Whats faster than autonomous vehicles and flying cars?

Try Hyperloop, rocket travel, and robotic avatars. Hyperloop is currently working towards 670 mph (1080 kph) passenger pods, capable of zipping us from Los Angeles to downtown Las Vegas in under 30 minutes. Rocket Travel (think SpaceXs Starship) promises to deliver you almost anywhere on the planet in under an hour. Think New York to Shanghai in39 minutes.

But wait, it gets even better

As 5G connectivity, hyper-realistic virtual reality, and next-gen robotics continue their exponential progress, the emergence of robotic avatars will all but nullify the concept of distance, replacing human travel with immediate remote telepresence.

Lets dive in.

Did you know that Hyperloop was the brainchild of Elon Musk? Just one in a series of transportation innovations from a man determined to leave his mark on the industry.

In 2013, in an attempt to shorten the long commute between Los Angeles and San Francisco, the California state legislature proposed a $68 billion budget allocation for what appeared to be the slowest and most expensive bullet train in history.

Musk was outraged. The cost was too high, the train too sluggish. Teaming up with a group of engineers from Tesla and SpaceX, he published a 58-page concept paper for The Hyperloop, a high-speed transportation network that used magnetic levitation to propel passenger pods down vacuum tubes at speeds of up to 670 mph. If successful, it would zip you across California in 35 minutesjust enough time to watch your favorite sitcom.

In January 2013, venture capitalist Shervin Pishevar, with Musks blessing, started Hyperloop One with myself, Jim Messina (former White House Deputy Chief of Staff for President Obama), and tech entrepreneurs Joe Lonsdale and David Sacks as founding board members. A couple of years after that, the Virgin Group invested in this idea, Richard Branson was elected chairman, and Virgin Hyperloop One was born.

The Hyperloop exists, says Josh Giegel, co-founder and chief technology officer of Hyperloop One, because of the rapid acceleration of power electronics, computational modeling, material sciences, and 3D printing.

Thanks to these convergences, there are now ten major Hyperloop One projectsin various stages of developmentspread across the globe. Chicago to DC in 35 minutes. Pune to Mumbai in 25 minutes. According to Giegel, Hyperloop is targeting certification in 2023. By 2025, the company plans to have multiple projects under construction and running initial passenger testing.

So think about this timetable: Autonomous car rollouts by 2020. Hyperloop certification and aerial ridesharing by 2023. By 2025going on vacation might have a totally different meaning. Going to work most definitely will.

But whats faster than Hyperloop?

As if autonomous vehicles, flying cars, and Hyperloop werent enough, in September of 2017, speaking at the International Astronautical Congress in Adelaide, Australia, Musk promised that for the price of an economy airline ticket, his rockets will fly you anywhere on Earth in under an hour.

Musk wants to use SpaceXs megarocket, Starship, which was designed to take humans to Mars, for terrestrial passenger delivery. The Starship travels at 17,500 mph. Its an order of magnitude faster than the supersonic jet Concorde.

Think about what this actually means: New York to Shanghai in 39 minutes. London to Dubai in 29 minutes. Hong Kong to Singapore in 22 minutes.

So how real is the Starship?

We could probably demonstrate this [technology] in three years, Musk explained, but its going to take a while to get the safety right. Its a high bar. Aviation is incredibly safe. Youre safer on an airplane than you are at home.

That demonstration is proceeding as planned. In September 2017, Musk announced his intentions to retire his current rocket fleet, both the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy, and replace them with the Starships in the 2020s.

Less than a year later, LA mayor Eric Garcetti tweeted that SpaceX was planning to break ground on an 18-acre rocket production facility near the port of Los Angeles. And April of this year marked an even bigger milestone: the very first test flights of the rocket.

Thus, sometime in the next decade or so, off to Europe for lunch may become a standard part of our lexicon.

Wait, wait, theres one more thing.

While the technologies weve discussed will decimate the traditional transportation industry, theres something on the horizon that will disrupt travel itself. What if, to get from A to B, you didnt have to move your body? What if you could quote Captain Kirk and just say Beam me up, Scotty?

Well, shy of the Star Trek transporter, theres the world of avatars.

An avatar is a second self, typically in one of two forms. The digital version has been around for a couple of decades. It emerged from the video game industry and was popularized by virtual world sites like Second Life and books-turned-blockbusters likeReady Player One.

