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Here and Now and Then

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Here and Now and Then

By: Mike Chen
Narrated by: Cary Hite
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About this listen

 From the New York Times bestselling author of Star Wars: Brotherhood

A Goodreads Choice Awards 2019 Semifinalist

One of BookBub’s Best Science Fiction Books of 2019

One of Book Riot’s Best Books of 2019 So Far

One of The Nerd Daily’s Best Debut Novels of 2019

Featured in The Millions “A Year in Reading”

One of Entropy’s Best Fiction Books of 2019

He’ll go anywhere and any when to save his daughter

Kin Stewart is an everyday family man: working in IT, trying to keep the spark in his marriage, struggling to connect with his teenage daughter.

But his current life is a far cry from his previous career…as a time-traveling secret agent from over a century in the future.

Stranded in suburban San Francisco since the 1990s after a botched mission, Kin has kept his past hidden from everyone around him, until one afternoon, his “rescue” team arrives—eighteen years too late.

Their mission: return Kin to 2142, where he’s been gone only weeks, not years, and where another family is waiting for him. A family he can’t remember.

Torn between two lives, Kin’s desperate efforts to stay connected to both will threaten to destroy the agency and even history itself. With his daughter’s very existence at risk, he will have to take one final trip to save her—even if it means breaking all the rules of time travel in the process.

“Heartfelt and thrilling… Chen’s concept is unique, and [his characters’] agony is deeply moving. Quick pacing, complex characters, and a fascinating premise.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review Adventure Family Life Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Science Fiction Time Travel Heartfelt

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All stars
Most relevant
I listened to this on Audible and Holy Wow! What a beautiful and emotional story.

The narration by Cary Hite is silky smooth and adds so much depth to the already perfect words of the story.

It's one of those stories which causes you to reflect so much on the characters and the events which have played out.

I love it, so much.

Thank you, Mike :)

Beautiful and Perfect Story

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Quaint story that's more about family than a time traveling secret agent. If hallmark made sci fi.

Wholesome wander through an exciting concept

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I enjoyed the whole story, despite being sci-fi, the storyline is very believable. Thoroughly enjoyed it

The ending

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This is a real shame. I was really enjoying this book, but had to stop halfway through as the actor has one of the worst English accents I’ve ever heard (and that is a high, high bar) It’s like some daemonic speak your weight machine. If you are going to have British characters in the book you really need to find someone you can do a British accent. I am English born and bred and, despite my best efforts, simply could not carry on listening to the actor mangle any more vowels.

Worst English accent ever

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This is the story of Kin Stewart, a father who is also a time-travelling assassin from the mid-22nd century, determined to save his daughter over a time gap of more than a century. The novel engages with the thought experiment of ‘what would a time traveller do if he were stranded in the past and built a new life for himself, was retrieved by his employer 18 years too late and ripped away from his 2014 family, then found out almost too late that his daughter needed him?'

The principles of time travel as they are imagined in this book are well explained and woven into the story. The 22nd-century world-building is good without being overwhelming; some things are different - we discover a technologically advanced society of people who live to 200 thanks to biotechnology, and there is a passing reference to the geography and cost of living in the Bay Area in the era of much warmer temperatures - while some stay the same, like a liberal techno-loving California full of geeks, the English Premier Football League (!) and Saturday amateur football matches. Behind this benign facade, the organisation that deals with temporal anomalies, Kin's employer, is ruthless and totalitarian in the application of its rules - there are extra-judicial killings galore with no due process, including for an innocent civilian. From such a premise, I was expecting much. But Kin never gets to realise that the job he did for so long, and the operating principles of his organisation, are appalling - not even when the organisation goes after his own daughter, though it was at fault for leaving him stranded in the past for 18 years and then imposing on him a wholly inhuman separation.

That lack of self-awareness is the biggest weakness in an otherwise entertaining book, especially as it doesn't fit the character of Kin as Chen develops him - not an amoral assassin, but a thoughtful man. His trained habit of compartmentalising matches Kin at the beginning of the story - but not by the end. The idea that such a person would not question that "bad guys" trying to use the past to make money in the future should be shot without the benefit of trial is jarring. Markus, another time traveller working for that organisation, comes across as one of those KGB agents in old Cold War spy novels, who, despite being friendly, justify the unjustifiable because "it's the rules" of their world. The only one who has any moral compass beyond the immediately personal is Penny, and one wonders how she will deal in the future with the reality of what Markus and Kin have done - will she just shove it under the carpet? That doesn't fit her character either.

Time travel raises many ethical questions, and I don't expect an author to examine them all in a single book; but I do expect an author to inquire into those he raises explicitly - call it a moral Chekhov's gun. Mike Chen explores those touching upon personal family issues and split loyalties, and he does that with beautiful emotion and originality, but he only superficially touches upon the central one of abuse of power and justifying the means by the end.

The narrator is competent as long as he speaks in American English. But two central characters are English and his attempt at an English accent is so painful, it hurt my teeth (please, authors and publishers, if a character is English, get a narrator who can do a decent English accent. Same with Scottish, Irish, Welsh, Australian, etc.). It completely spoiled my enjoyment of the audiobook, so that after a few chapters, I switched to Kindle.

Entertaining but superficial

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