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Here and Now and Then
Group Reads Discussions 2019
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"Here and Now and Then" - Discuss Everything *Spoilers*
So I don't want to rail on this too much, but I didn't like it, and I feel extra bad because the vote was so close and I voted for it, depriving people of the excuse to read Bannerless, which is actually pretty good and interesting, and would have definitely made for a better conversation. Sigh.
I loved it, it was a very engaging time travel thriller which is apparently a genre I really like. I’m luckily not intelligent enough to be annoyed by the discrepancies I see others be XD
Mod
Or maybe intelligent enough to know it's just a story meant to be enjoyed!
Yeah, I didn't like it. I couldn't understand anything Kin did and instead of sweet I found him cold, unfeeling and manipulative. Hard to enjoy something when you don't agree with anything the "good" guy is doing!
I also just have a hard time with time travel. I trip all over the unavoidable plot holes with a few notable exceptions.
I appreciate your kind words! I guess I just don’t care to notice plot holes, maybe my brain just turns a blind eye, haha.Yeah I saw your reaction so I was surprised I felt nothing like that, I found his reactions to his predicament completely organic and realistic, he was passionate and constantly troubled, he didn’t do anything lightly but turned it over in his head a million times. Well, except perhaps when he threatened those two car owners with a gun, which wasn’t charming, but he was pressed for time. In any case I’m glad he didn’t press any triggers with me, so I was able to enjoy it *g*
I'm with you here, Dawn. I found Kin's reactions completely relatable, very much indeed, so that in the middle part I constantly had tears in my eyes.The only romance/family timetravel novel I read so far was the Timetraveller's wife, which was way too tacky for me. So I was a bit skeptical with this one. But I was positively surprised how real the protagonist felt.
Mod
So, you would have done what Kin did? Left with the agent, not contacted your former wife before she died so that she died alone of cancer thinking she'd been abandoned, and waited to email your kid til she thought she was an orphan?
That's like...so far from my feelings haha! You better come ready for a fight if you tell me I have to leave my family. The agent person would have been dead. Maybe I'm just too violent for happy books!
But he was drugged and forced away, wasn’t he? He tried to fight the agent, his “friend”, who was the only person I really thought was an asshole tbh, especially to his sister Penny.I don’t recall the specifics, but we’re told he can’t change his wife’s death or go further back because of timey wimey stuff, and he contacted his daughter as soon as he could in his timeline, he was desperate to see how she had been doing, it’s all he thinks about, and when he found out she wasn’t doing well at all he cheated and lied his way to contacting her against all rules, surely that’s not cold! I literally have no idea whatelse he could have done, hence my comment that maybe I’m just not clever enough or possess enough time travel knowledge haha, but I’d like to hear other good ideas XD
Mod
Most of them involve me/Kin likely dying in a blaze of glory but OH WELL at least I'd be with my dead wife.
I have no idea, what I would have done, cause this scenario is so out of my personal experience ;). But he reacted like a real person, with all the flaws and the face palm moments for onlookers. That's exactly why he felt so believable to me. This is a high stress situation (can't imagine much more stressful events for a father) and I don't expect him to think clear.It is the same thing with Kin as it was with Kaaro in "Rosewater". I was completely sold by how real this character there was - and then came into the group discussion and found that all the stuff, because of what I loved his characterisation, were items that were problematic for other readers. It feels a bit the same with this book. (and if I make any sense with this ramble I can count myself lucky … damn … I just can't express myself properly in English)
ETA: just saw your post Allison (takes me always so long to write something). LOL! The blaze of glory stuff would work against my feeling of a "real person".
Mod
And it's a good point that the stress of the moment would have someone all flustered.
If I were Kin I wouldn't have gotten married in the past in the first place. *facepalm*I managed to give it two stars, because I do like Time Travel stories and this did have a bit of the exploration of the entanglement that I liked.
But my review isn't too flattering. Here are the highlights:
I agree with those in the Time Travel group who had negative reactions, [but also]... It totally reads like a self-published novel, all good intentions but no professionalism to make a graceful or engaging read.