A VR headset teleports your eyes and ears to another location, while a set of haptic sensors shifts your sense of touch. Suddenly, youre inside an avatar inside a virtual world. As you move in the real world, your avatar moves in the virtual.

Use this technology to give a lecture and you can do it from the comfort of your living room, skipping the trip to the airport, the cross-country flight, and the ride to the conference center.

Robots are the second form of avatars. Imagine a humanoid robot that you can occupy at will. Maybe, in a city far from home, youve rented the bot by the minutevia a different kind of ridesharing companyor maybe you have spare robot avatars located around the country.

Either way, put on VR goggles and a haptic suit, and you can teleport your senses into that robot. This allows you to walk around, shake hands, and take actionall without leaving your home.

And like the rest of the tech weve been talking about, even this future isnt far away.

In 2018, entrepreneur Dr. Harry Kloor recommended to All Nippon Airways (ANA), Japans largest airline, the design of an Avatar XPRIZE. ANA then funded this vision to the tune of $10 million to speed the development of robotic avatars. Why? Because ANA knows this is one of the technologies likely to disrupt their own airline industry, and they want to be ready.

ANA recently announced its newme robot that humans can use to virtually explore new places. The colorful robots have Roomba-like wheeled bases and cameras mounted around eye-level, which capture surroundings viewable through VR headsets.

If the robot was stationed in your parents home, you could cruise around the rooms and chat with your family at any time of day. After revealing the technology at Tokyos Combined Exhibition of Advanced Technologies in October, ANA plans to deploy 1,000 newme robots by 2020.

With virtual avatars like newme, geography, distance, and cost will no longer limit our travel choices. From attractions like the Eiffel Tower or the pyramids of Egypt to unreachable destinations like the moon or deep sea, we will be able to transcend our own physical limits, explore the world and outer space, and access nearly any experience imaginable.

Individual car ownership has enjoyed over a century of ascendancy and dominance.

The first real threat it facedtodays ride-sharing modelonly showed up in the last decade. But that ridesharing model wont even get ten years to dominate. Already, its on the brink of autonomous car displacement, which is on the brink of flying car disruption, which is on the brink of Hyperloop and rockets-to-anywhere decimation. Plus, avatars.

The most important part: All of this change will happen over the next ten years. Welcome to a future of human presence where the only constant israpidchange.

Note: This articlean excerpt from my next book The Future Is Faster Than You Think, co-authored with Steven Kotler, to be released January 28th, 2020originally appeared on my tech blog at diamandis.com. Read the original article here.

Abundance-Digital Online Community:Stay ahead of technological advancements and turn your passion into action. Abundance Digital is now part of Singularity University.Learn more.

Image Credit: Virgin Hyperloop One

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Within 10 Years, We'll Travel by Hyperloop, Rockets, and Avatars - Singularity Hub

Its hard to watch a loved one get sick. Their eyes go glassy. Their breathing is punctuated by body-wracking coughs. Feverish and aching, they struggle to get out of bed.

Hard as these symptoms are to witness, theyre so familiar you dont need a medical degree to know its probably a bad cold and maybe the flu. Get some rest, hydrate, pop some ibuprofen, see a doctor if the symptoms significantly worsenand wash your hands, for heavens sake.

For most of history, however, even the finest physicians only slowly advanced beyond the basics of biology and medicine we take for granted. There have long been forms of diagnosis, treatment, and prevention, but these were rudimentary at best and superstitious at worst.

The history of innovation is not that excitinguntil you get to the 20th century, Jane Metcalfe, cofounder of Wired and founder of Neo.Life, told the audience at Singularity Universitys Exponential Medicine in San Diego this week.

Since then, biology and medicine have been on a tear, Metcalfe said. Early last century, doctors mastered blood transfusions and complex surgeries. They began controlling and eradicating infectious disease with sterilization, antibiotics, and vaccines and found drugs to manage pain.

Then, around the middle of the century, scientists began amassing a deep body of biological knowledgeknowledge were now using to manipulate the fundamental processes of living things.

Its a familiar story, but one that suggests something radical. Just as physics and chemistry have given humans power over the world of the inanimate, biology is giving us the ability to engineer living systems, from viruses and bacteria to animals and people.

Which is why Metcalfe thinks design could be the next big thing in medicine.

Well combat disease and improve human health by designing biological systems from the ground up. We can design embryos. We can edit genes in humans. We have synthetic biology. And so we really are looking at designing future humans, Metcalfe said.

