Mike Chen Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine—The Dog of War Books

Publication Order of Star Wars Stand-Alone Novels

Publication Order of Marvel's What If...? Books

Publication Order of Anthologies

Mike Chen
Mike Chen has been a lifelong writer, from writing fan fiction as a kid to somehow getting paid for his words during adulthood.

Mike has contributed to major geek culture websites, such as: The Portalist and The Mary Sue. He has ghostwritten corporate articles that appeared in: Forbes, Entrepreneur, and Buzzfeed, as well as others. He has also covered the NHL for mainstream media outlets.

Mike’s dream as he was growing up was to either be a veritech fighter (Robotech) or to pilot an X-Wing (Star Wars). It makes sense then that Lucasarts’ X-Wing is one of Mike’s all-time favorite games.

A young Mike wrote fan fiction before he knew what it was. A lot of it involved crossovers between some of his favorite franchises, because it made total sense in his head to combine Space Quest and Robotech.

Mike knew that he had hit on something major when he penned a parody of “The Grapes of Wrath” for his high school English class. It was called “The Oranges of Evil” and featured quite a few ‘skitters’ and there was a twist ending that turned the Dust Bowl into an origin story for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. He got one of his classmates laughing so hard, she was unable to talk for several minutes.

During college, he took creative writing with his ‘practical’ engineering degree, and starting freelancing. It led to a long career of developing WordPress sites and writing technical/marketing copy while he covered international hockey and the NHL for some of the largest names in sports, like SB Nation, Fox Sports, and Versus.

He has always been a storyteller at heart, and despite loving writing about his favorite sport while he earned a living from tech writing, his head was always filled with stories. He has been able to find his niche, blending elements of science fiction and themes with a more intimate and grounded story.

His stories don’t have the typical fate-of-the-universe events or epic wars. Rather, they are stories of friendship, family, and humor that happen to feature an apocalypse or time travel.

Highlights as a sports journalist include talking about guitars/guitarists with Sean Burke and interviewing Wayne Gretzky.

Some other career deviations include bartender at a London gay club and DJ, singer/bassist/guitarist for different indie rock bands.

He is a member of the Codex Writers group and the SFWA and calls the San Francisco Bay Area home. Here he can usually be found watching Doctor Who and playing video games with his daughter, wife, and their rescue animals.

Mike’s debut novel, called “Here and Now and Then”, was released in the year 2019. His work is from the science fiction genre.

“Here and Now and Then” is the first stand alone novel and was released in the year 2019. Kin Stewart is just an average working family man. He tries to keep the spark alive in his marriage, works in IT, struggling to connect with Miranda, his daughter. His current life is far from his previous career: a time-traveling secret agent from the year 2142.

After a botched mission, Kin finds himself stranded in suburban San Francisco since the 1990s. Kin has had to keep his past hidden from those around him, despite the increasing memory loss and blackouts affecting his time-traveler’s brain. Until one afternoon, his ‘rescue’ team shows up for him, albeit eighteen years too late.

Their mission is to take Kin back to 2142, where he has just been gone weeks, and not years. Here, there is another family that waits for him. One he is unable to remember.

Torn between two different lives, Kin is desperate for any way to stay connected to both. However, as his best efforts threaten to destroy the agency and history itself, his daughter’s own existence is at risk. It is going to take a final trip across time in order to save Miranda. Even if he has to break every single rule of time travel doing so.

The novel expertly blends high tech time travel thrills with the all-9in stakes of a parent’s love for their kid. This is a debut novel that is a warm-hearted and generous adventure. A very real and strong father-daughter relationship gets tested over centuries, while Chen’s characters all navigate consequences and adventure together.

“A Beginning at the End” is the second stand alone novel and was released in the year 2020. How do you start over after the world has ended?

Six years have gone by after the global pandemic that wiped out a lot of the population of the planet. The survivors are trying to rebuild the country, split between hippie communes, self-governing cities, and wasteland gangs. In a postapocalyptic San Francisco, Moira (a former pop star) has set up a new identity to finally escape from her past. Until her domineering dad starts a sweeping public search in order to track her down.

Krista, a jaded event planner, is desperate for a new start herself and navigates the world on the behalf of the ones too traumatized to go outside. She is determined to help everybody move on, even if they would rather not. Rob survived the catastrophe with Sunny, his daughter, but lost his wife. Strict government rules threaten to separate child and parent, Rob has to prove himself worthy in the eyes of the city by connecting with other people again.

Sunny, Moira, Rob, and Krista are brought together by fate, and their lives start linking together. Reports of another outbreak throw this fragile society into a panic, the friends have to finally face everything that came before and all that they still stand to lose. Sometimes having a person is all you need to keep the world going.

This book is a timely reminder of what is the most important in life: hope, family, and love. This is an equally fun and moving read, with strong characters that have their own layered back stories that either push them forward or attempt to derail them. Mike richly imagined each and every detail of Metros and Reclaimed terrorities and readers loved seeing how the old ways of life overlapped with the new ones.