This Is How You Lose the Time War (and Win at Book Publicity)

It all started with a Tweet. Twitter user @maskofbun posted a picture of This Is How You Lose the Time War, a 2019 novel by Amal El Mohtar and Max Gladstone. The tweet said: 
 

read this. DO NOT look up anything about it. just read it. it's only like 200 pages u can download it on audible it's only like four hours. do it right now i'm very extremely serious. pic.twitter.com/Pzb2FWvFlg

— bigolas dickolas woIfwood (@maskofbun) May 7, 2023

And the Internet paid attention. A book that got reasonable critical acclaim when it was first published has now rocketed up sales charts. When last I checked Brooklyn Public Library's catalog, there were 131 people waiting for a paper copy of This is How You Lose the Time War, and 279 people waiting for an eBook. (Yes, we’re ordering more copies!)

Now that is how you win at book publicity!

If the viral tweet, or the subsequent buzz about it made you curious, here are some of our other favorite time travel novels to read while you wait. I promise these books are “do it right now I’m extremely serious” levels of good.

Just One Damned Thing After Another by Jodi Taylor. Max is a time traveling historian, doing research up and down the timeline, along with her colleagues from the St. Mary’s Institute of Historical Research. As they visit the past to study it, they can’t risk changing anything or interfering with the local contemporaries. Because History will absolutely fight back. This is the start of a series that is sometimes tense, sometimes hilarious and sometimes rips my heart out. I wish more people would read it so I could talk about it with them.

Invictus by Ryan Graudin. Farway Gaius McCarthy is the son of a time traveler from 2354 AD and a gladiator living in ancient Rome. He shouldn’t exist, but that’s the least of his problems. He flunked the exam to be a certified time traveler. Oh, and now he and his friends have to stop the fabric of the universe from unraveling. There’s also a red panda.

To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis. Like the St. Mary’s series, this is another screwball crew of time traveling research historians, but things get even goofier as the adventures unfold. There are forays from 2057 to the Victorian era, a sojourn in World War II, and a colossally ugly piece of cathedral architecture.

Doomsday Book by Connie Willis is part of the same universe as To Say Nothing of the Dog, but the historical research time travel takes place in the years of the Black Plague. This book made me cry. On the train. That was slightly awkward, but worth it.

The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern. Strictly speaking, this isn’t a time travel novel, more of a strange and alternate realities kind of novel. Lush, poetic imagery creates the world of an underground library, and pulls you along as you read. This would probably be good as an audiobook, too, because the language is just so gorgeous.

Here is the most important lesson from the This Is How You Lose the Time War hype: one reader who loves a book can make a huge difference by sharing their enthusiasm. When you love a book, get social—tell your friends, tell the internet, tell the world!

P.S. Not to toot our own horn, but Brooklyn Public Library knew that This Is How You Lose the Time War was amazing from the start—back in 2020, it was shortlisted for the Library's Book Prize, our annual honor for literature.