It took me much to long to read, too, as I kept falling asleep. It reads like the masculine version of chick-lit...
I liked how fast paced the story was, but honestly... it would interest me more if Kin already had a family (wife and children) in the present (future), and how he would feel about forgetting them and possibly endangering them and their existence when deciding to help the family he created when getting stranded. I mean obviously you'd choose to help your daughter whom you've raised and cared for so many years compared to a lifestyle and a fiancee of a couple years you barely even remember. (Oh yeah, having the wife dead was also pretty convenient for decision making!)The memory thing was completely ridiculous btw.
Cheryl wrote: "If I were Kin I wouldn't have gotten married in the past in the first place. *facepalm*"Why not, though?
He was stuck for 18 years, and somewhere along that long time he very understandably expected to not return to his own time. As he says, there is no way he could sequester himself from human contact, developing feelings, etc. That would be inhuman, and while I understand the time travel rule of no close contact with the people in the age they travel to, it's just not realistic to not do that for 18 years.
Or do you mean the specific act of marriage, but having a relationship and a family would be okay?
No, I mean he was a trained agent who had made an important oath of non-interference. He interfered starting just a couple of years in... the 18 years and the daughter's age reveal that.
Mod
Again I did love the concept but a couple of the problems I couldn't get past are....
1. How on earth do we believe in a purely email relationship between father and daughter? No one does that for years even with video chat. I continually tripped over that part.
2. I don't care how callous a spy/government agency is, nobody who gets stranded for 28 years is just plopped back into normal life.
The audiobook narrator was also not exemplary, which is not the book's fault but it din't help with my enjoyment
Yes, he got married 4 years into his being stuck there, how long before that he had known her it doesn’t say, but two years or four years, doesn’t matter to me, he’s not a robot and would of course not have been able to live forever without human contact. He broke a company paragraph, not an oath to God.
Mod
Here's how I see it. Kin says that time travel is accurate to within a month, give or take. The bureau showed up eighteen years off track.
We also know that you can impact some things in the past to change the future without pissing off, and that continuity is important. Given how this works, then either a. the bureau should have tried again and retrieved Kin closer to his strand-date (the reasons regarding the locator don't hold up because they go back in time to places without transponders all the time.) So, they'd find him, realize oops! We were so very late! And try again OR he's already been written into the fabric of human history, he has family DNA that has confounded the sequence of events, and now that's the way things are.
So, either he wouldn't have kids, or his new mission is to keep living his life as the progenitor of a convoluted family tree.
Then, when the agent comes, Kin thinks he's kind of crazy but can't possibly convince the person who loves and trusts him to humor him for a moment. He has no memory of Penny or being named Quinoa or any of that, all of his memories are of this woman and their daughter.
So, to Cheryl's point, if Kin was still pretty sure he was a time agent, why did he entangle himself, or not clarify when they should return to pick him up before he got entangled? And if he is pretty sure that he wasn't a time agent, then why would you believe someone who wanted to rip you away from your life and loved ones?
And then I have a whole rant about his actions once he's back in the future. But I honestly thought this was going to be a thriller about protecting his family from time agents out to destroy his memory of them, because I can't think of any words that would get me to agree to go with anyone and abandon my spouse, let alone my child. Thinking about being told I have to leave my husband thinking I'd walked out on him makes me homicidal, and I don't have any agent training! I'd just be throwing rocks and screaming, mostly but then that's likely why they don't send people like me to be time assassins! Haha!
Mod
Again I did love the con..."
Agreed with all this.
So here’s the thing, Allison, you saying “they could have done this or that” is as much true as the book stating this or that *couldn’t* be done. Or just as made up! XD Time travel is nonsense! It does not work, no matter what kind of explanations anyone tries to give, so whenever I read a time travel story or see it on tv I accept the premise that okay time travel is a thing, and these are the specific rules in this specific setting and then I just go with it and hope they create a good story around it. Otherwise it makes no sense for me to read or watch. It would be like watching a fantasy film and go “but those elves look unrealistic”, they should be like this or that. They’re made up, they can look whatever way anyone wants XDKin’s memory was dodgy, he had a half kept diary where he’d tried to keep his memories but eventually it slipped away from him because for some reason that’s what happens when you time travel and is stuck outside of your timeline. I buy the premise, and it didn’t bother me, and he had excused his weird memory losses/confusion as ptsd to Cheryl (wife’s name?) so if that was the man I knew, I’d probably not immediately go “of course I believe you’re a secret time travel agent!” I’d probably also cry and think my husband had gone insane, no matter how many time travel books I have read haha.
