Top Ten Favorite Books, #10: This is How You Lose the Time War, by Amal El-Mohtar and Maxwell Gladstone
Here’s where I confirm that I love a good epistolary novel. (I just finished Dracula in real time based on the dated documents; it was great.)
Letters are a communication medium unlike any other: the physicality of a slip of paper or cardboard, the fact that the writer will not see the reader, the additional element in this story of placing the letter where it will be seen, one tense sci-fi mission to another.
I enjoy the fact that the technology of time-traveling history-tweaking agents isn’t really the focus of the story. It’s interesting and thought out, but not the point. The focus is two people finding each other and holding onto that link. The writing is beautiful, playful, thought-provoking, characterization purely through what the writers choose to disclose to one another. It’s gorgeous.