This Is How You Lose the Time War

Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone wrote this epistolary science fiction novella in two voices: Gladstone wrote Red's letters, El-Mohtar wrote Blue's. Red serves the Agency, a technological society beyond the singularity; Blue belongs to Garden, a single consciousness spread through all organic matter. Each travels through time rewriting history across many universes for one of two warring powers whose futures cannot both exist. On a dying world Red finds a note from Blue instructing the reader to burn it first, and a taunting exchange of letters begins, a correspondence that would cost both their lives if discovered. The book won the Hugo, Nebula and Locus awards for best novella.

Tim Ferriss listed it among his favorite and most impactful reads of 2021 and urged readers to avoid reviews and plot overviews and simply start reading.