The best known bio-design tool to date is undoubtedly CRISPR genome editing. With CRISPR, scientists are closer than ever to manipulating genes down to the letter.

There are now a number of increasingly refined CRISPR-based systems, the latest of which, CRISPR prime editing, has been described as a word processor for gene editing. Meanwhile, the first approved gene therapies are making their way (at times painfully) into cancer treatment.

Just last year, Metcalfe said, the world was shocked to learn a scientist in China, Dr. He Jiankui, had used CRISPR to edit human embryos and confer immunity to HIV (and potentially other unintended traits in the process). He went even further by implanting the embryos, and the first genetically modified babies were born in China in 2018. Hes work was universally condemned by the scientific community as sloppy and unethical. Yet, another scientist, this time in Russia, has since made public his intentions to use CRISPR to edit human embryos too.

The ethics quite clearly havent caught up to the science, and the tools themselves are still being sharpened, but its likely only a matter of time before scientists, researchers, and doctors begin more responsibly snipping out disease-causing genes and, perhaps, even splicing in beneficial ones.

George Church is anticipating that day.

George is probably the most prolific bioengineer of our time, Metcalfe said. [There] are fifty different alleles that hes tracking that are beneficial to humans. These variants include genes that help protect against cardiovascular disease and Alzheimers disease. Others may improve memory and learning and extend your telomeres.

But our design abilities wont be limited to existing genes, Metcalfe said. Scientists are assembling entirely new synthetic biological systems from scratch too.

Were writing DNA codeand weve been doing this for a whilebut were starting to get good at it, said Andrew Hessel, Humane Genomics CEO and nanotechnology/biotechnology faculty at Singularity University, in a talk following Metcalfes.

Hessel pointed to Twist Bioscience a synthetic biology company that went public in late 2018. Twist manufactures short custom sequences of DNA (oligos) at scale. Customers can design and order sequences and have them delivered by Fedex. With tools like this, synthetic biologists have begun creating synthetic enzymes and proteins, some of which have even proven themselves functionallike their natural siblingsin bacteria.

Scientists are thinking bigger too.

Craig Venter, already famed for his work sequencing the first human genome, announced the first reproducing synthetic bacteria back in 2010. He followed up with a streamlined minimal synthetic cell in 2016. Boasting the smallest known genome, it has no natural counterpart. Then this year, another group announced theyd made synthetic E. coli bacteria with a four million base-pair genomefour times longer than Venters 2010 achievementand using just 61 codons instead of 64. Currently, scientists are working with yeast to make the first synthetic eukaryotic cells.

The ultimate goal is writing whole human genomes from scratch, and Hessel cofounded Genome Project-write (GP-write) to convene the worlds top synthetic biologists to do just that.

There are obviously big hurdles that still need clearingincluding software that can make design more accurate and efficient and DNA synthesis tools that assemble longer base-pair sequencesand Hessels group recently published a paper outlining the challenges. Nonetheless, Hessel said the group doesnt think any of these will take more than a decade to solve.

Literally in 10 years weve gone from making proteins synthetically to making a eukaryote, he said. As soon as we can start making whole chromosomes, well, weve only got 23 of them. Its not going to take very long until you end up bumping up against the human genome.

The pace of change in biology and medicine has been swift, Metcalfe said.

Researchers discovered DNAs structure in 1953, the first IVF baby was born in 1978, and we met Dolly the sheep, the first cloned animal, in 1996.

In just the last two decades, scientists went from sequencing the human genome at great cost and effort to sequencing it for under $1,000 in a day. Now there are an estimated million-plus complete human genomes on the books.

Weve graduated from complex and costly gene editing tools to tools that can be sold in a kit for a few hundred bucks. Scientists are building genomes from scratch and booting them up.

The question is no longer whether well be able to design our own biologythe tools are already herethe question is can we handle the responsibility?

This technology is going to touch every business, every sector, every government, every person, Hessel said. This isnt a presentation for now, its the start of a conversation with all of you for the future.

Image Credit:gustavo centurion /Unsplash

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Why Designing Our Own Biology Will Be the Next Big Thing in Medicine - Singularity Hub

Theres a new technological answer to the iconic line youre going to need a bigger boat from Jaws: 3D printing one.

Last month, the University of Maine revealed3Dirigo, a 25-foot, 5,000-pound boat that set new records for the worlds largest solid 3D-printed object and largest 3D-printed vessel. Incidentally, it was created by the new titleholder of the largest prototype polymer 3D printer belt. If there isnt a belt to go with the title, the printer in question can surely print one in XXXL-size.

