The Day After Never: A Time Travel Adventure

In Times Like These, Book 3

De: Nathan Van Coops

Narrado por: Neil Hellegers

Ben Travers has gone missing, and Ben Travers needs to find him. Returning home from his harrowing adventures through time, Ben just wants a normal life with the girl he loves, but tying up the loose threads of his fragmented existence is proving more difficult than he ever suspected. Someone is attacking time-travel labs - threatening the safety of the Quickly family - and Ben is getting messages from a version of himself that he thought was dead. When a strange cult of consciousness-shifting time travelers called The Eternals begins to worm its way into the past - endangering the very nature of time and space - Ben will have to solve the mystery of his own disappearance to stop them. He'll journey farther into time than he's ever been before, to protect the family and friends he has come to love, and to discover his own inevitable destiny. Join Ben and Mym in this third novel in the In Times Like These time-travel adventure series.

©2016 Nathan Van Coops (P)2016 Nathan Van Coops

Worth listening to end

I loved it, have the other books. This one got a little confusing at times but all came together by the end. so if you get a little confused just keep listening because it will click into place. I really enjoyed this time traveling series. Think it's better than some of the better known ones.

Well Worth the Time!

Would you consider the audio edition of The Day After Never: A Time Travel Adventure to be better than the print version?

This series adapts well to a vocal performance because of the variety of interesting characters. You can tell the performer enjoyed doing the characters.

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Day After Never: A Time Travel Adventure?

A great part of the book was the final chapter which gave the listener some unexpected but very effective closure for the series.

Have you listened to any of Neil Hellegers’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

This book was perfect for Neil Helleger because he has a great range in doing young and old characters and developing voice personalities that convey anxiety, insecurity, confidence and humorous self-deprecation.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

This book should be listened to in a few sittings because there are natural breaks as the characters shift locations. The pacing is excellent.

Any additional comments?

Its great to listen to an audiobook about a well-trodden subject and still be surprised as well as entertained. This series went places that touched on a lot of real-world concerns about the future, but managed to stay positive and optimistic.

Ben Travers saves the world - with Ben's help

I loved the first two books - and I loved this one. First I should say that I listened to the audio version and didn't read it. Sometimes that's a bad thing, but not in this case. Narrator Neil Hellegers was brilliant and brought the book to life in a way that reading it might not. His ability to differentiate the various characters was exactly what you need in a book like this one, especially when several of the characters are versions of Ben Travers and when at times you are in the 'real' world and at other times in the Neverwhere.

This time (sorry) we travel back to the far past and forward to what the not-too-distant end of the world when it encounters a Black Hole - unless Ben can save it. The second book ended with Ben Travers dying to save his girlfriend Mym Quickly. This one starts with "Dead Ben", calling himself "a time traveller who broke the rules". We meet him as he finds himself in the Neverwhere. Expect to spend a lot of time wandering through space and time in the strange world of the Neverwhere. Hellegers' narration does a brilliant job of conveying the otherness of the Neverwhere and excels at making it clear when you are listening to Dead Ben and conveying the otherness of the Neverwhere. While in the Neverwhere Dead Ben meets "ragged me", Benny, and travels with him to his childhood home in Oregon, to the far past and to the future, learning that the Neverwhere is made of memories and that it can be manipulated through them. We also discover that we first met Dead Ben trying to communicate during the Chronothon.

Some of my favorite characters from earlier books play important roles in this one. I love Tucket, who we last saw helping Ben at the Academy of Temporal Sciences during the Chronothon. He plays a jester role and shows up early in the story having remembered Ben's off-the-cuff invitation to come visit him when he graduated from the academy. Tucket's in love with the late 20th/early 21st century, and boy does it show. One of his first bits of dialogue is "Do you have a landline? I read about landlines. I really love rotary phones." Cowboy Bob, Dr. Quickly, Mum of course, and a variety of other characters including another version of Ben

We also meet some new characters, and they aren't all human. Captain Mira Jumptree is a starship pilot who is a synthetic human who isn't exactly fond of humans, until Tucket convinces her otherwise. I also loved the Henry Drexel the elevator mechanic. Not the space elevator, although that's pretty cool, but the Tempus Mobilus elevator. We only meet him for a short time but his explanation of the Neverwhere and the role of memories cleared up a lot of unexplained questions for me.

