Mike Chen writes New York Times bestselling novels that move between original science fiction and franchise fiction for Star Wars, Star Trek, and Marvel. Before any of that, he spent years reporting on the NHL, working as an aerospace engineer, and DJing, three jobs that rarely show up on the same author bio. That mix of backgrounds is a big part of why his books read the way they do: technically grounded, but built around ordinary people trying to hold their families and relationships together.
| Category | Details |
|---|---|
| Full Name | Mike Chen |
| Profession | Novelist, comic writer, and geek culture journalist |
| Known For | Star Wars: Brotherhood, Here and Now and Then, A Quantum Love Story |
| Based In | San Francisco Bay Area, California |
| Bestseller Status | New York Times, USA Today, and Publishers Weekly bestseller |
| Debut Novel | Here and Now and Then (2019) |
| Genres | Science fiction, fantasy, post-apocalyptic fiction, urban fantasy |
| Franchise Work | Star Wars novels and anthology stories, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine comics, Marvel What If…? |
| Previous Careers | NHL sports journalist (2004–2012), aerospace engineer, DJ, musician |
| Organization Membership | Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) |
| Literary Agent | Eric Smith, Neighborhood Literary |
| Family | Lives with his |
Who Is Mike Chen
Mike Chen is an American author based in the San Francisco Bay Area who writes adult science fiction, fantasy, and franchise tie-in novels. His debut, Here and Now and Then, came out in 2019, and he has since become a New York Times, USA Today, and Publishers Weekly bestseller, most notably for his 2022 novel Star Wars: Brotherhood. He also writes Star Trek: Deep Space Nine comics and has contributed stories to the Marvel What If…? line.
He is a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA), and his work has been recognized by the Goodreads Choice Awards, the Compton Crook Award, the British Science Fiction Association (BSFA), and the CALIBA Golden Poppy Award.
Early Life and Education
Chen has described himself as a lifelong writer, starting with fan fiction he wrote and illustrated as a child, long before he knew the term “fan fiction” existed. Those early stories mashed up his favorite franchises, an instinct for genre-blending that later carried into his published fiction.
A turning point came in high school, when he wrote a parody of The Grapes of Wrath for an English class assignment, reworking John Steinbeck’s Dust Bowl narrative into an unlikely Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles origin story. The response from classmates convinced him he had a knack for storytelling worth pursuing.
In college, Chen paired a “practical” engineering degree with creative writing courses on the side. One of those writing teachers, later identified in interviews as Wendy Sheanin, an executive at Simon & Schuster, told him to keep writing. He credits that encouragement as a reason he returned to fiction years later, after detours into journalism and technical writing.
Before the Novels: NHL Reporter, DJ, and Aerospace Engineer
Chen’s author bio routinely lists four jobs he held before becoming a full-time novelist: sports journalist, DJ, musician, and aerospace engineer. From roughly 2004 to 2012, he covered the NHL as a credentialed reporter for outlets including Fox Sports, SB Nation, NHL.com, and the San Jose Sharks fan site Fear the Fin.
He stepped back from sports journalism to focus on fiction and geek culture writing, though he has said he still follows and posts about hockey. The engineering background, meanwhile, shows up in how his science fiction handles technical detail. Novels like Here and Now and Then, which centers on a stranded time-traveling secret agent, and Light Years from Home, which follows a family shaped by a possible alien abduction, treat speculative premises with a level of grounded plausibility that reviewers have repeatedly singled out.
Breaking Into Publishing
Chen followed the traditional publishing route: writing a full manuscript, revising it, and querying literary agents. He has written and spoken publicly about that process, including a detailed breakdown of the query letter that helped land Here and Now and Then a book deal. He is represented by literary agent Eric Smith of Neighborhood Literary, and by Kim Yau of Echo Lake Entertainment for film and television rights.
