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Timeline

3.73 of 5 stars 3.73 · rating details · 81,777 ratings · 2,265 reviews

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...more 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' most unlovable quirks. Like the entrepreneur in Crichton's Jurassic Park, Doniger plans a theme park featuring artefacts 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 marvellously 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 axe into the air." Try 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 high tech 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 armour shining with blood. --Tim Appelo

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Mass Market Paperback, 489 pages

Published June 2000 by Ballantine Books International (first published 1999)

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Apr 10, 2013 Space rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: time-travel

This was the first Crichton novel I read, which is probably to his advantage. I knew it was fiction, so I was able to pick it up and cruise right through it. Had I started on The Andromeda Strain, or Airframe, I might have thought he was a non-fiction writer and not given him a proper chance. As it turns out, I was instantly hooked, and began to furiously and ferociously collect everything I could get my hands on by Michael Crichton. Now I've read most of his novels, and have met him in person....more

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Feb 24, 2012 Rad Ryan rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: all-time-favorite

A novel for all-time. The one who made me to love books.
At my age when I read it, I was like WHAT THE HELL, WHAT's THE MEANING OF THAT WORD . I was 13 at that time, I always make a fool out of myself. My classmates were asking me how can I understand it or do I understand it, all kinds of questions who irritates me.

3 months=1 book!
I mean how hurtful and so hateful with it! There are more books than to read! And my goal for my life is to read more than 100 books or even more!
~~I HATE NOVELS~~ *c...more

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May 18, 2008 Stacey rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: science-fiction, pissed-me-off

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Another one-star book for the "so bad it pissed me off" category. I so wanted to like this book. Up until this book I think I read nearly everything Crichton wrote.

Timeline, in my opinion, had a great premise. Swashbuckler disguised as Sci-Fi. The problem I had was that Crichton tried too hard to explain his premises, and ended up making a jumble that even he couldn't untangle.

This book was supposed to have all the good stuff: time travel, knights, castles, fighting, suspense. But the characte...more

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May 28, 2008 Eric rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, books-from-library

I’ve never been terribly impressed with Michael Crichton. He writes excellent action and adventure scenes, but his characters always seem flat and one-dimensional, never doing much more than dodging dinosaurs or white gorillas. Not surprisingly, what I feel is his best novel to date, Disclosure, lacks the heart-pounding action and delves more into conflicts between characters, which I found much more compelling.

I had high hopes for Timeline, a weighty book that had drawn good reviews from the f...more

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Apr 13, 2013 Damon rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Crichton takes another swing at time travel. After a brainy first act that presents a layman's comprehension of quantum physics, the narrative shifts admirably into a more traditional adventure story about a group of college students trapped in France during the Hundred Years War, who have to use their modern educations of the 17th century to survive and get back home. One of the things I like about the science in Crichton's books is that it feels like he is explaining it to himself even as he e...more Crichton takes another swing at time travel. After a brainy first act that presents a layman's comprehension of quantum physics, the narrative shifts admirably into a more traditional adventure story about a group of college students trapped in France during the Hundred Years War, who have to use their modern educations of the 17th century to survive and get back home. One of the things I like about the science in Crichton's books is that it feels like he is explaining it to himself even as he explains it to the reader. You feel like you are going along with him on his quest for further research to make his story more compelling and rich. The premise is absurd, but awesome, and it's a credit to his patience and power as a writer of typically deadpan Hollywood prose that he is able to go to such great lengths to keep the pace tight, the pages turning and the discoveries believable and fresh.

The book is shamelessly rife with action, romance, villainous mustache-twirling, and detailed descriptions of appalling gore (a character attempts to decapitate a marauding knight, but only manages to get his sword halfway through, then struggles to withdraw the weapon while dragging the guy around the room as blood spurts from his visor) which serve to root us in the dangerous, up-close brutality of historical warfare that the characters are confronted with, all the more believable thanks to the late doctor's firsthand knowledge of gaping wounds. On that same coin, the act of multidimensional transport is depicted as an aberration of nature, with costly and compounding effects on the human body, a welcome detail that is often ignored in these kinds of stories, which is strange because it would be THE FIRST THING ON MY MIND if someone offered to take me apart at a molecular level and rebuild me on the other side of space-time.

