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 This Is How You Lose The Time War, by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

One of my favourite books from the last few years. It won the BSFA Award for Best Shorter Fiction, the Nebula Award for Best Novella of 2019, and the 2020 Hugo Award for Best Novella. If you’re only going to read one book this year, read this one.

The story follows two time travelling beings, Red and Blue, acting as agents of cosmic forces which are locked in a fierce battle for the timeline. These opposing empires, The Garden and The Agency, fight to influence events throughout history in a mission to lay the seeds for their preferred outcomes in the future. Pursuing each other up and down the timeline, Red and Blue’s initial antagonism melts into curious, adversarial jesting, before blossoming into friendship, and then love.

“Books are letters in bottles, cast into the waves of time, from one person trying to save the world to another.” This Is How You Lose the Time War

The story takes the form of messages the two central characters leave for each other at the scenes of their triumphs and defeats. Letters written in the wind, in the heat signature of water, in the entrails of sea creatures, in the heart rings of a tree. Hiding these letters from the ever watchful superpowers they serve, the lonely warriors tease, flirt and slowly come to reveal themselves to each other, unaware that something is on their trail. 

A mesmerising story of love and resistance in which the oppressive powers that be, fight the long game, and still cannot win. It blew me away. The prose is delicious, the love story seductive, and the sci-fi vivacious with fresh ideas and immaculate plotting. I doubt you’ve read anything like it before and you should absolutely read it now. 

Don’t forget to tell me what you think in the comments, and don’t forget to sign up for future blog updates.


Buy on kindle £4.99

Buy paperback from Bookcase London £4.99


Follow the authors @tithenai and @maxgladstone

Like reading speculative fiction? Want more book recommendations? Follow me on twitter @SLangridgeUK for updates on my latest posts.

Like poetry? Check me out on TikTok @theyrhymesometime

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If I had your face, by Frances Cha

An impressive debut novel about four young women battling to hold their own in the ultramodern, image-obsessed city of modern day Seoul.

Frances Cha, a former journalist, has lived and worked across the US, Hong Kong and South Korea, giving her a unique perspective on the plight of women at a time of shifting cultural norms and extreme wealth disparity.

“Rich people are fascinated by happiness,” she said. “It’s something they find maddening.” If I had your face

The Seoul of the novel is a fascinating, inhuman place, where plastic surgery is ubiquitous, bosses are abusive, men cheat and the future is best not thought about at all. Somehow though, despite this bleak backdrop, the book is never dreary, as in the face of their hardships the vitality of the main characters keeps the narrative buoyant, demanding you read on. The street-eye-view of South Korean culture is intriguing – and I’d recommend the book just for that – but the heart of the story is the relationships between the four women and their growing intimacy and solidarity. 

The three hundred pages fly by, and the book leaves us with enough reason to be hopeful for these characters we’ve come to care so much about.

All in all, if you like a smart book with captivating characters and an enthralling insight into another culture, this will be a great bet. Let me know what you think in the comments and don’t forget to sign up for future blog updates.

Buy on kindle £4.99 

Paperback from Betterworld Books £7.56

  

Follow the author at @FRANCES_H_CHA

Like reading speculative fiction? Want more book recommendations? Follow me on twitter @SLangridgeUK for updates on my latest posts.

Like poetry? Check me out on TikTok @theyrhymesometime