Mike Chen Books in Order
Explore Mike Chen books in order, with quick summaries, related series, and easy tips on where to start with his heartfelt science fiction and tie-in adventures.
Last updated: July 10, 2026
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Publication Order
20 books
Here and Now and Then
by Mike Chen
2019
Kin Stewart has spent eighteen years hiding in suburban San Francisco after a mission stranded him far from 2142. When his rescue finally comes, he must choose between two families before time itself erases his daughter.
A Beginning at the End
by Mike Chen
2020
Six years after a pandemic shattered the country, four survivors in a rebuilt San Francisco try to start over. When rumors of a new outbreak spread, their fragile friendships and hard-won homes suddenly feel breakable again.
The World of Critical Role
by Mike Chen
2020
This illustrated guide traces how a home game between friends grew into Critical Role, with lore, artwork, photos, and behind-the-scenes stories. It is part history, part world guide, and part love letter to Exandria.
Kith & Kin
by Mike Chen
2021
Before Vox Machina, twins Vex and Vax were just trying to stay fed, stay free, and stay together. A deal with the Clasp in Westruun sends them and Trinket into danger, sharpening the bond that defines them.
We Could Be Heroes
by Mike Chen
2021
Jamie, a feared supervillain, and Zoe, the city's favorite hero, meet in an anonymous support group and become unlikely friends. Their search for the truth behind their powers could save San Delgado, or destroy it.
Brotherhood
by Mike Chen
2022
Just after the Clone Wars begin, Obi-Wan investigates a deadly explosion on Cato Neimoidia while newly knighted Anakin refuses to stay out of it. The mission becomes a test of whether master and former Padawan can truly work as equals.
Light Years from Home
by Mike Chen
2022
When Jakob Shao returns years after vanishing on a camping trip, his sisters get the answer they never expected: aliens. Family wounds, FBI attention, and talk of interstellar war make reunion almost as dangerous as the disappearance.
The Mighty Nein—The Nine Eyes of Lucien
by Mike Chen
2022
Lucien claws his way up from the streets of Shadycreek Run to the dangerous crew called the Tombtakers, always betting on his own charm and nerve. A ruined city, a whispering journal, and nine red eyes turn his ambition into tragedy.
Exquisite Exandria
by Mike Chen
2023
This official cookbook turns Exandria into sixty recipes, from pastries and street food to cocktails and hearty traveler meals. Along the way, it adds bits of setting lore and nods to Vox Machina, the Mighty Nein, and Bells Hells.
Vampire Weekend
by Mike Chen
2023
Louise Chao's vampire life is more blood bags and punk shows than velvet glamour. Then a long-lost teenage relative knocks on her door, and family secrets turn her carefully lonely existence into a real risk.
A Quantum Love Story
by Mike Chen
2024
Neuroscientist Mariana Pineda expects one last week at a secret particle accelerator, not a stranger who knows her grief and a time loop waiting to snap shut. Breaking free may be the only way to save both her future and her heart.
Bells Hells - What Doesn't Break
by Mike Chen
2024
Before Bells Hells found her, Laudna wandered Exandria with one dangerous voice always in her ear. This prequel follows her lost years from Whitestone to Jrusar, where wanting more might cost her everything.
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine—The Dog of War
by Mike Chen
2024
Quark thinks a rare Earth corgi is just another profitable deal, until the dog arrives with dangerous Borg-linked cargo. This Deep Space Nine comic mixes station comedy, wartime tension, and one very memorable dog named Latinum.
What If... Marc Spector Was Host to Venom?
by Mike Chen
2024
Marc Spector already shares his head with Steven, Jake, and Khonshu. When Venom bonds with him after an alternate-reality crash, Moon Knight becomes something darker, and the people left behind must stop a violent new version of Marc.
Tusk Love
by Mike Chen
2025
When bandits wreck her future, merchant's daughter Guinevere has little choice but to travel the Amber Road with Oskar, the guarded half-orc who saved her. Adventure, danger, and slow-burning attraction do the rest.
Vox Machina--Stories Untold
by Mike Chen
2025
Ten stories revisit Vox Machina through the eyes of allies, enemies, and bystanders whose lives they changed. It is an anthology built on side angles, old grudges, and the long wake heroes leave behind.