Of course it's impossible to tell a story like this without calling upon loving homages to other classics, the likes of Treasure Island, A Yankee In King Arthur's Court and The Time Machine, stories the author no doubt grew up with. There is an excellent jousting sequence, and a climactic battle with no shortage of flaming arrows and scalding-hot oil. Like the contemporary heroes, we feel as though we are visiting not just a different time, but a different universe of meta-fiction. In Crichton's articulate words the fusion of modern physics and medieval warfare go together like chocolate and peanut-butter, or genetic engineering and dinosaurs.

I am obligated to point out glaring plot holes so I will say that the form of time travel presented in Timeline is compelling, but inconsistent. A shocking discovery early on has the characters unearthing a pair of modern reading glasses at an archaeological dig site, tipping off the crew of the Mystery Machine to the fate of their professor. However, we learn later on that the evil corporate "3D fax machine" that makes the trip possible works, albeit clumsily, by extrapolating microscopic worm-holes in the quantum foam to effectively burrow into another universe where it is still the fourteenth century-- NOT the same as "going back" in time! This is a unique gimmick, one that the premise of the story is built upon, presumably to avoid the narrative issue of time paradoxes. Logically, anything the characters do in the "Feudal France Universe" should have no effect on our world. But for some reason they do, and it's distracting. So why did they keep finding hints of their past actions in another universe? Who cares.

Despite this confusing point, Timeline is a fantastic, unpretentious, swashbuckling adventure yarn with cool science and cool action, and falls just outside what I would consider Crichton's "comfort zone". I kept expecting the story to end halfway through the book because he threw in the towel, stepped back and said "wow, this is retarded" and left the last hundred pages blank but he sees it through to the end and the gamut of modern adventure fiction is better off because of it.

Also: If you harbor an ill opinion of this book and refuse to read it because you watched the awful film adaptation... **** you?(less)

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Jul 19, 2007 misha rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fastreads, 2007

Total piece of crap book that I got from a book swap.

That said, while I did a lot of skimming, this was a perfectly fine book to read while on mass transit... as long as I kept the cover down so that no one would know that I was reading crap.

And now you know that I sometimes read crap.

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Apr 15, 2008 John rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: modern-fiction, mystery-crime-and-thriller, multiple-re-reads, sci-fi-and-fantasy

I loved this book... and then some arse made a really crap film and the book lost some of its shine... I couldn't rid my mind of the film set and actors.

I still quite like the book.

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Dec 23, 2008 Lisa rated it 5 of 5 stars

This book was my introduction to Crichton and I fell in love!
I fell in love because this is an author who does extensive research on the subjects he writes about. So he not only entertains, he teaches you something in the process.
In Timeline, Crichton combines science(quantum technology) and history(medieval) in a heart-stopping adventure. A group of historians are given the opportunity to literally enter life in fourteenth-century feudal France. But this is not your typical time travel story.

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Oct 19, 2008 Elyse rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Those interested in time travel and medieval history

Recommended to Elyse by: My friend

Professor Johnston is leading an excavation trip in France with several of his students, but he leaves to speak with the founder of the company that's sponsoring the dig. There he finds out that the company has built a time machine that can transport you to 14th century France. He decides to see for himself what life was really like back there. But he is trapped and leaves clues for his students to find in the future, informing them that he is lost in the past. From there, they must travel back...more

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May 08, 2008 Jim rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: science-action

This was a good one.

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...more This was a good one.