3Dirigo was printed in just three days. Dr. Habib Dagher, Executive Director of the University of Maines Advanced Structures & Composites Center, toldCNBCthat a typical development and manufacturing process for a craft of similar size could take months or even a year.

The speed of production and sheer size of the finished product illustrate how many 3D printing processesare climbing out of the Trough of Disappointmentin Gartners (in)famous Hype Cycle. Increasing development speed and new use cases point towards further advances in the coming few years.

While 3Dirigo itself is impressive, it will not necessarily hold on to all its records for long. The University of Maines new Big Area Additive Manufacturing Machine (BAAM) 3D printer is designed to print objects up to 100 feet long by 22 feet wide by 10 feet high, with a top printing speed of 500 pounds per hour. BAAM is a one-of-a-kind printer, and it will be used in connection with a variety of research and production initiatives, including rapid prototyping of civilian, defense, and infrastructure applications.

Mass-produced 3D printers are also growing, with many now capable of printing objects bigger than human beings.

The increase in printing sizes is likely a contributing factor to companies and organizations busily integrating 3D printers of all sizes in their setups. A report from Deloitte estimates that large public companies will spend more than $2.7 billion on 3D printingincluding enterprise 3D printers, materials, and servicesin 2019. In 2020, the figure will climb to more than $3 billion. 80 percent of enterprises taking part in a Sculpteo questionnaire said that 3D printing is enabling them to innovate faster. 51 percent of the interviewed enterprises said theyre already actively using 3D printing in production.

Early on in the lifetime of 3D printers, speed and precision were like opposing forces; you couldnt have both. Since then, much has changed, and continues to do so. Australian 3D printer manufacturer Auroras RMP-1 provides a good example. It can print up to 350kg of material (metal) a day, which is a 2,000 percent increase in speed over its previous model.

Printing speeds could be about to get into warp territory thanks to several ongoing projects.

A group at the University of Michigan is using light and photoreactive resin to 3D print objects at speeds up to 100 times faster than traditional methods. A little further east, MIT professors Jamison Go and John Hart are working on 3D printing hardware called FastFFF (Fast Fused Filament Fabrication). The hardware can print at ten times the speed most 3D printers work at today and can use biodegradable cellulose instead of plastics.

Incidentally, cellulose is just one of an ever-growing multitude of materials 3D printers can use today.

Speed and material flexibility are core to creating new use cases and leading to advances across industries.

One recent project uses a building block approach to creating whole organs. Much-famed Beyond Meat is soon going to have competition from Israeli startup Redefine Meat, who is printing a mix of fat, water, and plant fibers into something that will have the shape, texture, and taste of meat.

Another area where we are seeing rapid advances is 3D printing construction elements, and in some cases whole buildings. Like with boats, the process can be at least as fast as constructing a building by traditional methods. At last years South By Southwest festival, the start-up ICON showcased just that in the form of a 650-square-foot 3D printed house that cost under $10,000 and took under 24 hours to complete.

Although 3D printings advances are impressive, theyre unlikely to become the only way we produce things. Even with their new abilities, 3D printers will likely struggle to compete with traditional productions methods for jobs like printing out 100,000 identical spoons or metal-stamping a million identical parts. However, 3D printing is making it easier to create innovative products faster, tailor and customize products, and lower time-to-market.

As is often the case, its in combination with other exponential technologies that the printers could reach their full potential. For example, if we were to combine 3D printers with robots and let them loose. Imagine, as Danish GXN Innovation, The Danish AM Hub, and Map Architects did, mobile 3D printers capable of autonomous crawling, swimming, or flying, producing necessary parts on spec wherever they go.

If this nutty-sounding vision comes to pass, well be seeing stranger things than boats churning out of 3D printers. But then again, if youd heard just 10 years ago that a 25-foot boat was going to be made by a printer, youd never have believed it.

Image Credit: University of Maine

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This Boat Was 3D Printedand Bigger, Wilder Projects Will Soon Follow - Singularity Hub

On November 23, Tom Hiddleston, Charlie Cox, and Zawe Ashton of Broadways Betrayal will join Playbills Ruthie Fierberg in conversation on the 92Y stage. The stars will take a deep dive into their experience with the play (which marks each of their Broadway debuts) as they reveal behind-the-scenes insights, the singularity of the production and how it began, and how they balance theatre with megawatt screen careers.

