This is a great adventure. As Michael Crichton says, he wanted to try something new with an old genre, and he succeeded.

I think he did an excellent job with the science as well. Unless you are an expert in the field, Crichton can convince you just long enough, that it might be possible.

Since there are over 1400 reviews, no need for me to list the details of the story. They're at other posts. Here's my feeling of the reading experience:

STRENGTHS OF THIS NOVEL: movement, pacing, good concept, events are well stringed along

WEAKNESSES OF THIS NOVEL: characters lack depth, believability issues sometimes, not enough details to feel one is actually in the medieval ages, characters seem to get out of problems too easily (i.e. lots of other people die around them but the main people do not).

OVERALL GRADE: B

I think this one didn't age as well as I wanted, even with traveling to the past.

I liked the current timeline a bit better. The archaeology was one of the best parts of the novel. Perhaps this led to the later merger of Archaeology and Westerns with Dragon Teeth.


Overall, the pacing was much too slow for all of the craziness that was going on.

The narrator wasn't the best match for the story, which could have contributed to the feel of the pacing.

I feel terrible doing this, but I can't give it anymore with the experience-3 Stars.

In the Arizona desert, a man wanders aimlessly, uttering senseless words. After twenty-four hours, he dies, and his body is cremated. At the other end of the world, a team of archaeologists is working on the ruins of a medieval village in the Dordogne, where they discover a room that has been sealed for over six hundred years. But in the headquarters of the project's financing company, the scholars will make an even more surprising discovery: the head of the mysterious multinational has invented a prototype of a time machine, which, in a daring attempt to retrieve Professor Johnson, the leader of the expedition who has vanished into a space-time tunnel, will project them into the year 1357, right in the middle of the Hundred Years' War. However, time travel turns out to be much more dangerous and complex than they had anticipated, and the characters become embroiled in historical events and deadly intrigues.

Crichton provides an accurate and detailed narrative, placing the characters in an authentic historical context. The story unfolds primarily in 14th-century France, and the protagonists find themselves interacting with real historical figures such as King Charles VI of France and the Duke of Brittany. The historical backdrop contributes to a deeper understanding of the characters and the challenges they face as they try to survive in an era so different from what they are accustomed to.

Being a sci-fi fan who also enjoys science, technology, and history, I was sure Timeline would be a hit with me. Sadly, I find myself falling into the minority with my rating here. And it’s a good thing I didn’t allow the poor rating of the 2003 Timeline film to scare me away from viewing it because I liked the film way better than the book!

Timeline follows a small team of archaeology and history students as they attempt to rescue their professor. It seems the high-tech company ITC, who has been sponsoring their current dig of a 14-century site in France and feeding them uncanny details about the structures they have excavated thus far, hasn’t been truthful about how they come by this knowledge. The students become worried about their professor’s wellbeing when he travels to ITC to get answers and seems to disappear. Urgently the students pursue the professor at ITC and are faced with a life changing decision.

It's a great premise and could have been a better read had it trimmed about a hundred pages off the 500+ page book. This excess – some parts science explanation, some history explanation, and some history action - bogged down the momentum of the plot. And with all the technological explanation given, I still had questions about the minute details of the logistics which were skimmed over. It was a case of ‘sounds high tech if you don’t follow it too close.’ However, it excelled in creating tension and suspense right up to the ending. But the ending was the greatest pitfall.

You get the same ending in both the book and the film. Although, the film’s interpretation lands in the realm of probability in my opinion. Where the book messes up is its sequences come from out of the blue and were out of character, so within this enjoyable atmosphere of suspense, I was suddenly shaking my head at what I read. What a letdown!

If you are a sci-fi fan, especially anyone who appreciates period films, I definitely recommend watching the film. Nevertheless, if you have any inclination about reading the book, do it first so you avoid spoilers. Not knowing the ending is what helps create the amazing suspense of the story.

The next stop in my time travel marathon (November being Science Fiction Month) was Timeline, Michael Crichton's 1999 thriller. Crichton was not what I think of as a prolific writer; he published sixteen novels in his lifetime under this own name, beginning in 1969 with The Andromeda Strain. Perhaps the movies produced from most of these titles make it seem like Crichton was everywhere. I'd like to think that maybe the author devoted the time between novels conducting backbreaking research. With Timeline, he certainly lays the groundwork all other time travel tales should build from.

The story takes off wondrously in northern Arizona of the present day with a couple roaming the Navajo Indian reservation in their Mercedes. The wife is in search of authentic handcrafted rugs and as her husband drives further away from civilization, tension mounts. An old man appears on the road out of nowhere and falls to the ground as the Mercedes passes. The couple take the incoherent man to a hospital, where he dies of an apparent cardiac arrest. A Navajo police officer and a surgeon discover the old man is a missing materials physicist working for ITC Research in Black Rock, NM.