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 (less)

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Jun 17, 2009 Werner rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Fans of action-oriented science-fiction

Shelves: science-fiction, books-i-own

My reaction to this book was a lot more favorable than Stacey's --but I do have to agree with some of her criticisms. Because of his "hard" sci-fi orientation, Crichton insisted on trying to extrapolate an explanation for time-travel from existing science, his vehicle being quantum theory. Since this is too complex and counter-intuitive for most people to understand (and some of us suspect it of being a bunch of hooey anyway!), the "explanation" doesn't serve much purpose, and does wind up being...more

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Jul 25, 2007 Jared rated it 1 of 5 stars

When an author can't create anything new you end up with this. This is a Michael Crichton novel so you know you going to get a team of top-notch scientists, some wealthy, eccentric entrepreneur, and a big scientific/horrific dilemma. The only problem is the entire plot. Here we have time travel. A wealthy, eccentric entrepreneur with some scientists figure out how to go back in time. They go to the middle ages. People get lost in time. Now, they need a new team of scientists to get them back. Th...more

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Feb 21, 2008 Anastasia rated it 4 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Feb 22, 2012 Lynn rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: science-fiction

It seems a lot of people feel this was one of Crichton's weaker efforts but I enjoyed reading this. It may be that, beyond the opening, there was not as much technology-driven plot as there was medieval adventure and romance. I thought it was entertaining and found that Crichton was able to keep me interested while I was reading.

Not a bad way to spend your reading time.

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Aug 02, 2011 Esther Medina De Leon added it · review of another edition

2. When a man appears out of nowhere in New Mexico, and mysteriously dies, questions start to arise as to where he came from, how he got there, and eventually the people he worked for. The corporation, for which he works, ICT, seems legitimate enough. They provide funding for excavations, research, and restorations of long ago villages and castles. Little do the researchers and archeologists and historians of these various projects understand how complex and underhanded the corporation has becom...more

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Mar 25, 2009 Bill rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: sci-fi

I really enjoyed this story. Timeline was a book that mixed sci-fi with fantasy in a pretty interesting and believable way. The book was a very easy and quick read and provided a nice diversion. One of my coworkers, Ed, also read the book and enjoyed it. However, he also saw Timeline the Movie and had nothing but bad things to say about it. As it so happens, he isn't the only one who had nothing good to say about the movie.

The funny thing is the book reads like it should be a movie. I can't thin...more

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Jan 31, 2009 Eric_W rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: mysteries-and-thrillers

A man is found wandering in the desert southwest near Black Rock New Mexico. He is taken to a local hospital where he dies. An autopsy, required by law, reveals some strange anomalies. His fingers, which had appeared gangrenous, had veins that did not match up, and his heart had similar conditions on the walls. The man should not have been able to live more than a few hours, let alone the seventy plus years he turned out to be. His fingerprints revealed his identity to be that of a physicist wor...more A man is found wandering in the desert southwest near Black Rock New Mexico. He is taken to a local hospital where he dies. An autopsy, required by law, reveals some strange anomalies. His fingers, which had appeared gangrenous, had veins that did not match up, and his heart had similar conditions on the walls. The man should not have been able to live more than a few hours, let alone the seventy plus years he turned out to be. His fingerprints revealed his identity to be that of a physicist working at a very high-tech and secret facility some two hundred miles from where he had been found. He appeared to be delusional, muttering all sorts of bizarre poems and he had no identification other than a strange ceramic disk that turned out to be an ID device from the corporation. He also had a piece of paper with strange dots and letters that appeared to be Monastaire Marie, a monastery that had burned to the ground in the fourteenth century.
The corporation had been a substantial supporter of an archaeological dig in France that was restoring the monastery in the drawing. There the researchers discover a pair of spectacles that are clearly twentieth century and a note asking for help that could only have been written in the fourteenth century. They worry the site has somehow been contaminated and they report their findings to headquarters. The historians and archaeologists are summoned to New Mexico to the headquarters of the corporation where they are stunned to learn that this corporation, for monetary reasons of its own, had perfected time travel based on theories of multiverse and quantum physics. Crichton always does his homework and the explanations of fourteenth century France and quantum physics are clear and appear accurate (not that I would have a clue about quantum physics.) They are sent back to retrieve a research who has not been able to return. Regretfully, as they well knew, the area was also at that time in the midst of the Hundred Years War. One of the guards sent along to help them insists on taking along weapons covertly, despite admonitions not to, and a grenade explodes in the transmission room on his return. The travelers have only a thirty-nine hour window to return so they must battle language problems, warring factions, and other travails to retrieve the professor who had been left behind.
It’s a great story to read or listen to if you suspend some rational thought. The twentieth century visitors are just a little too competent in making there way around.