And then there's Zurvan and his cult followers, the Eternals. Quick lecture: Zurvanism was a Zoroastrian heresy which had a deity called Zurvan, the god of infinite time and space. Our Zurvan isn't a deity but a mysterious figure leading a cult of "Eternals". And remember Jonah (the boy with the dog and the snail helmet)? We meet him again, his father (watch him, he isn't what he seems), and his brother "Jay". Dead Ben sees Jay being sacrificed by Zurvan, who uses Jay's death to communicate with his followers, saying: "The Lost Star returns as I have promised your prophets. You will bring it to me and I will grant your reward—spare you from the fate that consumes humanity. Those who would be saved should heed my words. Bring the Lost Star to the eternal fires of Yanar Dag. Restore me to my body and assure your eternal salvation.” The identity of the "Lost Star" was a big surprise.

Some of the reviews express unhappiness with the Zurvan/Eternals part of the story, and I admit I found it hard to grasp at first. My advice is just to be a careful reader and don't ignore anything because you don't understand it. It does come together, although it does take time and I was as lost as Dead Ben for a while. And to be honest, I hope in any sequels or related books Nathan avoids any more long excursions into the Neverwhere. I really enjoy the time and space travel bits, the Neverwhere and the role of memories, not so much.

The story is drive by several story lines. Besides of course saving the world, a major part of the story is the attempt by Dead Ben to communicate with live Ben (something live Ben sometimes fights against) and to somehow escape the Neverwhere. Then there's the struggle against Zurvan and his followers. A driving force throughout the book is Ben's love for Mym. As Dead Ben says at the beginning of the story, "I came here for one reasons, I came for her."

Disclaimer - I was given a copy of the audiobook to review. I then bought the Kindle copy to help me with this review.

Great book, not (for me) a good media

Read the first two in the series; very impressed! Love the fresh new perspective and ideas, and well presented. Could not get any copy of this third book except audible. I read at 3000+ words per minute, and usually finish a book in around 4 hours. The info "download" from this audible is about a quarter that fast at 19+ hours, so for me, the story was hard to follow and keep my attention. The story itself though, was great! Nathan has come up with a fresh, new concept that I haven't already read a dozen times, and presented it in an action filled, entertaining, absorbing series of books. I loved the whole trilogy - well done Nathan; keep them coming! These will appeal equally to readers of science fiction and fantasy, and to mature readers as well as juveniles.

The Best! I'm really hyped like I wanna read more.

This is the best series since Harry Potter. When I get the bread I'ma pay to have this adapted into a movie series great ass story man. Foreal.

Great time travel book.

➜ This audiobook was gifted to me by the author, in exchange for a review containing my honest thoughts and opinions.

The Good:
Excellent time travel book. Even though this is only the 3rd book, it closes a lot of the dangling threads from the first 2 books, so that was really appreciated. Definitely a "page" turner, that made it very difficult to stop listening.

The Bad:
The narrator was good, but maybe it was the writing or the narrator, many sections were just too over dramatic. The narrator was great otherwise, with multiple distinct voices.

Because the of the nature of the book, this book needs to be listened to more carefully, as it is very easy to get confused in who is talking. Without spilling anything, it's hard to differentiate between "2" characters.

Relationship... Why does there always need to be a "dramatic" relationship that somehow becomes the "love of your life" in a a few short weeks.

Overall:
I would recommend this book. For those looking for a time travel book, it was definitely one of the better ones with a lot of thought on the mechanics and repercussions of time travel.

Gripping Narration From Hellegers

4.5★ Audiobook⎮”Ben Travers has gone missing, and Ben Travers needs to find him.” That has to be one of the most intriguing taglines I’ve ever heard. To someone who has never been introduced to this series, it probably seems pretty bizarre. But having been previously exposed to Van Coops’ unique version of time travel, it seems par for the course.