The cop and the surgeon note strange things about the dead physicist. An MRI exam shows arteries and muscle issue that appear offset, perhaps a glitch in the imaging software. He was carrying a diagram for the Monastery of Sainte-Mere in France, as well as a plastic marker which ITC claims was an ID tag. What was he doing wandering in the desert? These questions concern the 38-year-old founder of International Technology Research, billionaire physicist Robert Doniger, who dispatches the company's legal counsel to southwestern France, where an ITC archeological dig is taking place on the Dordogne River.

Doniger is anxious for the Dordogne group -- led by Yale history professor Edward Johnston -- to initiate reconstruction of the site, which in addition to the monastery, includes the fortresses of Castlegard and La Roque, burned to the ground after Sir Oliver de Vannes lost them to French forces in 1357, some say, when a traitor opened a secret passage. While Johnston, assistant history professor Andre Marek, physicist David Stern and grad students Chris Hughes and Kate Erickson have taken their time reassembling the ruins, they're puzzled by the precise nature of the architectural data coming from ITC.

While Johnston returns to Black Rock to find out what's going on, his team make an alarming discovery: an eyeglass lens that's been in the dirt for over 600 years and a message in parchment that appears to be in the professor's handwriting. It reads HELP ME, 4/7/1357. Marek, Stern, Hughes and Erickson are whisked to Black Rock, where Doniger's second-in-command explains that while time travel is not possible, ITC has utilized quantum physics to pioneer a type of space travel, sending observers through a wormhole to another part of the multiverse, where 1357 France is happening right now.

Doniger explains that while ITC has been sending ex-soldiers into the multiverse and retrieving them for two years, rules prohibit them from stepping into the world of the past. Professor Johnston apparently broke this rule and has disappeared. Marek, a physically fit specimen with training in Occitan language as well as swordplay, agrees to join the rescue, as do Erickson and reluctantly, Hughes. Stern has reservations about the safety of the quantum technology, as well Doniger's promise that with two trained soldiers for protection, the group should be able to locate the professor and return within two hours. Stern remains behind to observe.

When the author of Westworld and Jurassic Park tells you that an exciting new technology that will change mankind is perfectly safe -- Doniger envisions global historical sites that can send observers into the past, and of course, engineers have worked out all the kinks -- you not only walk away, you run. Timeline did remind me of a certain dinosaur-run-amok thriller, to its credit, as well as its detriment.

Timeline is impeccably researched. I know next-door-to-nothing about quantum physics, but Crichton has such immense game that from beginning to end, I was convinced that he knew what the hell he was talking about. Crichton devotes awesome attention to just how a tech company might send a human being across time and retrieve them. The team he assembles for this mission is expertly considered as well: historians, physicists and soldiers for hire, whose combat training turns out to be antithetical to exploring history.

The sequence which leads to the rescue party being stranded in 1357 occurs at roughly the same moment the T-Rex attack occurs in Jurassic Park and is almost as memorable, with existential crisis, sudden violence and unbelievable shock. I also liked the way Crichton utilized history, with the Hundred Years War, England and France's bloody rivalry and even women's rights playing important functions in the story. The author examines how each character is unprepared for some aspect of the 14th century, whether the speed of swordplay or the pleasing aromas of the castles.

From an anthropological standpoint -- what would a team of historians experience if they traveled to 1357 France -- Timeline has no equal. Technically, the novel is flawless. Dramatically, the development of characters leaves a lot to be desired. Marek, Hughes and Erickson are given only the barest traits (The Hot Dog, The Chicken, The Athlete). The Professor is, well, The Professor. Doniger is The Evil Billionaire.

While I could accept traveling through the multiverse, one thing I found difficult to buy were the number of times the protagonists escape certain death. It seemed like Hughes was nearly killed every five pages. Erickson runs for her life every ten pages. The 14th century is an age that Crichton illustrates as being overrun by death, and yet, these two rejects from a Gap commercial somehow keep surviving. There is no logical reason for it; Hughes and Erickson leap from one pitfall to the next because the plot dictates it.

The novel wraps up in a predictable and rather glib fashion that I didn't care much for. Then again, each of these criticisms could be leveled against Jurassic Park, with characters who force little outcome in the story and survive much longer than they had any reason to. Crichton is not breaking new ground here. If you're looking for strong characters and dialogue to match the technological coolness, you'll probably hate this. If you loved his past work, you'll probably love this. I'm giving it three and a half stars, rounded up to four stars.

