Timeline

“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

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

A group of historians is recruited by an eccentric billionaire to retrieve the person his company's secret time travel project has left trapped in the fourteenth century.

In fairness, I'm probably not in the best position to pass judgment on this one, as I read most of it in small, exhausted moments during a particularly action-packed vacation. But, well, I have read books while on vacation that distracted me from the sightseeing and kept me up later than practical for getting that good early-morning start on the next day's activities, and I can say without hesitation that Timeline was not one of them.

The physics behind the time travel is actually kind of interesting and reflects some real research on the author's part, but unfortunately show more he doesn't seem to have fully grasped the concepts behind said research, and the logic of it all becomes muddled and fuzzy very quickly. Also, I find that I'm losing patience with the dumb cliche of corporations secretly developing fantastic technologies based on dozens of decades-ahead-of-their-time discoveries that for some inexplicable reason they completely fail to exploit in any sensible way. And while I can't speak to the accuracy of the history, as that's not remotely my field, I do have the strong suspicion that actual historians are likely to roll their eyes a bit at the way their profession is depicted.

Nor are the time travel hijinks all that interesting, as they mostly seem to consist of the main characters getting captured, escaping, being chased, being captured again, escaping again, and so on, punctuated with bouts of various kinds of fighting and, of course, contrived catastrophes in the present that conveniently prevent them from being retrieved too soon. Crichton does seem to want to go for a kind of you-are-there vibe for the historical period, but his attempt to do that consists mostly of throwing in lots of gore and architecture, and it doesn't work particularly well. If anything, he almost gives me the impression that he's just going down a checklist of what readers expect from this kind of story -- Jousting, check! Castles with secret passages, check! -- while failing to weave those elements into much of a plot. The writing isn't that great, either, being full of "As you know, Bob" dialog, among other things.

As I recall, Crichton did write some decently entertaining airplane novels. I know Jurassic Park passed the time very nicely for me on a flight to Philadelphia back in nineteen-ninety-something. But either he rapidly lost his cheesy-but-fun touch, or else I've gotten a lot pickier in the intervening years. Possibly both. show less

Sin duda hay libros que solo existen para que que uno se pase uno de los mejores ratos.

Este es un libro con una buena historia, un argumento para nada original, puesto que los viajes en el tiempo son contados desde hace muchos años, pero que ha sido manejado de una manera espectacular, bien contado, narrado maravillosamente, con buenos personajes, manejando los temas ciencia ficción de una manera real y comprensible, pero sobre todo eso, más allá de todo, es que es un libro que no puedes soltar, que te entrega lo que ofrece y que te deja un buen sabor de boca.

Realmente me ha importado poco las partes donde usualmente uno pone ojos en blanco, o si ha sido largo o si algunas cosas resultan en exageración, sencillamente todo encaja show more para terminar pensando tristemente en que se ha terminado y por lo tanto se ha terminado mi disfrute y mi entretenimiento.

El principio es genial y el nudo de la historia es una vorágine de aventuras, escapes y matanzas dignas de la época en la que se viven, el desenlace no es precipitado y si muy bien controlado y manejado, el final sin duda es buenisimo.

Así pues, un libro que obviamente recomiendo para cualquiera que solo quiera vivir un muy buen rato con un libro para olvidarse del mundo entero mientras lo lee.

He visto la película y creo que lo único que me gusta es el casting, por mucho el libro es absolutamente mejor 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

Crichton is incredibly popular - wch is enuf to make me suspicious of him immediately! Nonetheless, I found a few bks by him for a dollar or so & decided to read them. He's prolific, he's directed 10 movies & 12 others have been made based on his plots. I've liked some of the movies. SO, even though he's popular, maybe he's really a smart guy, eh? Nah.. "Timeline" is a time travel novel. There's nothing new here, for dedicated readers of SF like myself this is just another generic variation on the theme. Crichton is a competent (or even excellent) formula writer, he's got the generic thrill-ride down, he slots in the latest scientific possibilities, but he's completely unoriginal both in the writing style & in the content. He's probably show more a little 'better' than Dean Koontz. Still, I liked it ok, it wasn't until I got to "State of Fear" that I started to despise the guy. More about that later. show less

I wouldn't waste my time on Timeline if I weren't such a sci-fi junkie. Leaden figures plod through medieval France, encountering ridiculous adventures. Why do I push on? Because every once in awhile, Crichton treats me with a nugget of fascinating science or history. The best part of the book is the introduction and the bibliography.