And again I did not see Kin go willingly, he physically fights the agent, and is then drugged, and spends the rest of the book disobeying the agency. The real enemy in this tale for me is that agency, tbh, I think their working conditions are completely inhuman and no way would I ever want to work under such conditions where I’d have to lie to my family about my job or what has happened to me.
I do agree that his wife back in time dying of cancer was convenient so he didn’t have to chose between them, but it also set his daughter off on a bad path, which sets off the actual story, so yeah I can live with it.
But I’m also the person just gobbles up whatever Steven Moffat says while others rant about iconsistencies and I’m like I... haven’t noticed? XD
Mod
Yeah, I think that's the real divide. You're right, how I would do things and what has to happen are of course not always the same thing (but it really should be!! It would all be so much easier if everyone was like me! ;-) ) It's just like when you see something that is soooo far outside of the way you anticipate people behaving that you're thrown out.
I get that with comedians a lot. They're like "you know when your bf/gf is going on and on about their day and then you want to hit them and leave them in a closet?" and I'm like...wow. No! No that's terrible, that's not a universal feeling! So from the jump (both colloquially and temporally) I was not on Kin's side. Time travel wibbly wobbly stuff aside, I couldn't put myself in Kin's shoes.
And you're right, he definitely isn't "okay" with the situation, but he's waaaay more chill about it than I could ever be, and more chill than I expected from the thriller set up, I guess. It didn't feel like a family feel good book until past the halfway, so I kept expecting the ass kicking to start, personally.
Oh, I am with you on the comedian thing, we also have (or had, it's sort of becoming dated now) loads of "my girlfriend" jokes which weren't funny because it just wasn't true. No, I don't think that way, or react that way, in fact I know maybe one female person who'd react the way you describe and then I know 100 who don't, but hey I know loads of male friends who do react this way or that, so. A joke is only funny if there's some truth to it, otherwise you just alienate people.And generally I totally get what you mean, and I've also encountered books and characters that I just couldn't with. Like NCIS is extremely sexist, there's this ep centered about the idea that a man can't be friends with a woman without sex and EVERY character on the show agrees, even Abby, who has not slept with Tony and that other older guy at the morgue, and is DEFINITELY FRIENDS WITH THEM says oh nope, can't be friends with a guy without sex, so apart from being ridiculously untrue, even WITHIN the show the statement it isn't true which is just LE SIGH!
Aaaaanyway... I do know the feelings you have and right now I'm having them in the Farseer trilogy where I've had to take a break cos I'm so pissed off and which is why I'm so curious to see what you think about the books and if you will pick up on the same things I did XD
Mod
NCIS is a perfect example, well done. I know there must be another way to readH&N&T because so many of you found it moving--I'd love to hear about the parts that really felt honest or loving or tense to you!
Okay, I'm duly warned about Farseer xD I'll definitely keep you posted.
Well we can agree to disagree on whether or not he should have gotten entangled. But writing out all about the future and his job? Why? To me, it seems that is just a way to create the plot. Really a bad thing to do. Agents for this company aren't doing something as trivial as cashiers or even doctors for that matter; messing up is a seriously Bad Thing.And of course TT is hooey. But if a book sets up rules, it has to follow them. imo. As I recall, this book has rules that contradict each other, or are very confusingly explained at least. For example, could other agents have 'tried again' to recover Kin at an earlier point in the past, or couldn't they? That stuff didn't make sense, and in well-written SF there's enough internal consistency that it does.
Another way to read this book? Hmm. Well, readers who are into family drama that verges on soap opera and melodrama would prolly like it more. I've read one book by Picoult and tried to read one by Hannah and it's kinda like those. Sentimental.
