Audiobook9 hours
Here and Now and Then
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
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About this audiobook
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
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
Author
Mike Chen
Mike Chen is the New York Times bestselling author of Star Wars: Brotherhood, Here and Now and Then, Light Years From Home, and other novels. He has covered geek culture for sites such as Nerdist, Tor.com, and StarTrek.com, and in a different life, covered the NHL. A member of SFWA, Mike lives in the Bay Area with his wife, daughter, and many rescue animals. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram: @mikechenwriter
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Reviews for Here and Now and Then
Rating: 4.013513513513513 out of 5 stars
4/5
74 ratings8 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Loved it. One of the best I have read in the time travel genre. Suspenseful with an interesting twist in the end.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This was a fun enough time travel story, with some thriller moments. I picked this one up on impulse at the library when it was first out - the cover and premise intrigued me, but didn't happen to get to it then. Finally got around to picking it back up this month, and I'm glad I did. It didn't drag, and was easy to get through in a day.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Great time travel novel about a man and his love of his family. Great for any sci-fi fan. Especially time travel fans
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/53.5 but the character of Pennie and her role in the 3rd act made me round it up to 4 stars. It was too literary fiction to be a sci-fi book for my taste. Nonetheless, I liked the ending which is rare lately. Hence, the 4 stars
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This book was so much fun, and was an incredibly read. It might be a new favorite of mine! I absolutely recommend it.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Kin Stewart is a time-traveling secret agent, charged with protecting us all against timeline corruption. Unfortunately, he's a time-traveling secret agent who got stranded in the late 1990s on his last assignment, and has had to survive the last eighteen years or so, while his memories of his past life, in 2142, fade. Or not really fade, so much as decay, because the human mind isn't built to remember two different lives in two different times.
He's become a computer network administrator, for an online game company. He has married Heather, a lawyer, and they have a teenage daughter, Miranda.
But it's all coming apart, as his mind loses even more of his memories, and he has crushing headaches, blackouts, and over-reactions. PTSD from his time in the Special Forces, he tells his family. But he refuses to get help, because he's afraid too much will come out.
Then a strange man turns up, a man out of his past. Or his future. Markus, his retrieval agent, eighteen years late. What happened is soon established, but the real question, for Kin, is what happens next. For Markus, though, it's simple. Kin has to come back to 2142 with him, leaving his family behind. And not just for temporal corruption reasons. Kin won't live much longer, anyway, as his mind keeps decaying and causing physical symptoms the early 21st century doesn't have the means to treat.
Also, Kin has someone waiting for him back in 2142, and she's Markus's sister.
It's from this point that things start getting very, very complicated. It's not just the effects of time travel, and it's not just the consequences for Kin's 21st century family. It's also the complicated tangle of relationships, his family now and his family then, and how they affect each other, and whether the Time Corruption Bureau can be induced to ignore the existence of Kin's daughter, Miranda, who is a time corruption all by herself, just by existing.The characters here are rounded and compelling, and their dilemmas feel very real. And Chen brings it all to a satisfying conclusion.
Highly recommended.
I borrowed this audiobook via Scribd. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The technology and secret agency were well thought out and believable so that I could invest my heart in this book. As a parent myself, I thought the dilemmas that Kin faced were relatable and so real.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Absolutely loved the story line, couldn’t stop listening to the audio book.