Your Thoughts on This is How You Lose the Time War 

I also used to hate the idea of "Turn your brain off" but I now think it is fantastic. The book does not have a deeper meaning and if you look for one your enjoyment of it nosedives. For instance why do Red and Blue use She/Her pronowns? It doesn't matter pick whatever you like. My choice was Red thought Blue would like it if Red used female pronouns and vice versa. No don't try to expand on that. Just accept it and move on. If you get a different read, accept it and move on. Thinking too deep makes the book less fun, the book wants to be fun not smart. Thinking too much about it is like thinking deeply about why you like a rollercoaster. It is not an esoteric expression of philosophy it is big heckn train do a curvy zoom haha.

So fun fact: my book club likes ergodic literature and I used the time traveling format to convince them to read this out of order. For simplicity, they read all of the chapters addressed to red, then all of the chapters addressed to blue, and finally the section at the end after blue "dies." I was surprised by how well they picked up on the thematics (e.g. characters feeling isolated) even with limited perspective. I was told they thought it would make more sense reading it as intended though with the references to each other's letters.

I read this in the post-Bigolas Dickolas explosion and ended up liking the book a lot. What I found the most interesting was its indirect references to Romeo and Juliet (later more direct). I was reminded of it throughout, not just because these are two Star Cross'd Lovers on either sides of an ancient feud, but the characters themselves embodied the idea of "Young Love" from Shakespeare's work. Their letters turn from direct and mocking to a very gentle breeze-like sensuality and as each wraps up in the world and words of the other then nothing else begins to matter to them besides each other. Not their unfathomably powerful allegiances, or even the mind-boggling war between. Despite both being professional super-agents who have posed as multiple people in multiple periods for an incomprehensible amount of time for the human mind to understand, both have a lot to teach one another about the joys of life and of truly living, and the longer they talk with one another the more they are obsessed with each other, and it makes them feel like the young lovers of yore. The ingesting of poison by Blue too mirrors the play, especially as Blue knows of the poison but takes it anyway in the name of love. It was very interesting to see, but a moment I initially disliked turned out to be one of the moments that most strongly resonated with me after I finished. One of the characters actually goes to see Romeo and Juliet in a theatre during the height of the books tragic moment, and it struck me at first as a moment of unusual bluntness for a book so obsessed with secret messaging. As if to cry "HELLO READER DID YOU NOTICE THIS THING WE WERE DOING". It felt far too heavy-handed at the time, but there was one small sentence inside this moment that ended up reversing my negative feelings; that in some time threads Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy, but in others it's a comedy. Effectively saying that within this universe, even a classic tale may not have a definitive end. So then came the ending, with Red working across time to undo their tragic wrong, and the return of her beloved Blue in the final chapter, and I ended up feeling both overjoyed and surprised with what a tidy bow had been tied on the whole thing whilst I was distracted. It's not a deep message (Nothing is certain, love conquers all), but it's a thoroughly satisfying one to end on. _Especially as_ when Blue died I felt my own enjoyment with the book possibly being soured with the possibility another-fucking-kill-your-gays ending to an otherwise pleasant story of two lovebirds. I am beyond sick of that as a trope at this point, as if the author thinks that someone who's not gay can only empathise with their relationship if they're showed to endure loss that proves their love as real (Yes, I am aware of my avatar, thank you). So it was a genuinely wonderful moment for This Is How You Lose The Time War to not only subvert such an ending, but also to apparently flourish its middle finger towards the notion that their gays must die. Love conquers all, even depressing storytelling trends. I understood then the enthusiasm of Bigolas Dickolas Wolfwood.

Ok i need that close reading section but for the whole book (I recognise that that's a lot of work and dont seriously expect anyone to do it, but still) I would have really enjoyed an adaptation of this novel in a video game or visual novel. There's so much *imagery* and a level of *interactivity* in the story that can be hard to picture in your mind - having visuals to go with it could convey more of the atmosphere immersively.