I'm sure there's more than that though. I'd love to hear others' takes on that question....
I'm on Allison's side regarding this book: for me it was too much a soap opera with time travel as a 'big secret'. I actually liked the idea of TT messing with your head as a novel approach (even if after all an agent still lives a linear time, not two simultaneously... but as a new plot device it is ok).I heavily disliked the idea that you have to rush to change things, after all it is TT! You may take 10 years and prepare flawlessly! Also 'two loves' line was forced - he is just hours after getting conscious and losing the wife he loved and he is ok to go with Penny... maybe I'm a little old fashioned...
Here is a quote that made me mad:
"If Markus ever found out he was using future knowledge to steer Miranda, he’d probably cite some company line about timeline corruption. That didn’t apply here. Kin was simply nudging the universe back into balance. He sat back in his chair, indulging in daydreams of what his daughter might do with her untapped potential."
I does apply. She killed two people in the crash. Changing that may create much more ripples, for many people are affected. The universe were your kids (who are temporal corruption) do with their untapped potential aren't different from those bad people he killed for trying to get wealthy (maybe to save their kids from some illness)
and I also disliked that the future it just like today but with flying cars. After all our present is quite different from 120 years ago!
I am behind and probably won’t start reading until after the 15th.
It was just ok, none of the characters felt very real to me. There were none you wanted to invest in. The resolution at the end I thought very well done. There were a however lot of plot holes and hanging threads left. Markus was an interesting character, what exactly was he trying to achieve? Was he serving his sister’s interests, his agencies or his own?
I seem to be with the minority that really enjoyed this book. I agree that there were several thin points between some of the characters and a couple of the plot points. I agree with Hank that the idea of the email based relationship between Kin and Miranda was a little hard to believe, particularly that it would have had that big of an impact on her life choices. The other issue I had was that Penny seemed a little too willing to go along with the time travel reveal and the mission to go save her fiancé’s daughter that he’d had with another woman. If only we could all be so selfless! Still those issues didn’t really detract from my overall enjoyment of the plot. I didn’t look too closely behind the curtain regarding the time travel mechanics. I mostly thought it was a unique use of the time travel scenario and I liked the themes of family, starting over and striving to find somewhere/sometime to belong to. To Yvonne’s point about Marcus, I like to think that he was doing right by a good friend and his sister, that he finally came around to seeing that family is more important than bureaucratic rules and regulations.
Lesley wrote: "I seem to be with the minority that really enjoyed this book. I agree that there were several thin points between some of the characters and a couple of the plot points. I agree with Hank that the ..."I'm relieved to read that. It feels so weird to like a book, where nearly everybody else goes "meh!" (and vice versa with the other group read of this month)
Mod
What I do love is hearing what people resonated with (or conversely, what jarred them). So if you love something, tell us about it! I don't want us to kill joy, I want us to share it!
Gabi wrote: "I'm relieved to read that. It feels so weird to like a book, where nearly everybody else goes "meh!"I admit that I did take a peek at this thread before starting the book, so maybe I went in with low expectations, but then I found myself ripping through the whole thing in a day, which wouldn’t have happened if it wasn’t immensely entertaining for me. I don’t disagree with the other issues that folks have noted; I guess I just wasn’t as bothered by them. Conversely, I found it a chore to get through the other group read this month and I normally like YA fantasy.
I wasn’t crazy about it. And I went and read Bannerless right after. Loved that one and am onto the 2nd in the series.
Mod
Way to rub it in =P
(I am of course kidding and glad you liked it so much!! Can't wait to try Bannerless myself)
Kate wrote: "I wasn’t crazy about it. And I went and read Bannerless right after. Loved that one and am onto the 2nd in the series."I also read Bannerless this month and found I didn’t like it as much as I thought I would. In an attempt to not hijack this thread, I posted some thoughts over in the What Else Are You Reading thread. I’d be interested to hear what worked for you in the book.
