Blue and Red are agents on opposing sides of an ongoing war through time travel. As they both find themselves tired of it all, they begin a clandestine correspondence, eventually falling in love. It’s a dangerous game they play, because if either one of their sides finds out, it could mean their deaths.
Both take on a feminine identity, even though neither one is entirely human. Blue, an agent of the Gardeners, holds shapeshifting capabilities that make her formidable. Meanwhile, Red is the best of the Commandant’s agents, and part of a mass entity that seems to be some kind of bio mechanism.
It takes a while to get into the book, as the language feels pretentious at first. But as the characters open up more to one another through their correspondence, it becomes more poetic and heartfelt. It’s as if before they were each putting on a front to impress one another to protect themselves.
One of the most fascinating aspects of the book is how Blue and Red exchange letters. El-Mohtar and Gladstone built a beautiful world of science fiction in which letters are imprinted on organic materials, paintings, and other strange items. The recipients must ingest or consume the letters in some way to “read” them.
The story offers an interesting perspective on free will. These two individuals appear to have been created synthetically to become part of a collective, but they have managed to find a sense of individuality. It’s especially intriguing to interrogate these ideas through the context of a war they no longer even know what it’s about, and neither does the reader. They are simply agents playing the roles they’ve been given, wondering if there’s anything more to life beyond it.
On the verge of being found out, the Garden reprimands Blue for surface-level missions. When the Commandant realizes Blue has been following Red, but not that they have exchanged correspondence yet, they want to use her to lure Blue to her death.
As their secret relationship unravels, they each try to save one another from certain death. Hidden clues woven throughout the narrative become apparent, and all the timeline moments start to fall into place.
For readers who prefer more sci-fi or speculative fiction, this novel may not scratch that itch. It focuses more on the growing relationship between the protagonists, so it reads more like a romance than anything. But overall, it’s a fun read with a strong sense of poetic language.
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