Hiddleston is most famous for his ongoing role as Loki in The Avengers series. Cox made a name for himself with Netflixs Daredevil, and Ashton recently appeared opposite Jake Gyllenhaal in Velvet Buzzsaw and debuted her own play for all the women who thought they were Mad at Soho Rep. And yet, all three are rooted in theatre beginnings. Join the trio as they share revelations about their careers, Pinters play, and each other. Click here for tickets and information.

READ: Betrayals Zawe Ashton Is the Broadway Star You Need to Know Right Now

92Y has also announced a new event tied to Broadways Dear Evan Hansen. On December 8, XYZ Presents a conversation with Broadways current Evan, Andrew Barth Feldman, and Tony-winning producer Stacey Mindich. The even will also feature a performance by Feldman. Click here for tickets and information.

READ: New Dear Evan Hansen Star Andrew Barth Feldman Brings Something Brand-New to Evan

On December 11, Tony winner Billy Porter takes the stage with host Fern Mallis to talk everything from Kinky Boots to Pose to his status as a fashion icon. Click here for tickets and information.

December 16 will feature A Tribute to Ntozake Shange with Hilton Als, Mahogany L. Browne, Toshi Reagon, Anna Deveare Smith, Jacqueline Woodson, and more. The panel, which comes just after the closing of the Off-Broadway revival of Shanges for colored girls..., is sold out but accepting wait list requests.

The rest is here:

Betrayal's Charlie Cox, Zawe Ashton, and Tom Hiddleston to Appear on the 92Y Stage - Playbill.com

Hobo Johnson and the LovemakersBogart'sA millennial on the cusp of Gen Z, Hobo Johnsons sound and style is suggestive of how music is consumed and regurgitated in the current era. The hodgepodge is a hyper-sensory blend of Hip Hop, Emo, Pop, Folk, Jazz and AltRock whipped together and given distinctiveness and singularity thanks to Johnsons colorfully multifaceted personality.

That magnetism comes out in his lyrics, which are a mix of hilarity and more inward-looking emotional honesty. But its his oddly charismatic and actorly vocal delivery that seals the deal. Part rapper, part spoken word poet and part performance artist, Johnsons voice sounds simultaneously as if hes on the verge of both cracking up laughing and breaking down crying. That charming brand of vulnerability the smart ass with a heart of gold makes it hard to hate him, though he has his share of haters, some of whom seemed almost startled and uncomfortable with Johnsons geekily conversational, nakedly confessional and awkwardly confrontational tone.

Johnsons rise is also fairly indicative of our times, where one viral moment can kick off a career that once would have required slogging it out for years. Born Frank Lopes Jr. and raised in Sacramento, California, Johnson self-released music online and worked the YouTube circuit. Cultivating his following DIY-style was working out just fine for Johnson, but last year he truly blew up thanks to his video submission for National Public Radio Musics Tiny Desk Contest. The clip featuring Johnson casually performing with his bandmates in a backyard didnt win the contest, which would have netted him his own Tiny Desk Concert (a hugely popular web series where artists perform intimate sets in the NPR Music offices) and a high-profile tour. But the attention the clip scored separately worked out pretty well for Johnson, who signed a major-label deal, went on large headlining club tours and, yes, was given his own Tiny Desk Concert.

Reprise Records released his third album, The Fall of Hobo Johnson (his last joint was The Rise of Hobo Johnson), in September and its trademark mix of comedy and neuroses didnt disappoint his hardcore fan base, though critics were fairly harsh, seemingly put off more by Johnson as a person than the actual music. Hes definitely a love-him-or-hate-him entertainer theres no Meh - hes OK with Johnson. Thats what happens when you put yourself out there without an Instagram filter hiding your faults.

Speaking of which, Hobo unveiled the best album promo of the decade when in early October he posted a video compilation of celebrities big-upping The Fall. The funny, very on-brand stunt featured testimonials and endorsements from famous/notorious figures like Charlie Sheen, Ron Jeremy, Jose Conseco, Andy Dick and Ice-T, all hired via Cameo, a service where cash-strapped (or just cash-hungry) stars earn a few extra bucks by filming personal messages for fans.

Johnson and his Lovemakers are playing Bogart's this Sunday, Nov. 17 with Mom Jeans, The Philharmonik and Nate Curry, but unless you have a ticket (or $99 for official "resale" ones), you can't go. The concert is sold out.

