Here and Now and Then: A Novel Hardcover – January 29, 2019

Here and Now and Then is an incredible, heartfelt sci-fi time travel story about one man learning what’s truly important in life and the depths he will go to so that is family is safe and happy.It’s 2142 and Kin Stewart is a time agent, tasked by the UN time police to go back and stop criminals and mercenaries from trying to mess with the past for personal gain. When a mission goes wrong, he is stranded in the 90s, and left to start a whole new life. But one day, a wife and a daughter later, he ends up back in 2142 away from everything he knows. Kin has to try and reconcile his pre and post 2142 life and decide what he wants from life and what would be best for those he cares about.Much like Elan Mastai’s All Our Wrong Todays, this is a time travel story that will really stick with me for a long time. What Mike Chen has created here is so full of character and familial love - a father willing to do most anything to protect his daughter a century in the past - that the central crux of the story, the actual time travel, is merely incredibly fun window dressing to the true message of the story. Life is short (at least for us, here and now), so cherish all the little moments and always be grateful for what you have.Maybe this story hit me at just the right time, being a semi-new parent to a perfect little daughter, but a story about a man with the willpower and determination to protect his daughter through time and space is kind of perfect, and I think the execution of it was basically flawless.I loved every single character. Kin is a good man in an impossible situation, out of place no matter what time period he is in, knowing nothing more than he needs to protect his family. Penny, his 2142 wife, is in the exact same boat, yet she faces her new reality with grace and humor. And Miranda, his daughter from the late early 2000s, is so well fleshed out despite so much of the story taking place literally a century away from her.I did, admittedly, almost have to take a star away from this book because Kin is an Arsenal fan... but I like to think I’m being the bigger person by not rising to that bait.I truly can’t wait for whatever Mike Chen does next. But, for now, I’m just going to try and appreciate the little moments of life, like how great this book is. 5 stars.

Mike Chen has confounded me with this tale of time travel and what it means to have/be family. At times, I railed at the main character for giving up on (character name and relationship redacted for spoiler reasons) as I felt he could have maybe tipped (character) off and possibly saved (pronoun). Did Kin give up too easily? Did he resolve himself get back into the formerly established relationship too quickly? What was he DOING?! My heart hurt for him, for his family, for his daughter. I was worried about the women in his life, in this story, being...disposable/replaceable. The old trope where women die to further the plot. You have to get all the way through this book to see how delicately the relationships and how deeply personal and important each character is, no matter how little ‘screen time’ they get. While reading this book, I laughed, I nearly cried, I stayed up all night on my Kindle app reading. I fell in love with the characters and was relieved at their flaws and the earnestness with which the author wrote them. It would have been easy to write each person with slightly less depth, and make tragic tropes out of them all. In this main character, I saw a flawed man, but one who would do almost anything to save/help/love his family. I’m a little pissed the author has made me like a story that I would have rejected if I read a cliff notes or skeletal outline of...dude goes back to his first (person name and relationship redacted) How Soon After?! And tries to make everything fine...? This review won’t make much sense until after you’ve read it. Go read it. You’ll see what I mean.TL;DR ~ A time traveling family man fights all odds to save his daughter who should never have been born according to the rules, juggling relationships, obligations and danger between two different lives: past and present.

This is one of the best time-travel novels I've read in a long time! It's a suspenseful, emotional, moving thriller about a father who has loved ones a century apart.Kin Stewart is an agent for the Temporal Corruption Bureau (TCB) in 2142, who goes on missions to stop time criminals who go into the past. On one mission, he gets stranded in 1996 San Francisco (where he's from in the future), forgets much about his life during the next 18 years, and winds up married and has a daughter in the early 21st century.When he's "retrieved" by the TCB and is back in the 22nd century, he becomes frantic about his daughter and communicates with her via email. He also tries to reestablish his relationship with his fiancé in 2142.This well-written novel has lots of twists and turns, and we go on an emotional rollercoaster with Kin, who misses his past family while he attempts to reconnect with his future, prospective one.I enjoyed the comparisons between the two eras, with "metabolizers" extending life and youthfulness, skycars, Mars colonies, doors being opened by facial scanning, cancer cured, and everyone being of mixed race and babies being named after foods (like "Quinoa") in the future, but tastier fast food in the past.The book starts a bit slowly, but after the first few chapters, it is a page-turning delight, with a very good ending.

Definitely one of the best books on time travel I have ever read. Kin is a secret time travelling agent who gets accidentally stuck in a past timeline for 18 years. He marries, and has a daughter. When she is 14 an agent fro. The future finds him and forces him to return to his own timeline. The birth of his daughter was never meant to happen and is considered a corruption on the timeline. Agents are sent back in time to eliminate her. Kin finds out about this and decides to go back in time (illegally) to save her. 5/5 one of the best time travel books I've read.

I really loved the idea of focusing a time travel story on a parent/child relationship, and a dad's struggle to do right by his family when he's suddenly separated from his daughter by more than a century.This book isn’t so much ‘about’ time travel as it is about the lengths one man will go for the people he loves. Main character Kin is in an impossible situation, but struggling with familiar, human issues: how to balance being a good parent while also trying to save a struggling relationship, & navigating the trauma of his return from a stint stranded in the wrong era. Ultimately, what makes this book shine isn’t the questions it poses about the grand nature of time, but the questions it asks about a single person’s life, and what it means to be alive here & now (& then).With its clear narrative & relatable characters, this book would make a super read to introduce someone who doesn’t typically read a lot of SF to ‘time travel stuff.’ As a reader & longtime SF fan, I’m always here for more emotional, character-focused, gentle sci-fi!

This could have been a fair-to-middling novel, but unfortunately it rattles along breathlessly - until it sags in the middle - to the detriment of any realistic characterisation; there is an underlying shallowness that ultimately becomes very annoying.Those of you who know Dick van Dyke's "English" accent in Mary Poppins will also know not to go anywhere near the narration.

If you love time travel you will love this! I devoured it in 2 days. My only regret is that I’ve finished it and the author hasn’t produced another yet!! Fantastic

I love time travel stories, and while this is not a typical time travel tale, it certainly doesn't disappoint. I really enjoyed it and found myself wanting to get back to it whenever I could. The ending was good too.