A Long Time Until Now

By: Michael Z. Williamson

Narrated by: Dennis Holland

Length: 22 hrs and 10 mins

Publisher's Summary

Book one in a new series from the creator of the best-selling Freehold Universe series.

A military unit is thrust back into Paleolithic times with only their guns and portable hardware. Ten soldiers on convoy in Afghanistan suddenly find themselves lost in time. Somehow they arrived in Earth's Paleolithic Asia. With no idea how they arrived or how to get back, the shock of the event is severe. They discover groups of the similarly displaced: imperial Romans, Neolithic Europeans, and a small cadre of East Indian peasants.

Despite their technological advantage, the soldiers only have 10 people and know no way home. Then two more time travelers arrive from a future far beyond the present. These time travelers may have the means to get back, but they aren't giving it up. In fact they may have a treacherous agenda of their own, one that may very well lead to the death of the displaced in a harsh and dangerous era.

©2015 Michael Z. Williamson (P)2015 Audible, Inc.

Different Than Expected--But an Excellent Listen !

When an author provides a prospective reader with 22 hours of book it is a sort of a offer to enter into a contract: "You invest 22 hours of your time -- and I will make it worth your while." I went into this (based on the title and reviews) thinking it would be an epic 'Small military Unit versus Historical Bad Guys Lost in Time Story." (We have had civil war units, aircraft carriers, destroyers and infantry.) But this is NOT a bang-bang-shoot-em-up story. It is the thinking person's military. I felt as though I were reading the progeny of a cross between Desmond Morris' "Naked Ape" and either "The Martian" or "Seven Eves".

That is lofty company considering the sales of those books! But this author carries it off, albeit somewhat slowly. Compare a police procedural mystery to a cop show with car chases -- this is an 'military-anthropological procedural'. (Some reviewers have characterized "The Martian" as an engineer's recounting of the practical problems with being stranded on Mars, mixed with the single-character study of the psyche of that engineer. This is the "how to" guide to showing up 11,000 years ago matched with a study of small group dynamics.)

It is fascinating. The author clearly knows the real military, weapons and how to write. The surprise is the degree of scholarship beyond things military. It is a little gritty in day-to-day human functions...but there is nothing gratuitous. Also, the narrator is really excellent -- almost worth the listen himself. I'm doing something rare....I highly recommended this book and expect that it may become a one of those you will remember for a long time.

One final note. At least one reviewer felt that the narrative lacked pointers that would indicate which character was talking. As a paper book that might be a problem. For me, this is one of the first books that was written to be listened to. No constant "he said" or "Mike exclaimed." It added a great deal to the experience for me.

70 of 71 people found this review helpful

Different than I expected

When I bought this book I thought I was probably getting a standard out-of-time book with shallow characters and too much action. Normally I would not buy a book like that but the idea intrigued me and I wanted to give it a try. Surprisingly this was not the book I expected, but something much more substantial and interesting.

10 soldiers are plucked from a convoy in Afghanistan along with their vehicles and transported 10-15,000 years in the past. They must try to survive as a group and as individuals and somehow find a way to make a life completely out of their own time. Along the way they find other groups, also plucked from their times, who are trying to do the same. What we have in this book is more of the day to day struggles, both physical and emotional, to build a working society than warfare between the groups and, given that they are in the pre-historic past rather than in someplace like historic Greece or Rome, there is little of what might be expected in a book like this with people trying to get ahead in what we think of as early civilization.

While I found the book to be interesting and became involved with the characters I was a bit surprised by the way the book ended and it is hard for me to see how there will be a sequel. Since this is listed as Book 1 of the Temporal Displacement Series (see the Kindle version of this book at Amazon) it is clear that there will be a sequel but it is hard to see how it will involve the same characters as in this book.

If you are looking for warfare, in-fighting and the clash of different groups this is probably not your book. If you are looking for an intelligent look at how people might have to struggle to survive in the far past this might be for you. It is well read and I was still involved with the events and the characters at the end of the 22 hours.

23 of 23 people found this review helpful

Not a series!

Enjoyed the hell out of this story. Author didn't try to make the narrative too dramatic or beat up his characters in a gratuitous manner.

The performance of the audiobook was masterful. The narrator kept a consistent and distinct voice for each character.

The best part was that while it was a long novel, the author resolved the story and didn't try to turn it into a multi-book series. I'm getting kind of tired of that.

17 of 17 people found this review helpful

Time travel, yes!

I expect most science fiction fans will enjoy this story. Possibly the author's characterization could be better, but I didn't have an issue. The narration is well done. Totally worth the money and time.

5 of 5 people found this review helpful

Well-Researched Military Time Travel

“A Long Time Until Now” does a great job examining how a small Army patrol would cope with suddenly being transported to Paleolithic Central Asia. The author clearly did his homework and didn’t gloss over any inconvenient details, including problems with language and the psychological impact of the displacement (almost a standard in the time travel genre). There may have been a tad more capabilities in the ten members of the team than you might find in an average patrol, but it wasn’t unbelievable. Williamson also clearly knows his military jargon. Someone without a military background would not catch a lot.

The reader did try to distinguish voices, though sometimes not as the author intended. He also made everyone sound happy too often. And finally he didn’t check with a soldier (or even an Airman) on the proper contextual pronunciation of “hooah.”

5 of 5 people found this review helpful

Interesting premise, however uninteresting charact

What would have made A Long Time Until Now better?

The characters didn't excite me. There was no real 'main character' and the ones that were in the story seemed rather neurotic and shallow.

Would you ever listen to anything by Michael Z. Williamson again?

