We Have Always Been Here Audiobook By Lena Nguyen cover art

We Have Always Been Here

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We Have Always Been Here

By: Lena Nguyen
Narrated by: Catherine Ho
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About this listen

This psychological sci-fi thriller from a debut author follows one doctor who must discover the source of her crew's madness...or risk succumbing to it herself.

Misanthropic psychologist Dr. Grace Park is placed on the Deucalion, a survey ship headed to an icy planet in an unexplored galaxy. Her purpose is to observe the thirteen human crew members aboard the ship - all specialists in their own fields - as they assess the colonization potential of the planet, Eos. But frictions develop as Park befriends the androids of the ship, preferring their company over the baffling complexity of humans, while the rest of the crew treats them with suspicion and even outright hostility.

Shortly after landing, the crew finds themselves trapped on the ship by a radiation storm, with no means of communication or escape until it passes - and that’s when things begin to fall apart. Park’s patients are falling prey to waking nightmares of helpless, tongueless insanity. The androids are behaving strangely. There are no windows aboard the ship. Paranoia is closing in, and soon Park is forced to confront the fact that nothing - neither her crew, nor their mission, nor the mysterious Eos itself - is as it seems.

©2021 Lena Nguyen (P)2021 Recorded Books, Inc.
Fiction Genetic Engineering Science Fiction Space Exploration Space Genetics Interstellar Solar System

Featured Article: The Best Sci-Fi Horror Audiobooks of All Time


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What listeners say about We Have Always Been Here

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Very interesting and thought provoking

The story was very interesting to follow. It builds on itself making you think.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Don't Bother

That's several hours of listening I'll never get back. Uninteresting predictable plot. 2 dimensional characters. Repetitive and redundant. Bland at best. Don't waste your time.

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  • Overall
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Amazing story with a bit of a let down ending.

The story itself was fantastic and I enjoyed all of it. The ending was a tad bit of a let down and just seemed like the author just wanted to get it over with.

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  • Overall
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Very creative

This was a wonderful tale, with unexpected turns. Lots of heart and science, too. A great story of a misfit who comes into her own.

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1 person found this helpful

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A Fun, Thrilling Ride.

A great science-fiction story. I definitely could’ve lived in this world for a longer time, it didn’t wear out it’s welcome.

Catherine Ho gave a great performance, especially with Dr. Grace Park. She got the character and this is a better audio book because of it.

Lena Nguyen came out swinging with her debut. I’m going to be following wherever her stories takes me for quite a while.

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Great book

The suspense is incredible. Has many twists and turns. Give it a try. Extra words

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Quantum physics and the folding of time and space

I enjoyed the references to the singularity. Also the evolution and merging of AI and human consciousness.

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Fantastic book

I listen to at list one sci-fi book every month and hardly write a review but this book was amazing it had enough of everything science technology robot fiction philosophy I mean everything that a perfect science fiction should have thank you thank you thank you from now on I will be reading anything this author writes

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Hard sci-fi?

the author lacks knowledge of space. Destination? "the next galaxy" and an uncharted planet in the next galaxy... her lips became chapped in the ship because of the vacuum of space? dry ship air? sure, but not the vacuum of space.
that being said the story was good and the author is good. the narrator is very good.

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A Must-Read SF Thriller & Excellent Debut Novel

I am a regular reader of SF, including both "standard" SF and "literary" SF. In that regard, Nguyen's debut novel, We Have Always Been Here, veers slightly towards the literary—Nguyen's writing veers much closer to the style of, say, Simon Jimenez's The Vanished Birds than to the comparatively spartan writing of John Scalzi or Pierce Brown. However, unlike some other literary genre works, which arguably suffer from emphasizing writing over characters or story, We Have Always Been Here combines those writerly sensibilities with a thrilling and thoughtful story, a series of unfolding mysteries with surprising and satisfying twists, and a thoughtful meditation on the nature of consciousness and of personhood.

Set in a distant future where Earth has suffered a climate collapse, and space is colonized by the megacorporation ISF, We Have Always Been Here is the story of Grace Park, a psychologist who specializes not in therapy, but in analysis of human emotional expression through careful, sometimes machine-assisted study of microexpressions. Park, who was largely raised by an advanced android and had issues connecting to fellow humans, is the second psychologist on board a ship headed to survey a distant planet for possible colonization. The mission is odd--the crew is much smaller than the usual colonization expedition, and includes both a military officer and a Corporate Security analyst. However, Park knows that she doesn't know the whole picture; unlike almost the entire rest of the crew, she is a corporate hire, not a conscript—a kind of indentured servant, more trusted by ISF precisely because of the leverage ISF holds over their lives and the lives of their families. And so it is not surprising to her that their mission is not what it seems, but, when a mysterious illness starts to render the crew delusional with nightmares, when the androids on board begin to act strangely independent, and when anomalies start to bend space aboard their ship, Park must unravel the mysteries of what exactly is happening aboard, and of which of her crew members she can trust to tell her the truth.

The story is thrilling, well-paced, and thoughtful. Its twists surprise and delight, and the story never lags or sags, even as various viewpoints and times are woven together. I cannot recommend the book enough for fans of SF, or fans of thrillers who are not put off by genre elements. I also cannot wait to see more from Nguyen, who knocked this debut out of the park. Moreover, audiobook narrator Catherine Ho did an excellent job—she comes off at times as dry, but the dryness mirrors Park herself.

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5 people found this helpful