Timeline Review
This was a great action packed novel that kept me entertained all the way through. This was a great tale of time travel to a much more violent time period. The characters definitely weren't great but the strength of the plot more than makes up for this. There was also an inconsistency in the author's description of time travel but this did not bother me a lot since the book focused on the action/adventure while the science aspect was just a minor point. This was a fun read all throughout and a recommend it heartily to anyone looking for a good yarn.
Timeline Overview
In an Arizona desert a man wanders in a daze, speaking words that make no sense. Within twenty-four hours he is dead, his body swiftly cremated by his only known associates. Halfway around the world archaeologists make a shocking discovery at a medieval site. Suddenly they are swept off to the headquarters of a secretive multinational corporation that has developed an astounding technology. Now this group is about to get a chance not to study the past but to enter it. And with history opened to the present, the dead awakened to the living, these men and women will soon find themselves fighting for their very survival–six hundred years ago. . . .
From the Trade Paperback edition.
Timeline Specifications
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
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Customer Reviews
Timeline - Judy Wilson - Benton Harbor, MI
Since I'm not that interested in mid-evil times, I wasn't that excited with this book. If you do like that particular time in history and you like sci-fi then this is the book for you. I also watched the movie and it was pretty true to the story.
Read Disclosure or Rising Sun instead - TCO - USA
Timeline describes a rescue mission performed by several graduate students going back to the Middle Ages to rescue their professor. Most of the book details sword battle style escapades. Unlike Crichton's corporate thrillers, this book dragged. I ended up skimming a lot of it, especially the action sequences in the Middle Ages.
Some of the flaws included (spoilers):
-length: At almost 500 pages, the book feels padded and dragging.
-action unrealistic: The action was much too repetitive. The characters had near escape after escape and it was unlikely they could get lucky so often. The wandering from place to place (three castles counting the green chapel, a monastary and a fortified mill, seemed aimless and unlikely. Many times the characters separated for not good reasons (petulance or laziness) but I never worried they would recombine. Given the students were all graduate students, one of which was an amateur medievalist (but far from a trained warrior), their success in combat seems unrealistic.
-archeology unrealistic: At the beggining of the novel, their is a huge complex reconstruction going on with only a professor and students running it. The amount of work involved would seem to require more. In addition, the students seem to have incredible amounts of time for archery, scuba diving, etc. while still progressing such a huge research project. And doing so during semester breaks. Just unlikely.
-research over-shown: It's obvious that Chricton (or someone he paid) did a lot of research on quantum technology and the Middle Ages. This research is overshown, with several long passages of explanation between characters. Also, several long descriptions of architecture and the like within the middle of fight sequences. Note: the Middle Ages research (seems) to be pretty accurate and interesting...but just never draws one in during the story. The quantum research is silly and spending long times describing it is even sillier. Would have been better of with a faster blither hand-waving.
-Inconsistence of time travel: geographic transport to the appropriate place (including a displacement from New Mexico to France) is never explained. Supposedly, the communication is to different universes (alternate timelines), but the historical events are the same as our world and events from the past seem to be able to affect our present (objects left are discovered) and agents cautioned not to bring objects back that are anachronisms.
-Poor explanation of commercial significance: We don't get a good reason for why the peroid chosen was chosen (as opposed to say the Crucifixion or the like). In addition, instead of obvious things like hiding relics, to then find and sell them (to finance the project), the objective seems to have been to get better reconstructions.
-characters not well done: Only the corporate characters really seem realistic, although Donniger is over the top. The grad students seem to be both too crudely differentiated AND unrealistically competent in action AND unappealing. There's also no main character.
-subplots not finished: we never find out about the New Mexico policeman's resolution or why the one old man went back to the past unauthorized.
-maintaining secrecy on such a project also seems very unlikely.
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Net, net: too long, too many unrealistic details, not sufficiently entertaining
reissue of old title - Madame Shakti - Irving, Texas United States
I read this book years ago before the movie came out, so I appreciated the book more than the movie.
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