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.

Entertaining, funny, especially for prior military

This book was alright, it was an interesting idea for sure. It wasn't an
Exciting page turner, but it was still pretty good. The middle was a little slow and too much detail for things that weren't that interesting. I'm prior military (female) and so much of that part of the story was on point. Overall I liked the story and the idea behind it. Not a bad listen/read.

A really good yarn!

The first book I've listened to by this author. I like a well told lloonnnggg story. An unusual story but believably understated. Well worth a listen and using a credit! :)

Slow and a missed opportunity...

Overall this is a reasonable listen but having set up a great idea the story is just... well... slow and boring. Not worth the listen really...

Interesting Story, but I want more Freehold

Sorry Mr Williamson, I think this is an awesome opener for a new series but I'd rather listen to more Freehold universe stories...unless of course you cross the two. Food for thought.

Interesting but unsatisfying

This book holds great promise but I feel like there should be a second book there is so much left I unanswered. Not a fan of how the author kept harping on the feminist in this book. My guess is he really hates feminism and vegetarians. Not a fan of how he made the Christian guy sound super intellectually challenged. Had the beginnings of great ideas with this book but little follow through. Like spoiler alert——in the future even showers and tools like shovels can read your mind but somehow the photographer “snuck” memory cards back to the present day without them noticing that she kept thinking about how to do that while in the future.

Story ok - narration hard to follow

Not a bad story, but the narrator doesn’t do well differentiating the characters. It makes it hard to follow sometimes.

excellent military sci Fi

if you like ringo, you'll love this too! Very detailed, and does have a lot of military procedure and slang.

Interesting subject!

This was a good story but a little long. Some of the details could have been held back and had the same effect. Characters were well developed though there were a few that could have had more. I still felt at the end that I didn't really know who all of them were. The narrator did a great job though again some of the voices were less clear and I often felt a little confused about who was speaking. The ending was a little soft but that could be how future books will come about - overall an interesting story that held my attention.

Not what I expected but still okay

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

While I did stick with this book it wasn't really what I expected. It certainly was a good story but I thought it was going to be more of a military action scifi book but it was not. More of a in depth history and basic survival book. not much action. If you are looking for military scifi this is not for you.

Top Notch Ideas, Frustrating Delivery

Michael Z Williamson does an excellent job of painting a portrait of humanity as tribal and quarrelsome, cooperating to gain control in our environment. The contrast of different points in our timeline (especially at the end!) works to illuminate our ugliness and heroism. Williamson's characters were well imagined: rounded and recognizable.
When I think of all these positives, as well as all the research that went into creating plausible paleolithic, neolithic, and Roman settlements, I feel frustrated that Williamson's delivery of this great content was neglected. He switches point of view so many times that it becomes difficult to empathize with the characters. Worse, in each point of view he repeats observations and conclusions already mentioned by other characters. Since there are at least 7 important points of view, this fault leads to about 2 hours of audio that adds nothing to the listener's experience.
Dennis Holland is not a stellar narrator, but he did keep all the characters straight as I imagined them speaking to one another.
Amazon, if you're listening, this book would make a terrific television show! (If you can find a show runner who would embrace the "slow burn" of the plot.)