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Loading... Timelineby Michael Crichton
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book.  Alliebadger | Nov 19, 2009 |  Timeline is a fine example of time travel in fiction, a device that fails as often as it succeeds. Like all time travel fiction, there are inevitable holes and inconsistencies. But the great story Crichton weaves masks these holes with ease. And as always there's a lesson here. Crichton forces us to face the uncomfortable truth that we know far less about even our recent past than we like to believe. (  ) SendersName | Nov 10, 2009 | I have been a longtime fan of Michael Crichton books. This was a fun story taking the reader back to medieval times with an enjoyable cast of characters. I appreciated that this book did not have as much of the technical jargon to sort through as Jurassic Park did. This is a great historical fiction/science fiction read. My husband read it on my recommendation even though he is not usually a fan of fiction, and he thoroughly enjoyed it too. The movie was not bad, but did not compare to the original story - of course, what movie ever does? (  ) twystedlocks | Nov 3, 2009 | I really enjoyed the time travel aspects of this book. I did not enjoy the medieval time period that was traveled to. I am looking forward to renting the movie of this book from Netflix though because I always appreciate medieval settings better on film than on paper. It's take on the multiverse was advanced for when the book was published. (  ) JennSicu | Oct 25, 2009 | 1  hyperpat | Sep 1, 2009 | 
 ''Timeline'' ends with Doniger delivering a caustic denunciation of the ''mania for entertainment'' that pervades American culture, in which jaded consumers increasingly seek an ''authenticity'' of experience that not even the most sophisticated ''artifice'' can offer. (Doniger wants to market time-travel as the ultimate amusement-park ride.) The irony, of course, is that few entertainment products are as artificial as Crichton's own work. Like shiny windup toys, his novels are diverting -- they're manically entertaining. (I gobbled up ''Timeline'' in a single sitting.) But like anything mechanical, they just end up repeating themselves. Whatever time Crichton is in, he's always writing the same book.
Amazon.com (ISBN 0099244721, Mass Market Paperback)When you step into a time machine, fax yourself through a "quantum foam wormhole," and step out in feudal France circa 1357, be very, very afraid. If you aren't strapped back in precisely 37 hours after your visit begins, you'll miss the quantum bus back to 1999 and be stranded in a civil war, caught between crafty abbots, mad lords, and peasant bandits all eager to cut your throat. You'll also have to dodge catapults that hurl sizzling pitch over castle battlements. On the social front, you should avoid provoking "the butcher of Crecy" or Sir Oliver may lop your head off with a swoosh of his broadsword or cage and immerse you in "Milady's Bath," a brackish dungeon pit into which live rats are tossed now and then for prisoners to eat.This is the plight of the heroes of Timeline, Michael Crichton's thriller. They're historians in 1999 employed by a tech billionaire-genius with more than a few of Bill Gates's most unlovable quirks. Like the entrepreneur in Crichton's Jurassic Park, Doniger plans a theme park featuring artifacts from a lost world revived via cutting-edge science. When the project's chief historian sends a distress call to 1999 from 1357, the boss man doesn't tell the younger historians the risks they'll face trying to save him. At first, the interplay between eras is clever, but Timeline swiftly becomes a swashbuckling old-fashioned adventure, with just a dash of science and time paradox in the mix. Most of the cool facts are about the Middle Ages, and Crichton marvelously brings the past to life without ever letting the pulse-pounding action slow down. At one point, a time-tripper tries to enter the Chapel of Green Death. Unfortunately, its custodian, a crazed giant with terrible teeth and a bad case of lice, soon has her head on a block. "She saw a shadow move across the grass as he raised his ax into the air." I dare you not to turn the page! Through the narrative can be glimpsed the glowing bones of the movie that may be made from Timeline and the cutting-edge computer game that should hit the market in 2000. Expect many clashing swords and chase scenes through secret castle passages. But the book stands alone, tall and scary as a knight in armor shining with blood. --Tim Appelo (retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:04 -0400) The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details. |
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Sorry, rant over. Other than the visit from the Exposition Fairy, I thought it was a pretty good read. Crichton put together a shockingly realistic medieval world that I was a little scared by. Even though at times I felt he was just pulling every trick in the book to make the characters' plight last until the last second, that didn't stop me from wanting to read it. Although I was confused by one character's decision at the end, the rest of the characters were pretty plausible. Extremely decent. (