I think the point about how this isn't necessarily an easy sell to sci-fi fans as a sci-fi book, nor to sapphic romance fans as a sapphic romance book is a pivotal one. With the addition of epistolary and espionage subgenres, I'd say the chances of being open to enjoying this book are less about loving any one or more of those facets, and more about just requiring a basic tolerance for all of them and going with the flow - from there, as you say, it's a question of expectation setting. One note I would make: I was entirely unsurprised to hear El-Mohtar cite Doctor Who as a personal influence in an interview I heard, because - as a fan myself - this is absolutely a good comparison for the level of thought required for entry here. DW is far from being the hardest sci-fi; for the most part it sketches in minimalist worldbuilding, because the sci-fi isn't the point - it's just a quick backdrop to frame oftentimes far more domestic stories about people's relationships and flaws. If your overriding view of Doctor Who is that it's fluff for kids or whatever and is riddled with holes, chances are you're too tall for this ride, but if you're willing to accept the phrase 'wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey' in lieu of exhaustive explanation about the rules of time travel then congratulations! That's pretty much the level of investment required here. Now let me tell you a story about these two super-agents who write soppy letters to each other... I loved this book. I took the plunge with it thanks to a couple of people whose opinions I take seriously saying specific things about it that made me sit up and take notice - but those were things concerning details like how it was written etc, rather than a hard sell based on genre hype. So that may well have helped for me; the only expectations I had going into it were that I'd enjoy the writing style, likely Feel Things and it was only 200 pages to slog through anyway if it wasn't working out. Not everyone's going to fall in love with this book but I hope, with a bit of expectation management, as many people as possible might give themselves the opportunity to do so.

My take on the title is that's an imperative, like "This Is The CORRECT Way To Lose The Time War."

I first found out about This Is How You Lose The Time War not from any particular recommendation, just saw it on a shelf somewhere and though 'hey that looks neat'. Since then, it's become one of my favorite books. I found that a little bit surprising, since romantic plots in, well, almost any work have been wildly unappealing to me (I'm not a terribly romantic person, I'm asexual and so forth. Most romantic plots to me feel token or out of character). I can't really pick out what in particular felt different to me in this book. I think it's probably some sort of combination of a really strange and interesting premise, delightful (in my eyes) writing, and the fact that the attraction feels like a gradual thing I can actually observe develop. Due to the epistolary nature, there also weren't any sex scenes, something that tends to feel like an interruption in most other books I've read that have romantic plots. I also have a sort of inclination to agender-ness and transhumanism, which might also have impacted my liking some of the setting and characters. Additionally, towards the end, when Red has taken the role of the Seeker, and is working on infecting Blue to grant them an immunity to the poison, it feels like a very... real? Substantial? (dunno how to phrase this) sort of case of how relationships get internalized by, change, and make themselves a part of people.

My copy is still(?!) on the delivery list, so I'm gonna save this into the Watch Later list! Commenting for whatever algo boost it'll give.

I absolutely adore this book, it's very much one of my favourites and I agree that it is not a book that you should go into blind. I did and it worked for me but I bought it in a Queer bookshop and picked it up mostly on title. It worked for me because I like my sci-fi very soft but I can imagine that if you were a hard sci-fi person you wouldn't like it. I especially liked what you said about the flowery prose not neccessarily indicating that you should pull a book apart. I just think that if we encouraged kids to read books with more difficult prose before we got them to pull them apart this wouldn't be so much of an issue. Forever grateful to my mother for encouraging me to read complicated books when i was still in primary school.

As someone who was a huge reader in High School, hardly read for myself in college, and now is trying to get back into reading, what you said about reading for pleasure and not letting yourself feel stupid for not immediately getting “the deeper meaning,” was helpful for me to hear!

Great video! Your point on Style as Substance reminds me of Edgar Wright films, such as Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz and Scott Pilgrim. Films that are very flashy and could easily be dismissed as such, but have quite a bit of heart behind them. The "overly" technical moments help tell the story in concise bursts, something that you don't notice on first watch, but can delight in later. I only got to This is How You Lose the Time War after the Twitter surge and did have some high expectations that I don't think it fully lived up to. It was a very fun read though. I like how short the chapters were, it made it easy to pick up for 5 minute moments, whereas a regular structure might have convinced me to just wait until the evening when I'd be able to read a more significant chunk all at once. I also fell into the trappings of education and lost my love of reading for a while, but recently binge-bought some books and am binge reading them now, having found that love again quite quickly once I actually got started again on my own terms.

The comment at 2 min was roughly how I felt. I wasn't sure the story "earned" the romance as fast and as deep as it went, and it ran into the time travel story issue where they ALWAYS have to have some paradox/bootstrap/this person was someone you already met cliche. It can be well done, but I have to say, it felt like it heavily undermined the uniqueness of their relationship to have had them be so critical to each others childhood? It was also sometimes quite hard to follow. I did the audiobook just because I usually listen to something on my way to/from work. One person reading a letter written by another could disorient me occasionally. Overall I can respect why so many adore this book, but I don't think it's for me.

skipped this one since it didn’t seem to be my kind of thing, but still really enjoyed the video. thanks for running the club! it’s a lot of fun.

You got me into reading with the ergodic literature video, finish up house of leaves and buying S. (cant get around too Bats of the republic, cause of steep prices in germany, gotta see if I can order it somewhere). With this series I really enjoyed getting the audio books and ohh boy did I enjoy those books as well. Thanks for your effort.