Timeline surpassed expectations in part due to how poorly received the 2003 film adaptation was. Gerard Butler, Frances O'Connor and Paul Walker starred as Marek, Erickson and Hughes and may have dialed in performances due to how gorgeous but wooden their characters were supposed to be. The pleasures of the novel are in the anthropological discoveries happening in the minds of the characters, none of which translate to film very well. The physical action -- sieges, swordfighting, foot chases -- was filmed with much more imagination in The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

This novel was a real surprise, a delightful and confusing surprise. The back cover tells about a High-tech company in the United States and excavations undertaken by historians, including the professor and some United States members. These excavations were carried out in the Dordogne Valley around a 14th-century monastery.
Michael Crichton, well documented in the Middle Ages, produced a novel whose fluid writing and the protagonists' adventures I appreciated.
It is a book to read for those who love the Middle Ages, with some science fiction and quantum physics. It is, above all, a great story!

Za Majkla Krajtona sam se ponovo zainteresovao gledajući seriju Westworld, pa sam uzeo iz biblioteke prvu njegovu knjigu na koju sam naišao. Krajtona pamtim kao nekoga ko piše odlične akcione scene i čiji su zapleti intrigantni, na štetu likova koji su nešto slabije razrađeni.

Takav utisak održao se i do danas. Mreža vremena nije roman o putovanju kroz vreme iako bismo to prvo pomislili, već o putovanju u druge univerzume. Krajton je puno pažnje posvetio naučnom aspektu priče, pa je prvi deo pre odlaska u Francusku iz 14. veka sporiji, ali čim naši junaci tamo stignu, vreme počinje neumoljivo da teče, a oni moraju da smisle kako da se što pre vrate u svoj svet. Vidi se da je pisac pažljivo istražio literaturu na temu Srednjeg veka (na kraju romana imamo i bibliografiju), tako da je svet koji opisuje upečatljiv i bogat detaljima.

Opet, nedovoljno je pažnje posvećeno likovima, imamo standardnu crno-belu karakterizaciju, ali ovo je zabavan roman koji se čita u dahu, tako da ću mu dati četiri zvezdice i pored nekih mana.

4.25 ……… I’ve never been able to grasp the concept of time travel but have always been fascinated by it. Although in this case, it’s not exactly time travel, this is traveling through a wormhole to a multiverse. Now THAT’S an even harder concept for me to grasp but find it just as intriguing. I have to admit, I actually watched the movie first a long time ago not realizing it was a book. What can I say, being a Gerard Butler and Paul Walker fan, I did like the movie just to find out, the book readers hated it. Lol! After finally reading it, I can understand the issues people had BUT I digress. We’re here for the book.

No plot summary here, just an admiration for Crichton. This is my second Crichton book and he has already become a go-to author for me. I do like that in this book the chapters were set up by the amount of time left for the characters because that just added to the intensity which, in turn, made you want to read faster. This story hops back & forth from the past to the present and he doesn’t leave you too long in either time. Just when you’re craving to see where it goes in the past, you’re whisked off to the present and vice-versa. By the time I got to the last 100 pages I felt like I was speed reading to know the ending. Great book. Great author. Pick it up.

در دنیایی که همه‌چیز برای سرگرم‌کننده بودن دوباره طراحی می‌شود
انسان‌ها در حسرت اصالت می‌سوزند.
اصالتی که در هیچ‌چیز نخواهند یافت جز در گذشته،
گذشته‌ای که هنوز کوکاکولا و آی‌بی‌ام و دیزنی و سونی نبوده‌اند
و نتوانسته‌اند اصالتش را از بین ببرند

The plot is always moving, the book contains plenty of action, and Crichton still retains mastery of his superlative ability to organically include plenty of interesting and entertaining information (in the case of this book that information is about medieval France, not the ridiculous quantum physics time travel nonsense Crichton vomited on to the page), but it's just SO stupid and dull. Not to mention my loathing of time travel plots to begin with (if you think you found a way to avoid a paradox, here's a hint: you didn't), though this one is particularly intelligence-insulting. When I read this book I was still a HUGE Crichton fan, as I read through it and then completed it I had the uncomfortable, ashamed feeling one gets after they witness a game in which it becomes clear that the aging, super star athlete they idolize is not merely no longer elite, but does not even belong on the field. I felt embarrassed for Crichton.
Two stars instead of one only for the interesting facts and details about southern france in medieval times.

I read this because a friend highly recommended it (likes to read it once a year) and I found it riveting.