Here and now and then

Overall this is an enjoyable story.

My only difficulty with the audio book is that the ‘English’ accent of 2 characters in the story is distractingly poor. That these characters are English, seems to have no baring on the narrative anyway. Still worth a listen nevertheless.

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Good story spoilt by terrible production

It’s too easy to complain about accents. I always hear people complaining when an accent they know well is a little off.

Not here though. The English accent is just terrible, laughably bad. Unlike others, I didn’t stop listening to it because of this but it really is awful.

Also, for English listeners the word era will annoy you. Americans pronounce this as “error” which would be okay a couple of times but the author uses it all the time, every minute or so. He never thinks to use an alternative such as period or time, just error, error, error.

I liked the story, it was a good idea. But I didn’t think the book was particularly well written. The writing was quite bland, not bad, just insipid. Some of the characters reactions are nonsensical.

I did listen to the end but I was never truest gripped or excited. Overall a mediocre, poorly narrated book.

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accent hell

book is fantastic but the narrators 'british' accent made it very hard to get through the book.

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Entertaining but superficial

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.

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The ending

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

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Wholesome wander through an exciting concept

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

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Terrible English accent

Good story and the reader is very good ... except at English accents. I would get more of Mike Chen’s work.

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Beautiful and Perfect Story

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 :)

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Worst English accent ever

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.

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5 people found this helpful

Impossible listen!

I have been trying and trying to get over this narrator’s appalling English accent, and his poor narration in general, but I’ve had to give up. The story is good, but I’m afraid I can’t say much more as I found the narration so intensely annoying. I’d suggest reading it the old-fashioned way!

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1 person found this helpful