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Dec 30, 2008 Sue rated it 4 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Nov 07, 2008 Jackie rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: science-fiction, time-travel

Time travel gets me almost everytime!
This novel was exciting and unique, I could hardly put it down. Cool quantum technology that I barely understood aside, I felt like I was transported to the 100 Years War along with the team that sets out to find the Professor. And that's what makes a good novel into a great novel for me, and Timeline delivered.
One of Crichton's best.
And I got a crush on Marek so that helps in keeping it on my favorite book list. I think I'll read in again soon.

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May 09, 2013 Van rated it 2 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Timeline by Michael Crichton is a sci-fi thriller based around a group of college graduates who have to go back in time to save their professor who is trapped in the past. Every Crichton book that I have read including Timeline has two main parts. First, the science that is the backbone of the book. Second, the plot or story itself. Having read several other Crichton books, when I started reading Timeline I was incredibly curios about he would use science to back up the idea of time travel to t...more Timeline by Michael Crichton is a sci-fi thriller based around a group of college graduates who have to go back in time to save their professor who is trapped in the past. Every Crichton book that I have read including Timeline has two main parts. First, the science that is the backbone of the book. Second, the plot or story itself. Having read several other Crichton books, when I started reading Timeline I was incredibly curios about he would use science to back up the idea of time travel to the past because I had seen a multitude of science shows stating that there is no way to travel back in time. The science used in Timeline was based around Quantum Theory and the idea that there are an infinite number of interconnected parallel universes. For me this idea had both advantages and drawbacks. I liked it because it gave me another way to look at time travel, so that every time I read about it in a science fiction book I did not have to say, “impossible” to myself. Second, I had always been curios about what Quantum Theory was and I have to say that Crichton explained it beautifully. Whenever I had tried to research Quantum Theory in the past the information I could collect was far to dense and convoluted for me to make heads or tails of. However, this idea one serious drawback. Crichton never explained how a person traveling to another universe and changing something their could have an effect on our universe. To me this seems rather important, though the story did not necessarily hinge on it. Timeline’s plot is in similar condition. The story itself was relatively entertaining. Crichton can often sound boarding or preachy when he rights, but he avoided this almost completely in Timeline. I also thought Crichton did a great job of weaving in interesting historical facts and ideas with the plot. On the other hand, some of the plot twists in the story were obvious, for instance that the character Marek would stay in the past. Second, the relations ship between Chris and Kate is incredibly similar to the Crichton book State of Fear. Additionally, the ending of the story felt rather rushed and under explained, with some loose ends that felt like they needed to be tied up. Overall I would say that Timeline was an entertaining book, and I am sure that if you are a Michael Crichton fan you will enjoy it. (less)

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Apr 21, 2013 Farnoosh Brock rated it 4 of 5 stars

I am not a history buff. I had no particular reason to read the “Timeline” other than Michael Crichton wrote it. I am very happy I followed my notion. I read the first 50 pages two months ago, forgot all about it, and then picked it up to keep me company on some long flights. The writing of Crichton is what I crave through and through. The story and plot are sometimes even secondary motives to read a Crichton novel. The first 4 books which I happened to read, in no particular order on Crichton’s...more I am not a history buff. I had no particular reason to read the “Timeline” other than Michael Crichton wrote it. I am very happy I followed my notion. I read the first 50 pages two months ago, forgot all about it, and then picked it up to keep me company on some long flights. The writing of Crichton is what I crave through and through. The story and plot are sometimes even secondary motives to read a Crichton novel. The first 4 books which I happened to read, in no particular order on Crichton’s account, were brilliantly written, and kept me intrigued to the last page. I was not disappointed here either.

The fantasy and adventures of paying a visit to the past, and not just our own past but decades and centuries past is our central theme. Crichton renews yet again the popular well-used concept of time machines and time travel with his unique twist.

