Timeline

The main take-away from Timeline is that time travel, despite its ubiquity in fiction, is really hard to get right in a story, even for a thriller writer as able as Michael Crichton. Timeline won't be remembered as one of his best. It does have an easy Saturday-afternoon popcorn-film sort of charm, the sort of thing I would have lapped up as a child back in the Nineties, but it struggles to hit its plot points naturally.

The warnings come early on, when a random day-tripper in modern-day America almost immediately recognises a strange map as being a floorplan of a medieval monastery, and a young kid in a waiting room overhears a conversation and pipes up with everything he knows about 'quantum foam'. This forced storytelling continues show more throughout: one of the characters, for example, trains regularly in medieval combat, just because he likes it, so you know it is going to become useful when he is one of those cast back in time to medieval France. Much of the story is untidy (the old man at the start, who triggers the plot, is part of an arc that is left underdeveloped) and many plot pivots are put down to chance and 'bad luck'. The denouement of the story provides hasty comeuppance for its villains and unfulfilling development for its protagonists (though André's contribution to the Epilogue is rather affecting).

All in all, the features of the story – interesting in isolation – are cobbled together as a sort of potluck. Time travel is always fun, but this book never rises above such disposable, pulpy fun. Crichton is always willing to bring science and research into his stories, and he makes a game attempt here with quantum computing and medieval verisimilitude, but he acknowledges at the end of his book that time travel "rests firmly in the realm of fantasy" (pg. 490). Timeline, unfortunately, proves to be a potboiler. show less

“In other centuries, human beings wanted to be saved, or improved, or freed, or educated. But in our century, they want to be entertained. The great fear is not of disease or death, but of boredom. A sense of time on our hands, a sense of nothing to do. A sense that we are not amused.”

Wow. Even though this book was written almost thirty years ago, that quote really seems to sum up our current world fairly accurately. And this book does the trick. It’s an adventure within an adventure, and it's wildly entertaining. When a team of dedicated scholars and archeologists, currently working on a dig in France called the Dordogne project, discovers that a tech company called ITC knows more about their fourteenth-century ruins than they show more do, they want to know how. Dr. Robert Doniger, the genius who founded the company, gladly allows Edward Johnston, Regius Professor of History at Yale University, to take a look at their technology, capable of transporting people back in time. But when his colleagues at the archeological site uncover a stack of parchments in the excavation pit of an old monastery, they are stunned to discover a message dated 4/7/1347 from Johnston asking for help, and they rush to ITC headquarters to learn more.

The scholars find that a group of physicists using quantum computers has developed a way to send objects and people back in time by crossing into a new universe. They select a group to send back to 1347 to rescue the professor. The group consists of Christopher Stewart Hughes (Chris), a graduate student; Andre Marek, an assistant professor of history at Yale; Katherine Erickson (Kate), another graduate student; and two employees from ITC. Trouble breaks out in the first few seconds of their landing. It doesn’t stop for the next 37 hours as they find themselves in the middle of a medieval war, frothing with political intrigue, dangerously skillful knights, and conniving traitors.

This story, which spends most of its time on a fascinating trek back into history, is packed with spectacular events, explosive violence, and unavoidable humor, as the human experience is brought to life by a well-written narrative that only Michael Crichton can pull off. show less

I got this at a second hand bookshop in Segovia having already seen the film.

Physics wunderkind Doniger is the owner of ITC, an advanced, but highly secretive, facility in New Mexico. Suspicions are raised when one of his employees is found wandering in the desert dressed as a monk and clutching a map of a 14th Century French church.

In France, more specifically in the Dordogne, Dr. Johnston is and his team are working on a huge archaeological dig, piecing together information from a 14th Century castle and its surroundings. Their project is being funded by ITC, making it on of the largest of its kind. More questions are being asked about why a company making chips would be interested in a long forgotten castle. When 'contamination', a show more lens from the professor's glasses, are found in a sealed room, Johnston's team are let in on the big secret, ITC have found a way to travel back in time. There is a catch though, the professor is trapped back there and needs to be rescued, but the technology is not reliable. The task is further complicated by the timing, on the eve of a battle between English and French troops. The team's knowledge of the past will be seriously put to the test.

As someone interested in history, I enjoyed the juxtaposition of the two times presented, especially as the earlier period is one which we have so little record of. As the historians are confronted with the past, they not only have to adapt to its realities face to face rather than from a safe distance of 7 centuries, they must re-evaluate their own assumptions.

