Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone have established themselves as virtuosos of speculative fiction through a collaboration that transcends genre boundaries. El-Mohtar, known for her lyrical prose and deep engagement with mythology and language, and Gladstone, celebrated for his inventive worldbuilding and philosophical complexity, joined forces to create This Is How You Lose the Time War—a work that would prove their creative partnership could captivate both science fiction’s most prestigious award bodies. Their novella swept the 2019 Nebula Awards and 2020 Hugo Awards in the Best Novella category, a remarkable back-to-back recognition that speaks to the story’s resonance across the science fiction community.

What makes This Is How You Lose the Time War exceptional is how it marries the authors’ individual strengths into something entirely fresh. The novella reads as an epistolary romance unfolding across timelines and dimensions, using the framework of temporal warfare to explore intimacy, agency, and the transformative power of connection. Their cross-award success is particularly notable because it demonstrates that a work can be formally experimental and emotionally luminous, intellectually rigorous and deeply human—a rare alchemy in contemporary speculative fiction that has positioned El-Mohtar and Gladstone among the field’s most compelling contemporary voices.