The Day After Never was definitely the most science fiction-y of the In Times Like These trilogy. Most of this installment takes place in the far distant future, in direct contrast with the first installment, which was largely set the 1980s. Even so, there were passing references and parallels between the two. The second installment, The Chronothon, spent time in various historical settings and briefly visited the distant future, but nothing like this.

Van Coops’ idea of the future wasn’t as apocalyptic as that of some time travel stories. His descriptions of the future actually reflected some of today’s ideas, like all major roads having designated roads for animal crossing. In today’s mainstream society, that may seem like an unlikely concept, but Van Coops’ imagined society considered it a common necessity. I think the reason that particular idea stood out to me was because of its realistic nature. In contrast to some of the more far-fetched aspects of this “future” (robots, synthetic humans, etc.), this was a concept I could actually wrap my head around. It made the future seem not so far away. It was relatable. That’s what I look for in good science fiction.

There were also a few surprise appearances by characters from previous installments. Mym was there, although I do think she’s a character that deserved more exploration. Cowboy Bob made a delightful appearance and Dr. Quickly was as entertaining as ever. I’ve never mentioned this in previous reviews, but the way Van Coops opens every chapter with a short excerpt from Dr. Quickly’s journals is worth noting. Especially in this installment, the excerpts provided a bit of comic relief to lighten some of the more intense moments. The Day After Never certainly had a darker tone than either of its predecessors. The series became increasingly “heavier” with each installment, so the continuity of the journal excerpts marking each chapter helped tie all three installments together and provided lighter notes.

The installments in the trilogy had a separate internal plot that was usually begun and resolved within each respective book. There was also a vaguely overarching storyline, mostly surrounding the characters, that spanned the entirety of the trilogy. I wish that there had been a stronger sense of continuity between the installments, which would have helped better develop the fictional “world”, but I appreciate that Mr. Van Coops took a different approach to the series. Certain elements of The Day After Never reminded me of Rysa Walker’s series The Chronos Files, although this series seems to be geared towards a more mature audience. However, I can recall in it that would be inappropriate for a younger audience.

Narration review: Neil Hellegers’ narration is perfectly suited for science fiction. I’ve mentioned his action-oriented pacing in a previous review and how his voice holds a sense of urgency that never lets my attention wander. While listening to this installment, I realized that Hellegers’ crisp, clipped articulation lends itself very well to a science fiction reading. His characterization of Dr. Quickly also stands out poignantly in my mind. I can’t recall any physical description of Dr. Quickly, though I’m sure there was one given in the first installment, but Neil Hellegers’ distinct vocalization of the character paints a mental image as good as any written descriptors. Each of these installments were quite hefty in length, but Hellegers’ narration made the time fly by. Although this series has come to an end, I hope to be able to hear much more from Mr. Hellegers. Few narrators can hold my attention the way he can. ♣︎

Outstanding story and performance

Nathan Can Coops creates this series with depth in the storyline. The turns and twists of multiple timelines and descriptive details of surroundings along with adventures into multiple spaces and geographic lications captivated my sense of imagination and thrill for entertainment. Neil Hellegers narration was a five star performance, capturing the characters and bringing them to life just as I imagined when I read the first two novels in this series.

Covers all the time paradoxes!

What did you love best about The Day After Never: A Time Travel Adventure?

I have read hundreds of books about time from philosophers to scientists to sci-fi and Van Coops covers a lot of ground in all the genres and aspects of the paradoxes, love of humanity, and the bits of humor all mixed in.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Ben was my favorite character because he is always the underdog turning into the hero.

What does Neil Hellegers bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Great, precise, and punches it hard when the action gets going.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

Yes. I couldn't wait to get in my 40 min commute to work to listen to story. It was riveting.

Any additional comments?

The book could be make into one of the best movies of all time! Pass it on!!!

Loved listening to the story.

Loved listening to the story . The narrator really brought the story alive.