In this story, Crichton’s masterpiece mind, Robert Doniger, has created a machine to send people back to the infamous year of 1357 in feudal France. The theory behind the brains of this machine is intriguing – difficult to fully fathom and yet very original.

According to the genius scientist of the book, we do not live in a single “universe“, we live in a “multiverse“. Many many other universes exist at the same time we do, in a different dimension in space, representing different times in such a way that the past of our own universe is happening in another universe at our present time. The past and present are no longer a function of a moving arrow in one dimension, completely dependent and tightly wound to one another. No. This is a world of many possibilities so stretching the imagination is critical!

The brilliance of Crichton’s creation is not just this fictional theory, it is the solution for our accessing these other universes from our own: sending a human fax. As a result, the machine can easily transport – “fax over” – a human from one universe at one time to another at another point in time. It can then successfully retrieve them should they find themselves in the “special spot” and signal over with the “special marker” their intent to come back, all within the 37 hour time span allotted to them in this medium of time and space. If the 37 hour period is missed, the “quantum channel” is closed and the characters are caught amidst a bloody civil war between mad lords, starving peasants and knights-in-armor.

Crichton’s brilliant account of the world of 1357 takes you back to a time which seems thousands of years in regression of civilization. The advancements since then in our civilization, technology, medicine, science and general knowledge of the world are astounding. The suspense is unpredictable, well-narrated, and interesting. The plot thickens and the reading becomes enjoyable albeit challenging.

For weeks after reading of this book, I would find myself thinking about life in the year 1357. I would imagine what my life would have been like, and I shudder at the grimness of it all. The feeling was eerie, exciting, and foreign and the sensations produced from these images is simple: I am delighted to be living in current present day.
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Mar 16, 2013 Kathryn rated it 2 of 5 stars

I was stunned at the lack of character description in this book. It's no wonder these novels are made so easily into screenplays. Granted, it's only the second Crichton novel I've ever read, so perhaps I should know better?

The premise of Timeline was strangely dichotomous pro/anti-science. I'm not sure if the author is implying that people are what make innovations morally wrong, or that extreme innovations are morally wrong by themselves. This story is another instance of the low-tech scientist...more

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Feb 09, 2013 Leya rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: keeper-shelf, all-time-favorite

I was hooked right from the beginning. I didn't want to let go of the book. Which wasn't a good thing, the kids needed me and I...well...needed, no I wanted the book. Eventually I found the time to finish it. And I'm glad that I found the time to re-read it. I first read years ago, and then I watched the movie recently and I just had to re-read. It was like reading it for the first time.

I've always found time-travel fascinating, even if I don't quite understand the scientific facts behind it. My...more

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Jan 17, 2013 Softymel rated it 2 of 5 stars

En lisant ce livre, j'ai eu l'impression que l'auteur s'est beaucoup documenté sur son sujet, et pour rentabiliser son temps, il nous recrache l'ensemble.
Ainsi, l'histoire commence par un cours d'histoire, puis un petit cours de science, avant d'entrer dans l'histoire (qui est elle-même parsemé d'explication sur les us et coutumes de l'époque).

Personnellement, j'aime beaucoup les fictions historiques, mais là c'était plus un manuel rédigé par un prof amateur, parsemé de quelque élément d'aventur...more

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Oct 23, 2012 Quinn H rated it 5 of 5 stars

This quarter I read Timeline by Michael Chrichton. It is a compelling story of a group of historians working on a castle site in France. The research site that the historians work on is funded by a company called ITC. One day, a representative from ITC comes to inspect the site, but reveals that she knows something about the site that even the historians did not know. This lead the leader of the research team "the professor" to become suspicious and then demanded to go back to ITC's facility to...more

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Oct 15, 2012 Daianara rated it 3 of 5 stars

The story is interesting at first-a group of history students travel back in time (thanks to an invention of their sponsor) to save their mentor (The Professor). One of the students feels right at home in 1357 but mainly they all fight for their dear lives since everyone in that time period seems to want to kill them. I have two main problems with the book. One, everyone always escapes certain death with just a scrape and/or a bruise. Two, the Professor is a little bitch. Who either ignores them...more

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Oct 11, 2012 Daniel Murillo rated it 4 of 5 stars

This book was painfully slow in the beginning but eventually sped up once they were in the think of in medieval france. The story is about time travel, which is possible with quantum mechanics in the book. As typical with Michael's book's, they always are tied with extensive research with the technology or sciences behind the story which is always a pleasure to read.

