It's not all that difficult, but through the years he struggles with memory loss, debilitating headaches, and blackouts-evidence his brain is destabilizing due to all of the time travel. So he finds himself building a life-working in IT keeping his marriage to Heather, a driven, science fiction-obsessed attorney, on track and trying to maintain his relationship with their teenage daughter, Miranda. When a simple mission back in time to the 1990s gets botched, Kin finds himself stranded in the San Francisco suburbs-for 18 years.Īfter his initial panic gave way to acceptance, Kin realizes that he must live his life in the here and now of the 1990s, even if it isn't quite his real here and now. In Mike Chen's new novel, Here and Now and Then, Kin (short for Quinoa-when he was born the world was obsessed with naming babies after food) is a special agent for the Temporal Correction Bureau (TCB), in the year 2142. For me, it's more the thought that one single action, even the smallest gesture, can set off a chain of events that could change the world as we (or the characters) know it. It's not the science of time travel that fascinates me, although I'm always drawn in by the possible paradox of running into yourself somewhere in time. I know I'm not the only one who finds novels about time travel utterly irresistible. It’ll take one final trip across time to save Miranda-even if it means breaking all the rules of time travel in the process.Ī uniquely emotional genre-bending debut, Here and Now and Then captures the perfect balance of heart, playfulness, and imagination, offering an intimate glimpse into the crevices of a father’s heart and its capacity to stretch across both space and time to protect the people that mean the most. But when his best efforts threaten to destroy the agency and even history itself, his daughter’s very existence is at risk. Torn between two lives, Kin is desperate for a way to stay connected to both. Their mission: return Kin to 2142, where he’s only been gone weeks, not years, and where another family is waiting for him. Until one afternoon, his “rescue” team arrives-eighteen years too late. Stranded in suburban San Francisco since the 1990s after a botched mission, Kin has kept his past hidden from everyone around him, despite the increasing blackouts and memory loss affecting his time-traveler’s brain. But his current life is a far cry from his previous career…as a time-traveling secret agent from 2142. 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, Miranda.

To save his daughter, he’ll go anywhere-and any-when…

Mike chen here and now and then