Paperback, 208 pages
Published July 18, 2019 by Jo Fletcher Books.
Two time-traveling agents from warring futures, working their way through the past, begin to exchange letters—and fall in love in this thrilling and romantic book from award-winning authors Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone.
In the ashes of a dying world, Red finds a letter marked “Burn before reading. Signed, Blue.”
So begins an unlikely correspondence between two rival agents in a war that stretches through the vast reaches of time and space.
Red belongs to the Agency, a post-singularity technotopia. Blue belongs to Garden, a single vast consciousness embedded in all organic matter. Their pasts are bloody and their futures mutually exclusive. They have nothing in common—save that they’re the best, and they’re alone.
Now what began as a battlefield boast grows into a dangerous game, one both Red and Blue are determined to win. Because winning’s what you do in war. Isn’t it?
A tour de force collaboration from …
Two time-traveling agents from warring futures, working their way through the past, begin to exchange letters—and fall in love in this thrilling and romantic book from award-winning authors Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone.
In the ashes of a dying world, Red finds a letter marked “Burn before reading. Signed, Blue.”
So begins an unlikely correspondence between two rival agents in a war that stretches through the vast reaches of time and space.
Red belongs to the Agency, a post-singularity technotopia. Blue belongs to Garden, a single vast consciousness embedded in all organic matter. Their pasts are bloody and their futures mutually exclusive. They have nothing in common—save that they’re the best, and they’re alone.
Now what began as a battlefield boast grows into a dangerous game, one both Red and Blue are determined to win. Because winning’s what you do in war. Isn’t it?
A tour de force collaboration from two powerhouse writers that spans the whole of time and space.
If you like books where you don't get all the answers, that aren't necessarily linear, and are more about prose and gut-wrenching heartache, you'll enjoy this book. It's art. If you don't like artsy books, you probably should pick something else to read.
I loved it.
I can't decide if this would have worked better (for me) as a short story, or a full length book. If it was longer, it could have expanded on it's ideas. If it had been shorter, it wouldn't have felt so repetetive.
There is some good ideas here, but they deserve better than being hand waved away. How do Red and Blue target their letters to each other across strands of time? If there are certain contested junctures in time, shouldn't they be swarmed with agents, and multiple aspects of the same agents? If the protagonists are just cogs in two massive opposing machines battling for supremacy over all time - why does it seems like they are the only two operators in the field?
I'm not saying this is a bad book, there is a lot good writing here. But it didn't work for me. Two highly subjective stars. …
I can't decide if this would have worked better (for me) as a short story, or a full length book. If it was longer, it could have expanded on it's ideas. If it had been shorter, it wouldn't have felt so repetetive.
There is some good ideas here, but they deserve better than being hand waved away. How do Red and Blue target their letters to each other across strands of time? If there are certain contested junctures in time, shouldn't they be swarmed with agents, and multiple aspects of the same agents? If the protagonists are just cogs in two massive opposing machines battling for supremacy over all time - why does it seems like they are the only two operators in the field?
I'm not saying this is a bad book, there is a lot good writing here. But it didn't work for me. Two highly subjective stars. (I'm going to hold of actually rating as there are so few reviews here yet)
I could not stop listening. This book is SO good. Intricate and lovely. Prose this delicious is rarely written.
How do you have a love story between two beings separated by war, time and dimensions? With covert letters. They may be written in seeds or lava flows, but letters nevertheless.
I love this book so much. Just gorgeous in execution, and a story delightful in its telling.
I really enjoyed most of Max Gladstones work and I love everything this on paper but in practice it didn't grip me (maybe it was the letter format?)
I've had this sitting on my Kindle for a while, but I'm glad I waited in a way as it was the perfect choice for my last book of the year. Somewhere between a simple love story (but see Blue's thoughts on Romeo and Juliet) and the saving of the entire universe, it fits so much in such a small space and creates so many thoughts and images. A wonderful book, heartily recommended.
Une chasse à travers le temps, une histoire d’amour construite à travers les époques. Assez unique et parfois très beau, égarant à certains moments mais finalement émouvant.
The letters that make up about half of this book are gorgeously written, and I love the story they tell. The basic idea of the time war is clever, and the descriptions of placetimes the characters find themselves in evocative, sometimes reminiscent of Calvino's Invisible Cities. I devoured this book in a few days.
And yet... something about it felt a little thin or hollow behind its fireworks. I think it was a good artistic choice to leave all technical details out, but I couldn't help but get hung up on the time paradoxes. Not that it's the authors' responsibility to necessarily avoid or solve them, but for me personally they intruded on the suspension of disbelief.
The first quarter reminded me of Doomsday Book and One Day All This Will Be Yours, and the last quarter reminded me of that Iain M. Banks book (I won't say which one because it would spoil either this or that if you haven't read both, but go read Culture (except for Consider Phlebas)).
The prose was everything I've come to expect from Max Gladstone, and now I'll have to try something else by El-Mohtar.
Hauntingly beautiful. A love-letter to the written word.
This was a fresh take on time travel for me and I enjoyed it. Also, the word play and epistolary format were fun.
it's a magical realist (?) romance in a science fiction Time War setting, an unusual choice, but one that works well, given how strange the consequences of warping causality would be. If you can get ahold of the audio book, it's pretty good, has different readers for Blue and Red.
Summary ##
A brief and beautiful, poetic love story. Part Romeo and Juliet, part Spy vs. Spy, part time-travel espionage story.
## Why I picked it up ##
I don't remember. It was probably on some Best of 2019 list, and also I'm likely to have picked it up based on the title and cover alone.
## Who I'd recommend it to ##
People who like pretty things, but only if you're okay with there not being much plot. It's 98% just having love letters read to you, and 2% sci-fi time war.
## How to read this book ##
Get ready to read love letters.
## What I liked ##
It was pretty and poetic. For the setting and plot to have been so much in the background, they were somehow also extremely compelling. I'd love to read the sci-fi action companion novel set in this world.
## What …