So I overall really liked this book. I was able to suspend my disbelief of most of the things mentioned here previously, at least enough to enjoy it. A lot of the character drama was quite touching, although I do have much of the same issues as everyone else when I look back. I have to admit I thought that Markus was a bit heartless up until the the last quarter of the book, where it seemed like he did a 180 just because he was able to think "Oh, Miranda = Benjamin" so now he risks his life and career.One thing I couldn't get over or justify though is the location(s) that they jump from. I know they mentioned that there can be interference so they don't have anything there, but NOTHING ? No security, no gates, just... nothing - at a place where you're using some of the most secret government devices there are? Did I just skim over the section where they talk about how secure these locations are?!
I read the book over the weekend, it was fine. I guess? I liked parts of it, and I think Kin as a character was pretty believable, my issues were with the plot devices that the character had to react to. Humans live linearly, even if they go back and forth in time their memories are linear and the justification for memory erasure due to "time travel wonkyness" didn't read true to me. I pushed past it as a device necessary for the plot, but because I didn't buy it as logical the rest of the book, which really does depend on that device (without the memory loss Kin probably wouldn't have gotten married for example), fell apart. However, I did like the way his relationship with Penny didn't pick up right away. He was 18 years separated from his feelings, even if they were important feelings, and there was another relationship in between that. His reactions to Penny, the affection but not real love, felt very true to how you react to an old relationship that you have moved past. The rekindling of those emotions was a little forced, but I still bought it.
Like I said, I thought the reactions of the characters was good, but the plot devices that were thrown at the characters- not so much.
Melani wrote: "However, I did like the way his relationship with Penny didn't pick up right away."Maybe it is my personal interpretation, but they started too easily and too quickly, it did pick up right away...
Hmmm how did it pick up right away? Kin was emotionally distant from her through most of it, escaped to work all the time, and struggled with what to do about it. Remember he had to pretend to have just been hospitalized for a week, so he had to pretend that nothing had changed. It wasn’t until he decides to make an effort of getting to know her again, as the new and 18 years older person that he is, that they started growing close.
Oleksandr wrote: "Melani wrote: "However, I did like the way his relationship with Penny didn't pick up right away."Maybe it is my personal interpretation, but they started too easily and too quickly, it did pick ..."
Physically they did, but the emotional connection between them (on Kin's end at least) wasn't there until much later. That's what I was meant by "didn't pick up right away".
Mod
This felt reeeeaally callous, just on its own.
But then on top of it, he was pretending to be in love with someone he was not, and he did outrageous things while lying to her that they were still okay. Someone who loved him enough to be patient and to meet him where he was. And he treated that caring like it meant nothing.
Allison wrote: "That's one of the issues I have, actually. He was physically with a woman while (apparently not) grieving the woman he'd been with for 18 years."Exactly! Maybe I'm just an old prude but it felt wrong. Of course plot-wise it can be explained by this 'mind follows timeline' so in future his reactions were ordered not by his 18 years in the past but by what was just prior to his travel.
Just finished this yesterday, and I can kind of see both points of view on a lot of these controversies. I mean, Kin seems to consider things carefully, and also blunder into things without a plan while ignoring the consequences. He is in some ways a lying cheat, but he also clearly loves both the women in his life, and is conflicted about the situation. And the time travel stuff does seem convoluted and even contradictory, but the author has avoided a lot of the details so it isn't always clear whether it is making sense or not, so if you ignore it you can kind of just enjoy the ride. Unfortunately, because of all these opposing forces, the book did not seem very coherent to me, and I found myself detached from the story most of the time. But I did enjoy the unique take on the "absent father" - he doesn't even *exist* in her timeline any more! And I loved the idea of time travel emails and web browsing. Also, Miranda's coup at the end of saving her father from his own bad decision-making was an emotionally rewarding surprise for me. I felt like the book had a lot of heart but poor execution most of the time, but Miranda's grandson showing up was a real winner for me. I also like that, on the surface, the author put some diversity in to the story by having the main character be Black, but like many non-Black authors, they seemed to employ it only superficially - mentioning skin tone at the beginning but never mentioning it again or incorporating it into the story.
