This Is How You Lose the Time War

Two rival agents slipping through time, snipping errant histories, nudging specific events forward that will blossom in significance, eradicating entire civilizations to better braid a multi-threaded universe, all in the hopes of cultivating a more ideal future.

They are the best of their respective worlds. Red exists for the Agency, a post-singularity, technocratic world while Blue fights for the Garden, a verdant utopia. As their actions intersect through time, pushing and pulling against each other to better order the universe to their side, they begin to admit a begrudging warrior's respect for the other's skill.

A respect that soon blossoms into something more. Co-written by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone who would write to each other much like Red and Blue. One would fashion the letter the other creating the circumstances that the letter would be read. Elaborate intricacies, words hidden in knots, bee stings, the rings of trees and carved on an undigested piece of cod amidst the viscera of a clubbed seal.

It is a testament to their writing that I was more interested in how this love progressed than the intricacies of a time war. And an achievement that a time tossed love story could end in a way that felt earned and satisfactory.