So glad to see this video. I loved listening to the audiobook which made it all feel like a poem, though I never much dove into the prose. Frankly I cant imagine the effort and time put into these videos, so i'm just so happy whenever one shows up.

havent read it i just like watching ya talk about these stuff haha, but i will note for 11:16, having the twist be that it's the same character sounds like it would sort of justify both characters have a similar style of prose writing that was complained about

Yeah, I like this multiple video per book format.

I haven't read this book yet (just grabbed it on audible though!), but the comments about how amoral the main characters were reminded me of a hard to read series I read a while back, The Red Queen's War by Mark Lawrence, where the main character was a monster. A true purely self-serving anti-hero who commits terrible acts with zero regret. I did really enjoy the series as a whole (and the companion series Books of the Ancestor), but the horrible things the main character did were hard to stomach at times, to the point I would hesitate to recommend it to people. However, the twist in it that actually changed the entire genre of the series legitimately excited me in a way I haven't encountered in many other books before.

I also saw the chapters with Red "becoming" Blue to infiltrate Garden and the same thought as you: "Oh no. Not the 'they were the same person all along' trope, what could possibly be the point of that in this story(considered with dread but also with morbid curiosity). But hey, they also still haven't explained how or why Blue got sick as a kid..." And to my relief, the book went for the latter angle. It also more closely fits the Romeo & Juliet references in the book, of "oops she killed herself with poison but NOT REALLY, because-". And as for "deeper themes." like. No. The book is not a political dissection of what it means when two mercenary-soldiers fall in love and run away together. It's barely a discussion of which events and people and ideas influence the flow of history. It's not even much about gender and what it means that the main characters all use feminine pronouns. What the book IS is a discussion between peers as much as it is a story. The prose is sharp and beautiful and meaningful. The biggest theme is hunger. There are also themes about connectivity and surveillance. These themes are not even buried. It's not good or bad, it's just how it is. Fullmetal Alchemist, it is not. Could the authors have included at least some small comments about these "serious issues"? Maybe. We can wonder why or why not. But I'd hardly call the book "bad" based on their omission. In the end, I'm in the same boat, fun book, and maybe people should have SOME kind of calibrated expectation of its contents before diving into it lmao

I read the book yesterday and I loved it so much

i am very much a face-value kind of reader. in magical realism or surrealist stories i dont question ANYTHING about logic unless the characters do. enjoyed this book so much- read as a queer sci-fi through and through imo

12:50. - that was totally me on this one. Glad I am not alone xD Good work as always!!❤❤

I like your videos, please keep making them. Thank you!

Someone responded to me in a thinky internet conversation _This is how you lose the time war_ which I didn't realize was the title of a book until I saw it later on my wife's readlist. I read a short blurb about it and was sold, and it was delightful. I didn't see it as a sapphic romance, though, since yes, the two characters are so transhuman that gender seems irrelevant. The process of rivalry to empathetic correspondence to violet romance worked for me.

No no no, this was a good one to read blind my man. It was really good, like really really good. But I can see two reasons not to like it. If you just wanted crunchy sci-fi I could see why you might be disappointed. When I want to eat burger I might be upset by a really good salad. I want a good salad, I might hate thinking about a burger. That's just the normal reason. It's fine for it not to be to taste. You could also be a bit... Unaware of sci-fi tropes or poetry tropes and just want low thought fluffy romance. I almost said dim, but really this is just the first reason I gave except that I think less of the person. This was fundamentally about the florid language of poems being put in a literalist sci-fi novel. Loved it, very good stuff.

as an agender person i did not read it as a lesbian romance, and i did relate a lot to red and blue so i think of them as agender as well

I'm going go have a very hot take here. I think all criticism is worth it, and if someone didnt enjoy the book for a reason I don't agree with, that doesn't make their criticisms bad. But. I think saying a book, any book, is "pretentious" is bad criticism. All "pretentious" is, is the writer writing more serious than the reader is reading. Don't get me wrong, books can be pretentious. But you have to be extremely careful with that criticism, because it can cut both ways. Either the writer is too serious. Or the reader isnt serious enough. And I feel that before making a criticism like that, you have to identify why you felt that way. Was it genuinely the writing taking itself too seriously for what it was saying? Or were you as a reader not giving it the space to exist. And I feel like often times especially when people read something to review it/for a bookclub/school book report/etc. The fact that they're thinking up their opinions about the book while reading it drags them too far out of the narrative to engage on the same level, leaving the Impression that its taking itself too seriously. Imo "this is how you lose the time war" takes itself exactly as serious as it needs to. And I think the writers writing the book less "pretentious" would be at a serious loss to the books structure, enjoyability and general level of writing.

this is the perfect review on this book

my girlfriend loves to read shappic novels and bc bigolas dude tweeted I got the book blindly for her and we both surprised it's a Sapphic love story !! we're going to review the book tonight 🎉 watching your reviews here so I could have better review than her haha love your channel !!