As with Jurassic Park, I liked reading about a possible scenario brought about by technological advances. Crichton doesn't only show us the alternative reality, but also seems to encourage the reader to think about its implications, such as whether time travellers can / should change the past through interference, whether the human body is too complicated to be transported as a piece of code, and also how each time has its own code for living. The historians, especially Chris, must adhere to a different set of morals. They find themselves in a world where violence is omnipresent, yet act of chivalry are made without hesitation.

Crichton packs in a lot of technological detail, adding another dimension to the plot, turning it into a page-turning sci-fi thriller. show less

A scientist has discovered the technology which allows humans to travel in time. He is using the technology to visit sites of historical significance in the hopes of exploiting those events for history theme parks. Blinded by his greed and self-importance, he ignores the risks inherent in the technology he is developing and sends a history professor to 14th century France. The professor's students and colleagues are sent back to save him. The unlikely group have only 36 hours to retrieve the professor and return to their own time before the batteries in their time traveling devices run out.

Cricthon is not at his best with this novel. Usually, Crichton's characters are more complicated, occupying the grey edges of morality and ethics. show more And the meat of the story, whether set in corporate boardrooms or on isolated islands, is always the interaction between these fundamentally flawed characters. That dynamic has made for some great stories. This story, however, seems a lot more grounded in a fascination with history and cutting edge technology. The characters are much more one dimensional, occupying more stereotypical space in the narrative. There is the evil scientist, the fatherly professor, the nerd looking to break out, and literally the "knight in shining armor".

Try a different Crichton; his stories and characters in titles like Disclosure or Rising Sun are much more interesting.

21/2 bones!! show less

This book meant a great deal to me when I was fourteen and frequently fantasized about the past. I had a passing interest in quantum science as it was expressed here as well and had a notion of understanding it. I wasn't sure if the book would keep, but I read it again last summer and had a higher understanding of the contexts (and really appreciated the "Green Knight" reference) and was still completely moved by Marek and his place in the epilogue. It's great when a book keeps so well.

This book is horrible!! It's hard to even know where to begin....

The science doesn't make much sense, or seem very well-developed, or seem to really have anything to do with anything. A lot of Crichton's other books really make you think about the implications of scientific technology, but here, it's clear that he just wanted to write a time travel book and so he came up with some dodgy science to make it possible.

The book is really badly written. There are giant plot holes all over the place, the characters are one-dimensional and uninteresting (the one character who does grow or change in the book does so in the course of 2 pages), an editor needed to spend some more time getting rid of redundant sentences, and the dialog is show more atrocious - Crichton tries to use "medieval-speak", but forgets to do it half the time, and is totally inconsistent about whether characters can understand each other or not. There are all sorts of trite and ridiculously unbelievable situations - I was rolling my eyes and saying "sheesh" all through the book.

There are way too many historical inaccuracies to go into... It is clear that Crichton researched a few medieval topics really well, and then just made assumptions about the rest of it. Clearly, he knows that everything he writes will be a bestseller, and he didn't put any effort at all into this book. show less

What would it be like to visit the 14th century, in the feudal society of Europe? What was life like during the 100 years war between France and England? Michael Crichton takes a stab at imagining it, using research written about the 14th century and quantum physics. Published in 1999, I read it then, and reread it now in 2020, where, compared to our inferior world under tRump and the coronavirus, midieval life doesn't look as bad as it did before.
ITC is a company based in Black Rock, New Mexico, not far from Los Alamos, that does research into quantum physics. They have found a way to record the human body, shrink it down to the size of smaller than atoms, and then, using quantum foam, to reconstruct the almost equal human copy from show more one of the multiverses, into an earlier part of the timestream. Like the 14th century, in the community of the Monastery Ste Mere.
A group of grad students and their professor have been excavating this area, employed by ITC without knowing the whole story of ITC's research. Their professor is suddenly whisked away from the excavation site by the founder of the company, to the Black Rock campus. The students carry on their work, but are suddenly notified that the top four research grad students must drop everything, to join the professor in New Mexico. Once there, they are recruited to travel to the monastery they have been excavating, but to the 14th century version of it, where the professor is now stranded.
Crichton knows how to keep the suspense and tension high in his thrillers, and in this book I found myself on the edge of my seat, so to speak, as the students and their professor become embroiled in the local struggle between two feuding nobles, and the clock to return them to their own time is counting down. Even when reading it for the second time! This was so entertaining; I highly recommend it. show less