thursday reads

[scientistsinistral]

A slower one this week, through being home and without as many books as usual.

Books I Finished
This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
This was absolutely lovely. It's about two time-travelling agents who cross parallel universes, called 'strands' in order to twist a time war towards their respective sides. Their chosen names are Red and Blue, they're both women, they fall in love against everything they should stand for.

So, uh, this book had going for it: a) enemies to lovers, b) F/F, c) whose colour schemes were red and blue and who both came up with various related nicknames for each other, d) parellel universes, e) lyrical writing that didn't feel disjointed despite being written by two authors, and f) twas a novella which was great for my short attention span.

Needless to say, I am going to be buying myself a copy and rereading this.



Currently Reading
Technically, Prayer For The Living by Ben Okri is on hiatus because it's at my other place which I won't be for a few weeks.
Edward VI: The last boy king by Stephen Alford which I just started yesterday



Up Next
Probably Queer London, though I do have some books on my home bookshelf that I might read as well. But probably that one.

Comments

[muccamukk]

I loved This Is How You Lose the Time War! It seems to be really hit or miss depending on if you like the writing, but it worked so well for me.

[scientistsinistral]

I think I need a reread to really tease the writing apart a little as I'm sure there are things I missed whilst reading, but definitely a hit for me too.

[silveredeye]

I also really liked This Is How You Lose the Time War. :D I've read a bunch of Gladstone's solo work so I could sometimes tell he had written a certain passage, but their styles do mesh super well.

[scientistsinistral]

Mmmm, I'll have to read some of his other work too! Is there anything you'd recommend?

[silveredeye]

I liked Empress of Forever. It's a space opera about an inventor who gets accidentally yeeted into the far future and tries to find a way home, which probably goes through the eponymous Empress, the tyrant ruling that far future. It's very Rule of Cool, Gladstone is obviously having lots of fun, and it's F/F (even if many of the reviews I've seen say that the endgame F/F should've been a different F/F ship).

I haven't reread his Craft Sequence books in a while, so I don't know how those hold up, but I remember enjoying them a lot when I read them. They're urban fantasy in a world where magic/faith is treated a lot like legal contracts... so the main characters are basically magic lawyers. I'm not into legal thrillers per se, but I was into these. (I think they're best read in publishing order rather than chronological order.)