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Alt Hip Hop Sensation Hobo Johnson is Playing a Sold-Out Concert at Bogart's This Weekend - Cincinnati CityBeat

This Is How You Lose the Time War, Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone (Saga 978-1-5344-3100-3, $19.99, 200pp, hc) July 2019.

A novel or rather a novella that does find me part of its enthusiastic readership is Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstones first traditionally published collaboration, This Is How You Lose the Time War. Holy shit. Holy shit. Holy shit. This is the time-travelling queer epistolary romance I didnt know I needed. This is the time-travelling queer epistolary romance you should definitely read, because while Im not entirely sure I can do it justice in a review, I am entirely sure its an excellent work that if theres any justice in the world well see on awards lists next year.

El-Mohtar (Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author of Seasons of Glass and Iron) and Gladstone (award-nominated author of Ruin of Angels and Empress of Forever) have combined their striking talents in a slender volume thats as impressive and as affecting as it is brief. It starts with a letter marked burn before reading. Out of this unlikely beginning arises a correspondence that should never have existed, between two agents on the opposite sides of a war that stretches throughout time and space: rivals who know each other by their work. Red belongs to the Agency, a post-singularity technological civilisation. Blue belongs to the Garden, a consciousness embedded in organic matter. They have bloody histories and theyre bent on futures where the other is dead, defeated, or never-to-have-existed at all. They have nothing in common.

They have a lot in common. Theyre the best at what they do. Theyre alone. They want to win but they also want to be seen by someone who can understand and appreciate what they have done and can do: they want the acknowledgement of knowing the best of the other side knows theyre better.

At first. It starts as a game. It starts as a battlefield boast. It grows into something stranger, stronger, fiercer, something that can say,

I want to scorch the thousand earths between us to see what blooms from the ash, so we can discover it hand in hand, content in context, intelligible only to each other. I want to meet you in every place I have loved

I write to you in stings, Red, but this is me, the truth of me, as I do so: broken open by the act, in the palm of your hand, dying.

Its an epistolary romance between spies. Of course theres betrayal, heart-breaking betrayal, one used against the other; of course theres striving, there are reversals, theres unexpected triumph, bitter and sweet and hopeful. Gladstone and El-Mohtar between them have built a precisely engineered marvel, cresting to a climax that takes every moment of what came before and infuses it with fresh meaning, gives it more layers.

I often dislike time travel stories. Paradox annoys me. Here the paradox is elegant and inevitable, as inevitable as tragedy but better. Here the paradox is the point, and it turns out that its a glorious thing.

With precise, cut-glass prose poetic and pragmatic at once deeply compelling characters, and a tensely rewarding conclusion, This Is How You Lose the Time War is one of the most striking works of fiction Ive read this decade. Im going to be thinking about it returning to it for months, at least. Read it, because I cant recommend it highly enough.

Liz Bourke

This Is How You Lose the Time War, Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone; Cynthia Farrell and Emily Woo Zeller, narrators (Simon & Schuster Audio 978-1-50828705-6, $17.99, digital download, 4.25 hr., unabridged) July 2019.

Who does not love an epistolary novel? Who does not love an epistolary novel where each end of the correspondence is written by a different author? Who does not love an audiobook production of a two-authored epistolary novel in which each correspondent is voiced by a separate narrator? If you are not sharing in this love, I do not want to know you. The steely but passionate voice of Cynthia Farrell enacts the role of Red, an elite operative of the Agency, an organization from a highly technological potential distant future; Emily Woo Zeller is her opposite number, taking on the role of the warm but ruthless Blue, an operative of the more organically inclined potential distant future of the Garden. Each of these two agents embeds herself in various timelines across time and space in an effort to ensure that her future comes to pass. After eons at odds, Blue follows an impulse and leaves Red a teasing letter, inciting a barbed correspondence that evolves over years into flirtation and love, and kicking off an asynchronous series of events that ouroboruses into an inevitable yet thrilling conclusion. Yes, okay, ouroboros is not a verb, and maybe using it as one gives too much away; but if you cant see whats going to/will have happened fairly early on, then youre really not paying attention. The point of this story is in the journey, which is poetic and lovely with a nicely dark tinge, and voiced in a way that feels true to the text.

Amy Goldschlager

This review and more like it in the October 2019 issue of Locus.

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Liz Bourke and Amy Goldschlager Review This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone - Locus Online