Control Review: This is How You Lose the Time War…
In this novel two agents fight a time war. They go back and forth through time influencing society to help their causes, technology or nature. Red represents a group or faction which involves the use of advanced technology. Blue represents a group which is connected to the garden and ecology and nature. They are constantly at war. They fight through time, from the past to the future, and the fights are strange and interesting: they want to influence things with the butterfly effect to make changes much later in the storyline.
Then Red and Blue, two rival agents, begin to give each other notes. They tease each other and tell each other about their opinion about the time war and the operations that they are fighting over. Blue jokes that they have won over Red, knowing that they haven’t won. They begin a romantic connection over these letters. What follows is less specific scenes and more a series of thoughts and impressions. Blue and Red flirt and talk about each others’ societies and feelings towards a time war in which neither side is good or bad.
Each chapter shows someone’s side and then a letter that she received from the other side. The letters are brilliant and flirtatious, the sort of love letter that anyone wants to receive and send to someone wonderful. Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone wrote the book — each writing one side’s letters, I think — and they did so marvelously. This story works because of the relationship between the characters as they get closer. Red and Blue fall in love, of course, and the love story is marvelous, as they give each other brilliant notes which tease and teach each other.
Red, for example, tries to teach people in (Japan?) the technology to travel across the ocean to the Philippines or China to develop trade and technology and develop the culture of the people there. She needs the right people to meet and coordinate and teach each other the technologies involved to make the journey. Red also kills someone who was about to kill someone, saving a life. The life saved thinks up a new type of geometry later in life. That’s the sort of battles that Red and Blue fight, and they are interesting and different: they don’t just shoot at each other. They influence the world around them.
The story develops into something which may become a tragedy as the characters start to self-destruct, and we the reader worry about how much they care for each other. This is developed well and turns into something excellent and well-earned.
I think that we may have needed a few more concrete scenes in this piece. It’s mostly told in scenes, but we could have fleshed out the specific scenes and developed them some more. That might have helped the story a bit. Other than that minor issue, though, this book was excellent: highly recommended. I would recommend This Is How You Lose the Time War to anyone wanting a romance, especially a gay romance. These two women are wonderful and love each other desperately.
Thanks, and take care, friends.
