Love and War Are Red and Blue, But Which Is Who?

This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Of all the science fictiony fairytale endtimes books, I place This is How You Lose the Time War at the top with Sheri S. Tepper’s Beauty. Time War reads like a mashup of Good Omens, Griffin and Sabine, and ST Next Generation, told in the voices of Mahmoud Darwish and Thomas Harris.
What it has in common with Beauty is the time travel element; what differs is the generational voice. Tepper’s book was published in 1991 and is grounded in history and community; Time War is current, ungrounded in the cloud of chaos physics, a paso doble of the I and Thou of humanity’s love affair with itself danced through parallel universes.
Beauty is a faceted gem, a perfect story; Time War is a work of art, a mind worm.
Recommended.


View all my reviews