Genre: fantasy – time travel
Queer Representation: cis lesbian
Warnings: none
Review
‘Blue’ and ‘Red’ are war rivals in a tech vs. nature sort of futuristic battle situation. Really, the setting is unimportant. What is important is this phenomenally fresh take on the ‘enemies to lovers’ trope that mixes in time travel and some unreliable narration to add to the complexity. Bonus – these two are clearly both tops who are used to being the best at everything they do. Clearly they have to compete–but only one person can win in a war. Right?
Even if you don’t like time travel, read this book for the prose. It has a very Lesfic feel that Gideon the Ninth popularized (a sort of bold, mouthy writing style) but that has been in the genre for at least a decade:
Red likes to feel. It is a fetish. Now she feels fear. And eagerness.
There are fun pop culture references as well, although targeting more of a 90s demographic than anything else. I found them hilarious:
Dearest Blue-da-ba-dee,
Mostly though there’s a really great romance embedded inside tiny little details of technology and nature. I really enjoyed the following methodology of messaging (can’t imagine why):
The letter begins in the tree’s heart. Rings, thicker here and thinner there, form symbols in an alphabet no one present knows but Red. The words are small, sometimes smudged, but still: ten years per line of text, and many lines. Mapping roots, depositing or draining nutrients year by year, the message must have taken a century to craft. Perhaps local legends tell of some fairy or frozen goddess in these woods, seen for an instant, then gone. Red wonders what expression she wore as she placed the needle.
THIS IS HOW YOU LOSE THE TIME WAR packs a big punch for a novella, and is well worth the read. The prose can be dense in places, so this isn’t a book you read while a TV is on or you’re doing the dishes. Sit back, close your eyes, and join the time travel warfare of Red and Blue. Who knows? Maybe you’ll fall in love, too.
