Not a Michael Crichton classic, but worth a look (Timeline - Michael Crichton)

Member Name: worst_trip

Product:	Timeline - Michael Crichton
Date:	26/06/09 (19 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Has some good material on the Middle Ages...and some good made up blurb about time travel

Disadvantages: One of the basic premises of the plot turns out to be a bit...silly. really

I'm inclined to think there're definitely 'good' Michael Crichton thrillers, and 'bad' Michael Crichton thrillers, and while 'Timeline' I'm afraid kind of firmly falls into the 'bad thriller' camp at the moment I'm having a bit of difficulty recalling any of the 'good' ones for comparison.* For example during a lean period I recently re-read 'Congo', 'Sphere' and 'Jurassic Park' - which, when I first read them I would've categorized as 'good / bad / wow, that's brilliant!' but this time round, I found them all a bit....well, ho-hum. That said, I suspect that even in my most starry-eyed fan-of-Michael-Crichton's-writing days that 'Timeline' would still have counted as a 'bad' one.

In 'Timeline' Michael Crichton's familiar theme of 'abuse of powers by ethics-free scientists leads to horrible calamity and picking-them-off-one-at-a-time-disaster-movie-setu p' is revisited; this time instead of insects in amber, the scientists have used what the book calls 'quantum foam' - it's something to do with tiny blackholes in the space-time continumn / parallel universes....I forget the details exactly - as a technology for making what's effectively a time machine. Using this technology, they send people back in history for what turns out ultimately to be a really very implausible reason (it's basically the same reason that the Ingen folk wanted to recreate dinosaurs in 'Jurassic Park' - so yes, Michael Crichton really DOES seem to be completely obsessed with theme parks). Being 'interested in history' the company sponsoring these time travel activities also sponsors a lot of archaeological work; one of the archaeologists - I think it must be the character played by Billy Connoly in the 'Timeline' film of the book - goes back in time and gets lost there, it is then up to his intrepid team of graduate students to go back in time themselves to find him.

It occurred to me a few times, when I was reading this book, that perhaps it had originally been written or conceived of as a straight story about the Middle Ages - the time travelling parts - while presented convincingly enough, and though well-integrated into the storyline seemed at times well, a little tacked on. This is the basic problem with the story - that the two main plotlines, one set in the present day with the time-machine scientists, the other back in the Medieval period didn't fit together quite well enough, so that it seemed for much of the book that two separate stories were going on.

Individual parts of the book were interesting; there are disturbing sequences in hospital where an unsuspecting doctor unknowingly tries to treat a time-traveller who has just returned from one trip too many - with utlimately, terminal results; the science blurb on how time travel is achieved reads authoratively enough to be convincing (or at least plausible) in the context of the book, and there are many useful snippets of info about life in the Middle Ages. But it's all tied together by a somewhat shaky premise - I think the author needed a much better justification for why, in the book, the time-machine was originally created: 'so we can go back in history, taking customers on trips there and charging them loads of money for the experience - it'll be a bit like a theme park' just doesn't stand up considering the time, danger and expense that even in the book, has been spent on developing this technology. This 'revelation' is kept till near the end of the book, and a good thing too, because it's such a weak point in the plot that it's sort of ridiculous.

Still, Michael Crichton on a bad day is still a lot better than many of his contemporaries doing their utmost to deliver a good read, and 'Timeline', if not amazing, is engrossing enough - certainly at the time when you're first reading it.

*'Prey' - I thought that was a really good relatively recent one for comparison.

Summary: Worth picking up and reading once but possibly not a book for keeps