I was not very impressed by the writing, although it was functional. We spent a lot of time in Kin's head instead of in action or conversations, many of the conversations didn't feel authentic to me (the scene of Kin and Miranda on the phone was a great example). Also, the author tossed in a few token lines to place it in the future, but most of the time it seemed to be taking place in my kitchen and office in 2019. The author's use of the word "crown" as a future slang term is a perfect example. They must have used this 4 or 5 times as a witty diversion, but to me it just emphasized the fact that one slang term was the only difference between 2018 and 2156 (sorry, my years are probably wrong).
As my final point, I would like to address the time travel inconsistency. Yes, time travel books are kind of wacky, and a lot of them follow rules that make no sense, but I do expect a novel to be internally consistent. This one wasn't. Over and over again they talk about the "grandfather paradox" and the "point of detection", and then over and over again they break this rule. Kin first starts messing with the time continuum when he sees Miranda's jail record, and then creates a paradox (which supposedly they aren't allowed to do) by emailing her years before the point of detection to prevent the event from happening. And when the bureau discovers this, they don't say, wait that breaks time travel rules, they say they are shutting down his email conversation because they are not willing to negotiate back and forth with MIranda. And when they finally go back to eliminate her, they say they can't do anything before the moment of detection - her file upload - when in fact the moment of detection is much later than that, when they noticed the gravitational changes and then went back and saw that the upload was transferred to multiple employers servers and had propagated beyond the initial upload. So, please, time travel authors, allow the paradox or don't allow the paradox, but at least be consistent in your own novel!
Mod
Thanks for talking more specifically about the time travel, too, I got so lost in it all!
Over three weeks ago, I finished reading "Here and Now and Then." I didn't comment until now because I didn't know what to write about it. Because I felt it was a good story with interesting characters and a strong ending, I gave the book four stars--though I did so somewhat reluctantly because I was distracted and irritated by inconsistencies in the treatment of time travel. This is unlike the science fiction I read: here--never mind now and then--the science is less believable than the fiction. Struggling to suspend disbelief on countless occasions, I was frustrated by improbabilities and inconsistencies, until I gave up and focused on the story. Once I began thinking of the time travel device as literary rather than mechanical--and gave up trying to make sense of the inept bureaucracy that regulated it--I simply enjoyed the story-telling and character development, the strength of which allowed me to overcome the novel's shortcomings and appreciate the irony that the successful, emotionally satisfying ending relied on a device that was its weakest element. After three weeks, I don't regret the four star rating, because I recall the dramatic plot and remember the sympathetic characters fondly. I even confess a grudging chuckle at the portrayal of the bureaucratic construct as both stereotypically ridiculous and ultimately evil.
Mod
And yes, there were a few funny nose tweaks in there haha
One thing I didn’t mention, I enjoyed the goofy references to science fiction—time travel and otherwise—throughout the book, curiously reminding me as a reader that I was reading a “timey-wimey” sci-fi novel, but in a constructive way, the recurring references becoming endearing character traits that helped define individual characters and relationships between characters. Often, we use fiction to make sense of our lives consciously and subconsciously.
Michael wrote: "Just finished this yesterday, and I can kind of see both points of view on a lot of these controversies. I mean, Kin seems to consider things carefully, and also blunder into things without a plan ..."Great takeaway, Michael, of the “unique take on the ‘absent father.’
Mod
Well, they seemed like the kinds of individuals who would appreciate and discuss works of science fiction, though in addition to TV shows and movies, I would have liked a few references to books by science fiction writers, for example: H. G. Wells (Time Machine), Ray Bradbury (A Sound of Thunder), Dan Simmons (Hyperion), Kurt Vonnegut (Slaughterhouse-Five), Isaac Asimov (The End of Eternity), Robert A. Heinlein (Time Enough For Love), Audrey Niffenegger (The Time Traveler’s Wife), Madeleine L’Engle (A Wrinkle in Time), Octavia E. Butler (Kindred)—who is an African American author—and Stephen King (11/22/63)—who in his books frequently mentions other authors and their work.
So, what did you think? What would you have done if you were Kin?