Low Red Moon
by Mike Chen
2026
After the Empire destroys his family, Jaylen Barsha disappears into the underworld as Jaylen Vrax, with only the reprogrammed droid ND-5 at his side. Their hunt for answers tests loyalty, ambition, and how much trust two survivors can afford.
Of Sorcery and Science
by Mike Chen
2026
Andy Lao came back from a fantasy realm as its Chosen One, only to face homework, college pressure, and parents who do not believe a word of it. When magic leaks into the real world, science may be his only way to save both worlds.
The Mighty Nein--Stories Untold
by Mike Chen
2026
Nine stories look at the Mighty Nein from the perspectives of friends, foes, and everyone caught in their orbit. It is an anthology of aftermath, unfinished business, and lives altered by one messy heroic party.
The Photonic Effect
by Mike Chen
2026
Captain Demora Kim and the battered crew of the Horizon finally make it home after ten years lost in space, only to find a galaxy splintered by civil war. Conspiracies, betrayals, and impossible choices follow fast.
Where should I start?
If you want emotional time travel: Here and Now and Then → A Quantum Love Story
If you like hopeful post-apocalyptic drama: A Beginning at the End
If you want superheroes with heart: We Could Be Heroes
If you prefer family mystery with a sci-fi edge: Light Years from Home → Vampire Weekend
If you want franchise adventures: Brotherhood → The Dog of War → Low Red Moon
Author bio
Mike Chen was born in San Jose and grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, a part of California that still shows up all over his fiction. Long before he was publishing novels, he was the kid making fan fiction crossovers because, in his mind, favorite worlds were meant to crash into each other.
That instinct never really went away.
In college, Chen took creative writing classes alongside a practical engineering degree. Adult life pulled him through freelance work, web development, technical and marketing copy, and years spent covering geek culture and the NHL. It was solid, useful work, but the fiction was always there in the background, quietly getting louder.
His path into novels looks a lot like his books themselves, high concept on the surface, stubbornly personal underneath. After years of writing and revising, Here and Now and Then arrived in 2019. The hook is pure science fiction, a time-traveling secret agent stranded in suburban California, but the real question is emotional: what happens when a father belongs to two different families, and might lose both?
That became a signature move. In A Beginning at the End, the setup is a post-pandemic rebuild, but the story is really about grief, friendship, and making a life after disaster. In We Could Be Heroes, he turns a superhero clash into a story about memory, loneliness, and unexpected friendship. In Light Years from Home, missing persons, UFO lore, and interstellar war all circle back to a damaged family trying to talk to each other.
He likes big premises. He writes them at human scale.
Chen kept pushing that blend in later books. Vampire Weekend uses punk rock, immortality, and a very unglamorous version of vampire life to talk about family wounds and belonging. A Quantum Love Story takes a time loop and finds room inside it for grief, awkwardness, tenderness, and a romance built four days at a time. Even when the plots involve paradoxes, aliens, or monsters, the people in them are usually worried about ordinary things like parents, siblings, memory, trust, and whether home can be rebuilt.
He has also become a familiar name in tie-in fiction. Brotherhood became a New York Times bestseller, and he has written in the worlds of Star Trek, Marvel, and Critical Role as well. That work makes sense if you know his background. Chen is clearly a lifelong fan, but he is also the kind of writer who looks for the frayed edges in famous universes, the bruised relationship, the uneasy partnership, the joke covering up fear.
More recently, he has kept stretching into new corners of genre. The Photonic Effect leans into space opera, while Of Sorcery and Science brings his love of portal fantasy and character-driven science fiction to younger readers. Across all of it, certain patterns keep surfacing: Bay Area settings, found family, pop culture fluency, and people trying to choose kindness when the world is making that difficult.
Now he lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife, daughter, and many rescue animals. He has said he still loves things like Doctor Who, games, and all the fandom energy that first pushed him toward storytelling, and that feels about right. Mike Chen writes books with spaceships, time loops, Jedi, vampires, and alternate realities. He also writes books about people who miss each other, protect each other, and try very hard to get home.
Edited by
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