Bonus 76. This Is How You Lose The Time War

Amal El-Mohtar, Max Gladstone. 2019.

This is a sophisticated, time travel sci fi novel that seems to be catching everyone's attention.  The plot is really intricate. You have to pay attention and keep your mind from wandering as the story builds on itself.  This is layered with a melodic prose that is at once mesmerizing to listen to, but in parts so complex that it distracts from the story itself.  It reads like every sentences has been carefully crafted from words that were each agonized over.  When reading a review of Mink River once, I was struck by the idea of a "writer's writer."  These writers have a certain style to their writing that I imagine other "writer's writers" love--prose that feels like poetry and sounds like songs.  Usually, this hyper-intellectual style is often paired with a story that has little or no plot and this is definitely some of my least favorite books. I just don't really love reading for the sake of hearing the words. I much prefer a good plot, written well.  Here, though, the writer's writer style is paired with an equally intellectual time travel, romance, sci fi, war novel plot.  Moreover, there were additional layers of complexity within each of these themes that made my head spin at times.  For such a short book, the author has jam packed it with things to think about and has done so with this writer's writer approach that at times was just too much complexity for me.  I lost the thread a couple of times and had to back up to figure out where my mind got left behind.  I am having a hard time recommending the book, even with how much I loved the story line. I have a hard time not recommending a time travel book that holds together internally.  All in all, I am going to put this on the Not Not Recommended List with the expectation that some people I know are going to love this book, but it is probably not a good beach or road trip read and most people won't be doing chores or anything distracting while they listen.  

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