I thought that this book wasn't as great as i have been told by my peers and even teachers, but that is my personal preference. I...more

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Oct 08, 2012 Ben Calkins rated it 4 of 5 stars

The book Timeline by Michael Crichton is a science fiction thriller
about 3 graduate students in history who are transported back to 14th
century France to try and find their professor, who had gone before
them. They travel in a time machine that is the creation of an evil
genius who is aiming to use time travel to create a collection of
"authentic" amusement parks. As you might expect, something goes badly
awry in the time travel and it appears that the students may be stuck
in the 14th century. They...more

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Oct 01, 2012 Katelyn rated it 5 of 5 stars

This book is called Timeline by Michael Crichton. This book absolutely amazed me. I loved it from beginning to end. Just the entire plot, which was my taste, was thorough and to me he never messed it up. My dad had read it and said that it was amazing and I totally agree with him. It wasn't too long ago that I had learned that there was a movie on it... which looks equally amazing but not as accurate.
Anyway, let me get on what its about.
It starts off kind of slow but it picks up. He starts off...more

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Jul 04, 2012 Billy rated it 4 of 5 stars

Wow! Surprisingly intense and very exciting. Good book!,

I have never been a fan of "mainstream" or "popular" fiction. Same goes with TV and movies; just never been my thing. But, with Timeline, I couldn't resist any longer and I broke down and read it.

I am a historical fiction lover and the middle ages are my favorite period. I have read many novels on the period and I am in the midst of writing one of my own right now.

Michael Crichton is, of course, a world-renowned writer with a long list of b...more Wow! Surprisingly intense and very exciting. Good book!,

I have never been a fan of "mainstream" or "popular" fiction. Same goes with TV and movies; just never been my thing. But, with Timeline, I couldn't resist any longer and I broke down and read it.

I am a historical fiction lover and the middle ages are my favorite period. I have read many novels on the period and I am in the midst of writing one of my own right now.

Michael Crichton is, of course, a world-renowned writer with a long list of best-sellers and movies from books. This was a turn-off for me.

I am glad that I decided to read this book. The historical setting, medieval France in the 14th century, is well described, extremely accurate and passionately played out in this novel. The characters were very believable, flawed and 'human'.

As for the time-travel stuff, I have to admit that I don't know much about quantum physics, but I do know that this is a burgeoning, growing field of science that has sparked many time-travel books so the concept is, at the least, acceptable for a work of fiction.

I came in with very low expectations and I finished the book in 4 days. I will definitely review Mr. Crichton's catalogue of work and see if anything else interests me because he is a wonderful storyteller. Also, judging from the bibliography provided at the end of the book, he does his research before he writes, which must be respected as it is shown on the pages of his novel.

A wonderful book with vivid depictions of medieval life and the politics and problems of the middle-ages; a time when, although it would be titled this much later, became known as the age of enlightenment. When knowledge became a form of power.

And, for what it's worth, I loved that the book continued to focus on the fact that we can learn much from our past. A very important fact that is lost on the Western Civ, Geology and Geography classes that are taught today.

Even if you are not a Michael Crichton fan, check out this book. I was very pleasantly surprised.(less)

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SFBRP Listeners: Time travel (#152). Crichton's Timeline	10	47	Feb 09, 2012 08:34pm

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About Michael Crichton

Michael Crichton was an American author, film producer, film director, and television producer. His books sold over 150 million copies world wide, and among his best-known works were techno-thriller novels, films and television programs. His works were usually based on the action genre and heavily feature technology. Many of his future history novels had medical or scientific underpinnings, reflec...more

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Quotes from 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.” — 44 people liked it

“Professor Johnston often said that if you didn't know history, you didn't know anything. You were a leaf that didn't know it was part of a tree.” — 23 people liked it

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