little bit all over the place, nevertheless I see why it was recommended to me so many times.

[CJ]

I can see, as a multilingual reader, there could be some difficulties with translating this book. We have a book that's a very deliberate collaboration between 2 authors, and then, as generally would be the practice in the publishing industry, one translator, who may or may not be conscious of choices they are making that take away from the authors' intentions.

I am sorry you had a bad experience with the translated text. I've run into that before myself when trying to read books first in translation, which I do to practice my languages.

[Tiny]

yeah, this book should be hard to translate. I try to read translations for languages I don't speak. for example, The Three musketeers (don't know French), so an English translation or my native language translation. prefer native.
sadly, there are no more new books by Diuma :D

I wonder if you've read Tolkien translations? any books with poems is hard to translate. I've read a few, and they all pale in comparison. even the new editions (after the movies).

[aPriL does feral sometimes]

Starting it today.