Here and Now and Then, released in 2019, became his breakout. It was a finalist for the Goodreads Choice Awards, the CALIBA Golden Poppy Award, and the Compton Crook Award, which recognizes a best debut science fiction or fantasy novel. The novel follows Kin Stewart, a suburban family man who is secretly a stranded time-traveling agent from the year 2142, and it set the tone for what became a recognizable throughline in Chen’s work: speculative concepts paired with close, character-driven family drama.
A Genre-Crossing Bibliography
Chen’s original novels move across science fiction, post-apocalyptic fiction, and urban fantasy, often blending more than one in the same book. A Beginning at the End (2020) is set six years after a virus has wiped out most of the world’s population and follows a former pop star hiding under a new identity. We Could Be Heroes (2021) centers on two amnesiac characters with superpowers trying to figure out who they used to be. Light Years from Home (2022) follows two estranged sisters after their long-missing brother reappears claiming an intergalactic war is coming.
Vampire Weekend (2023) reworks vampire tropes around a woman trying to build a found family and a punk band while keeping her condition secret. A Quantum Love Story (2024) pairs a neuroscientist with a physicist trapped in a time loop at a particle accelerator. Chen has also written for younger readers, contributing to the middle grade anthology You Are Here: Connecting Flights and writing the YA novel Of Sorcery and Science.
Entering the Star Wars and Star Trek Canon
Chen’s first Star Wars work was the short story “Disturbance,” published in the 2020 anthology From a Certain Point of View: The Empire Strikes Back, marking the saga’s fortieth anniversary. He followed it with a story in the companion anthology built around Return of the Jedi.
His full-length Star Wars debut, Star Wars: Brotherhood (2022), became a New York Times bestseller and a USA Today Best Book of the Year. Set just after Attack of the Clones, it follows Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker as they investigate an attack blamed on the Republic while the Clone Wars escalate around them. Chen has continued writing in the Star Wars universe since, including the novel Star Wars Outlaws: Low Red Moon, and he appeared on the Lucasfilm Publishing panel at Star Wars Celebration in 2025.
Beyond Star Wars, Chen writes Star Trek: Deep Space Nine comics and has contributed a Marvel story to the What If…? line involving Moon Knight and Venom. Across these franchises and his original fiction, he covers geek culture more broadly, having written for Nerdist, StarTrek.com, The Mary Sue, The Portalist, and Tor.com.
Awards, Recognition, and Critical Reception
Chen’s books have received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, Library Journal, Shelf Awareness, and Booklist. His work has been recognized by the Texas Library Association, the New York Public Library, Amazon Editors, BuzzFeed, Apple Books, Book Riot, and Reader’s Digest, and he has been featured in the Washington Post, Scientific American, USA Today, the San Francisco Chronicle, and NPR.
None of his novels have won a major award outright, but the pattern of nominations across the Goodreads Choice Awards, the Compton Crook Award, the BSFA Award, and the CALIBA Golden Poppy Award points to consistent critical regard across nearly every book he has released, not just a single breakout title.
Personal Life
Chen lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife, daughter, and several rescue animals. He has said he enjoys playing video games and watching Doctor Who in his downtime. He is active on Bluesky and Instagram, where his account leans heavily toward photos of his dogs rather than writing updates.
He has also addressed, more than once, that he is not the only public figure named Mike Chen. On his website, he jokingly lists several unrelated namesakes, including a YouTube food personality, a San Francisco politician, and a comic book artist, and clarifies that he is the one who covered the NHL and now writes science fiction.
What Comes Next
Chen has multiple projects releasing through 2027. The Photonic Effect and the YA novel Of Sorcery and Science are both set for 2026, alongside continued Star Wars work following Low Red Moon. A further novel, The Haunting of Santo Domingo Street, is planned for 2027.
Nearly all of his novels have been optioned for film or television at some point, though none have yet moved into production, something Chen has said is common in the industry rather than a sign any particular project has stalled for good. Between original novels, franchise fiction, and comics, he has kept a release pace of roughly one major book a year since his 2019 debut, a rhythm that has turned a former sports reporter and engineer into one of the more genre-flexible working novelists in science fiction today.