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... buzz off?

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.

Dnf. This is the third time I am dnfing this book.

That was an amazing read! I got caught up in the action and suspense of this one. I loved the way the story ended and was completely lost in it from the beginning. Michael Crichton was a great author. Highly recommended!

Have you read Jurassic Park? No? But you must have seen the movie.

Timeline is a science fiction novel about time travel first published in 1999, written by Michael Crichton, the creator of Jurassic Park and The Lost World.

The novel is narrated in the third person and follows multiple Points of View. The most notable characters are André Marek, Chris Hughes, and Kate Erickson, three grad students working on an archaeological dig in France. The three of them are sent back in time by the corporation that employs them, when their professor vanishes after taking the same temporal trip.

The first thing that the book establishes about time travel?
n  “The very concept of time travel makes no sense, since time doesn’t flow. The fact that we think time passes is just an accident of our nervous systems — of the way things look to us. In reality, time doesn’t pass; we pass. Time itself is invariant. It just is. Therefore, past and future aren’t separate locations, the way New York and Paris are separate locations. And since the past isn’t a location, you can’t travel to it.”n

It's not possible. You can't go back in time. Time travel is pure fantasy, not science fiction.
So what strategy the author used for the characters to visit the Earth during an earlier time period? The multiverse theory and quantum computing:

n  “Let me explain what David is talking about,” Gordon said to the others. “Ordinary computers make calculations using two electron states, which are designated one and zero. That’s how all computers work, by pushing around ones and zeros. But twenty years ago, Richard Feynman suggested it might be possible to make an extremely powerful computer using all thirty-two quantum states of an electron. Many laboratories are now trying to build these quantum computers. Their advantage is unimaginably great power — so great that you can indeed describe and compress a three-dimensional living object into an electron stream. Exactly like a fax. You can then transmit the electron stream through a quantum foam wormhole and reconstruct it in another universe. And that’s what we do. It’s not quantum teleportation. It’s not particle entanglement. It’s direct transmission to another universe.”n

I think it's a pretty good explanation. And if you're the kind of reader bored by theories and science, there's so much action, adventure, and danger on these pages, almost enough to rival that of Jurassic Park.

An afterword the author wrote in the acknowledgements section:
n  "A word about time travel. While it is true that quantum teleportation has been demonstrated in laboratories around the world, the practical application of such phenomena lies in the future. The ideas presented in this book were stimulated by the speculations of David Deutsch, Kip Thorne, Paul Nahin and Charles Bennett, among others. What appears here may amuse them, but they would not take it seriously. This is a novel: time travel rests firmly in the realm of fantasy."n

See my full thoughts here: https://youtu.be/Cvh7h__3J9U

This was a really good, fun read in the vein of Jurassic Park. The science is just an excuse to get to the adventure, which is a lot of fun in turn. Only one or two characters are any good, but the rest are serviceable and the storyline is fast, there's a million twists and action scenes. The biggest issue I had was that there are too many villains and so none of them get proper focus.

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

A rousing good fantasy/adventure dealing with time travel. Group of students must go back to 14th century France to rescue stranded professor. This has non-stop action and lots of historical tidbits. Some of it is predictable (I knew the fate of Marek almost from the beginning). Well done, exciting. Recommended to action fans.

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 scientists (in this case, Medieval archaeologists) being the heroes, and the high-tech scientists (in this case, physicists) causing the problem. This dichotomy of pro/anti-science rubs me the wrong way, as I love science of all kinds.

Further rubbing me the wrong way is a scene early in the novel, where the wholesome blonde archaeologist is viewing a ruin that is full of tourists. She overhears a tour guide giving misinformation, then witnesses an enthusiastic dad (with his- of course- long-suffering child and wife) imparting information about the castle that is also incorrect. Does she step in with a smile and offer some correct information or a brief rundown of this castle? No, she watches with disdain and has thoughts along the lines of "That is obviously the kitchen, the hearths are even still there." I felt like Crichton was saying that amateur enthusiasts are fools, always wrong, and worth derision, and I was deeply insulted.

The one saving grace of this novel is that Crichton has done his research. I realize good research is one of his hallmarks, but I think it's worth mentioning to any French Medieval enthusiast (if you can stomach only being an amateur).

What an incredible concept novel! Loaded with historical fiction in Medieval times as well. "With Timeline, Crichton has exhaustively researched quantum physics and the Middle Ages, digging up enough interesting factoids to form a shiny patina of respectability over what's essentially a shallow, slick fantasy novel full of pasteboard characters chasing each other with swords and causing a variety of ready-for-the-big-screen explosions. Timeline stars a motley band of graduate students who, while excavating a medieval French monastery, find a handwritten distress note from their professor, dated 1357." Can't go much further without spoiling it for others, assuming anyone reads this of course.....

Macchine del tempo inceppate

Il simpatico spunto di partenza del libro alimenta tante aspettative, forse persino troppe.
E via di cavalieri arrugginiti che inseguono i protagonisti; improbabili duelli all'ultimo sangue; fughe a precipizio dentro castelli e cattedrali; fregnacce fantascientifiche sparate random per guadagnare tempo e tante altre sciocchezze non elencabili.
Ecco, questa è proprio paccottiglia letteraria.

Μία πολύ ωραία περιπέτεια, η οποία δίνει μια διάσταση στα ταξίδια στο χρόνο, που δεν θα μπορούσα ποτέ να φανταστώ. Ο Crichton είχε μελετήσει πάρα πολύ καλά την κβαντική μηχανική και τον 14ο αιώνα, τον οποίο πιστεύω, μετέφερε καταπληκτικά στο βιβλίο.
Τα αρνητικά που βρήκα στο κείμενο είναι ότι οι 600 σελίδες του βιβλίου, κατά την γνώμη μου, είναι πολλές και με κούρασαν σε αρκετά σημεία. Ειδικά οι πρώτες 200 σελίδες δεν προσφέρουν τίποτα σημαντικό, παρά αναλύουν ξανά και ξανά την κβαντική μηχανική, που παρά όλες τις αναλύσεις, δεν κατάλαβα απολύτως τίποτα (κατόρθωμα αυτό). Συνεχώς γκρίνιαζα «άσε μας ρε Crichton το καταλάβαμε, μελέτησες κβαντική μηχανική, τι μας βασανίζεις;» (ναι το ξέρω ότι ο άνθρωπος δεν είναι εν ζωή, αλλά έπρεπε να του τα ψάλω έτσι όπως σκυλοβαριόμουν).
Ευτυχώς όμως που δεν το παράτησα διότι μόλις πέρασα την σελίδα 234, ήταν λες και μπήκα σε άλλη ιστορία, επιτέλους το βιβλίο απέκτησε ζωή… Ειδικά το τέλος νομίζω ότι είναι καταπληκτικό.
3,5/5 αστεράκια