tiggymalvern: (need to read)
tiggymalvern ([personal profile] tiggymalvern) wrote2023-07-02 07:33 am
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This Is How You Lose The Time War

I took Bigolas Dickolas Wolfwood's advice and bought the book, because how could I not?

Two rival governments seek to create a present where they exist and their opponent does not. Their agents travel through time and across the multiverse tweaking events towards a future that favours them. Rival agents counter with a tweak of their own.
Two of these agents track each other back and forth across time and star systems. Each of them is intrigued to find someone else as good as they are. They begin leaving messages for one another at the sites of their victories, ignoring the fact that direct contact between the opposing sides is forbidden.

It's an intriguing book. The format is probably just over half epistolatory, and the POV characters don't explain things they'd already know. This means the background is all set up and largely irrelevant - there is no spy plot here that was created to make sense, just little glimpses of craziness. The book is all about the relationship between these two conflicting protagonists and the effect they have on each other.

I'm glad I read it. It's cleverly written, with a twist that was effectively done. It didn't make a massive impact on me. I found their perspective and cultures too alien for me to really bond with these characters emotionally, I think.