Not willingly

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Dennis Holland?

Anyone

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from A Long Time Until Now?

I would've taken out all the freakout neurotic bits. I also didn't need to know characters soil themselves from eating bad food and had to clean themselves off with medicated wipes including their balls. Just TMI

Any additional comments?

I thought the plot was interesting... Just couldn't get past the characters.

4 of 4 people found this review helpful

Everyday Life While Deployed to the Past

Day to day with a mixed crew of military personnel. Small challenges, petty irritations and all the complications of working closely with a crew of varied individuals. This was a comfortable book that made me feel like one of the protagonists. Thanks, Michael.

8 of 9 people found this review helpful

MEDIOCRE

Absolutely mediocre.

Performance: Tolerable, not outstanding but better than the writing deserved.

Writing: Bland, bland, bland. All the characters spent their time being bored, doing chores, being emotionally shell-shocked, thinking with their block and tackle (if they were male), or worrying about potentially being raped (if they were female). Seriously. Every time the perspective bounced to a new male character one of the first things they that cropped up in their thoughts was how much they wanted to have sex with one of two notable female characters or one of the numerous nameless primitive locals. As much as the author tried to paint the sole feminist in the unit as being a high-strung over-sensitive b*tch, to judge by how obsessed the men around her were with getting their rocks off, she had every right to be terrified of them.

Speaking of the sole feminist, she was clearly such a straw woman that I really started to wonder just what the author's goal was with that character. At least she was not 'shown the error of her ways' at some point. Granted, I cannot really complain about her considering the general lack of nuance in all of the characters. Save for two, only the characters I am really able to remember are the ten soldiers and that was mostly because I spent 22 hours having their names repeated at me. They might as well have been referred to by their stock archetypes and were mostly interchangeable outside of a few specializations.

I do get what the author was doing, he wanted to focus on just how well a unit might survive in absolutely primitive conditions with only the gear they had in two trucks and to be fair, he did a good job portraying the sheer mechanical aspect of that, how traumatic it might be, primitive survival techniques and improvising tools, and psychological impact. He also did clearly did his research on prehistoric cultures and wildlife, but this ground has been tread before by better authors using more interesting settings, with better grasps on conflict, pacing, and character development. Honestly, you'd be better off listening to the first couple of books from S. M. Stirling's Emberverse series.

3 of 3 people found this review helpful

Man it really could of been so much better

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

Just wore me down with the draining female soldier interaction. I was a soldier for years and still work for the army......not very realistic I thought. I was expecting a lot more given the history of the writer's background.

How would you have changed the story to make it more enjoyable?

Where to start.......

Was A Long Time Until Now worth the listening time?

No

Any additional comments?

The concept I really liked.....but it's a mission fail

3 of 3 people found this review helpful

Meh

Would you try another book from Michael Z. Williamson and/or Dennis Holland?

Perhaps. Not a definite yes and not a definite no.

What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?

Time travel was compelling. I kept waiting for the story to finally take off. It felt like one looooooong prelude to something more exciting.

What didn’t you like about Dennis Holland’s performance?

I didn't find his performance particularly compelling. For military fiction some of his recital was downright embarrassing (HUMVEE/HMMWV) is not pronounced by each letter, but is usually called a "Humvee".

Do you think A Long Time Until Now needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?

Not really. Once was enough. Compelling concept but poorly executed.

3 of 3 people found this review helpful

weak

Any additional comments?

Weak survival story, very American, lost count of the hoo ahs which were irritating and unnecessary. All revolves around the American party, enough said! do i have to say more, no you get my drift...............ITS NOT WORTH BOTHERING WITH.

4 of 5 people found this review helpful

Past, Present and future

Took a while to get into the audio book and was irritated by the American whoya sounds, but it became interesting then seemed to run out of steam as they went to the future, an ok listen once only.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

This book reminded me of the Martian

I love this book. it reminded me of the book Martian. where are you had a group of people that were displaced in this case it was in time. it's fantastically written good characters and I couldn't put it down

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

really interesting

enjoyed the audio book quite a bit, with how long it is it is definitely worth it.

interesting but largely uneventful

plenty of thought and research went into the book but don't expect a gripping yarn full of twists and turns. everything seems to go rather smoothly throughout. great attention to detail and i felt transported to a vibrant world. character development felt a little forced. a good study of group dynamics but a little on the utopic side, military fans, historians and time travel fans will love this one.

Solw to get into

This book overall was a great listen.
It did take a while to get into and the narrator took some getting used to.
I nearly gave up on it 5 chapters in but kept going with it.
It expanded out nicely and had some nice little adages
Overall the story was entertaining and kept me listening

fascinating sci-fi "procedural"

not an action story but really in depth storyline which made it a lot like an anthropological novel than a sci-fi adventure. I enjoyed the depth and breadth of the story, also the length was fine with me. The ending was very appropriate for the overall tone but didn't make me feel it was over.

Good time travel book

Would you consider the audio edition of A Long Time Until Now to be better than the print version?

Liked the story with good plot line the only disappointing part was the rushed ending, the way the story developed kept me interested and the way the struggles of the time travelers where overcome seamed to be well thought out.

Happy how this story unfolded

If you could sum up A Long Time Until Now in three words, what would they be?

Brilliant, riveting and thought provoking.... Sorry four words.

What was one of the most memorable moments of A Long Time Until Now?

There are a few memorable moments in this book but I really think to mention them would spoil it for anybody going to buy it.

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

More excitement than when things kicked off.

Not bad

Liked this book although the ending was a bit weak , lots of background to how set up a camp but could have done with more action