YES YES YES

It took me 10 minutes into this video to realize the book is not actually about the cartoon spies.

Is it bad that if I ever met the RU-vidr of this channel, I would expect them to be an anthropomorphic bird?

ever read Dogra Magra by yumeno kyusaku? havent seen a video on it yet

Missed the close readings

is my perception of sapphic romance just skewed from gideon the ninth? because i went in to reading tihylttw i went in expecting a sapphic romance and was not disappointed. the themes were very yummy to eat

I just finished this book and tbh i dont really know what happened but also i know I found it very boring

I'm not super interested in the direction this book goes for, where the plot is minimal and straightforward for the sake if the romance, especially when it's supposed to be a time war story. The prose seems interestingly curt and the thing is short so i might give it a try. Certainly not worried about spoilers, hence why i watched this without reading the boom. But whenever i hear about this book my thoughts immediately go to mid-90s Doctor Who wilderness-years era novels, where the concept of a time war was first directly put into that franchise in the 8th Doctor Adventure novels with the concept of a "war in heaven," which occurs at some point in the future between the time lords of gallifrey and some unknown enemy (simply called The Enemy) the true identity of which seems to shift constantly due to uncertainties. There's some really high concept scifi involved that also relates to a group called Faction Paradox, who have some part in the war. And the writer who dreamed up The War in Heaven soun Faction Paradox off into their own novels that are allegedly quite insane, and due to not being licensed doctor who media use monikers for literally everyone so you kind of have to use context clues to know who is who, on top of the high concept tkme war stuff. Anyway, yea this book always just reminds me I should get into that stranger more obscure section of doctor who media, and I honestly would recommend it if you like weird media. I assume it would require some massive base of doctor who knowledge, but it would also be fascinating for someone to tackle faction paradox without the surrounding context.

Lmao I stand by that comment but the video was interesting and I massively agree that we should all be aiming for enjoyment as the main thing to get from reading. I think the style as substance angle is why I disliked it so much, because whilst usually I'm a huge aestheticist and fan of just art for the sake of it. The cardinal sin of this philosophy is for the style to be underwhelming (or in this case as I clearly think, rubbish). When you set out to significantly develop multiple aspects of a novel, you may not end up producing any individual aspect to a staggering quality, but usually any elements that are lacking aren't a huge deal because the other elements make up for it. But when your novel has one thing going for it, and that one thing is still bad there is literally nothing of note left. I suppose this is the reason the novel is so polarising, there's not much room for inbetween because it focuses on descriptive writing to the exclusion of all else, so there's nothing to save it if you hate the style and nothing to detract from it if you love the style. The same kind of risk takes place in One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, where a single multifacted metaphor is used throughout the entire book and applied to numerous different characters. I personally feel that it works very effectively and so Iove the novel as a whole, but if it didn't work then the whole thing would nosedive in quality because that's the main focus of the book. I'm always cautious of recommending it though because I'm well aware it would be hell to read if you don't enjoy the central motif. (Although personally I think that regardless of personal taste Cuckoo's Nest would remain well written and TIHYLTTW would remain poorly written but then I do have a vendetta against this book at this point).

Yeah, I hated it.

Bugolas dickolas would be proud

6:00 I dont enjoy Romance genre and my wife avoid SF like the plague. We both loved thr book cause the SF was light enough for her and totally backrop and the Romance wasnt the whiny cringe I dislike. Also it had the word "bonehole"

interestingly hyperstylized but kinda shallow in some ways then got oddly unnecessarily problematic at the end even ignoring the war stuff

Absolutely HATED it. I tried to like it, but this is just not for me. I had no care for the characters, who to me, just tried to one up each other on who could use the most pretentious and most elaborate hyperboles about their love for each other. And this was for the entirety of the book.

It's funny you called out Helluva Boss as having style over substance when I would personally use it as an example of style as substance. Just watching the characters interact with its gorgeous art style is a big draw for many fans, y'know?

That example at the end of the video is some seriously shit prose. Glad you posted it so I can stay away from this.

I'll be honest, I'm tired of "love stories" and "family stories" masquerading as fantasy. Even if personal relationships are an important part of your book, taking on fantasy without having love or interesting new approach to the world and worldbuilding... Just write how John and Jenny loved each other, please. Worse than this is only religious or political propaganda. I understand that everything has the right to life and let a thousand flowers bloom, you just need to put some notes on such books or something like that - I'm tired of throwing them on 50-100 page