Timeline: A Novel
by Michael Crichton
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Book Summary Information
Author: Michael CrichtonEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2009-06-23
ISBN: 0345517814
Number of pages: 512
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Book Reviews of Timeline: A Novel
Book Review: A Muddled Concept in a Muddy World
Summary: 1 Stars
On the surface, the idea for this book looks both plausible and filled with potential for high adventure.
Positing an eccentric amoral genius entrepreneur who figures out how to take the 'many universes' interpretation of quantum mechanics from esoteric theory to operational machine, one that gives access to such a 'different' universe where effectively the date can be anything you can imagine, Crichton tells a tale of what happens to a small group of historians transported back to the France of the middle 14th century. Given that that period was not one of peaceful co-existence between the French and English, clearly any visitor would be placing themselves in harm's way. As a pure adventure tale set in period so far back that it certainly appears exotic to modern readers, it's not too bad, though just about all the characters are near-stereotypes and some of them are given to near-impossible feats of strength and endurance.
But I had large problems with several items here. First were the large number of continuity errors: often the book takes sudden jumps from one scene to another, and the new scene either is not supported by the earlier exposition nor is there a back-fill later on to explain the new situation. An example is at one point our time travelers arrive at a monastery and are immediately surrounded by enemy soldiers. In the very next scene they are walking free, the soldiers having left and completely ignoring them. Looking back on some of these 'gaps', they look like they were constructed for TV episode scene cuts, there to artificially heighten suspense.
Second were inconsistencies in logic. Another example: prior to departing for their trip through time, a security man desires to take some modern fire-power with him on the trip and is told that absolutely no modern artifacts would be allowed, due to possible 'contamination' of the time line - and in the next sentence we are told about certain devices they will be allowed to take, such as gas canisters, incendiaries, and in-ear communication devices, which are clearly modern artifacts that could cause such a contamination. And this is after a long discourse that time travel paradoxes are impossible. An author is certainly free to create whatever world/ideas he wants, but I do expect it to be at least internally consistent, and this isn't. Associated with this is a confusing and incomplete explanation of the 'many worlds' quantum theory and how this leads to the technology of the book.
Third was an artificial suspense level created by needing to retrieve the time travelers in a fixed amount of time (and with what I thought was insufficient justification for the time limit). Chapter titles after the start of this trip are a down-counting clock, which as soon as you see the very first time hack, you just know that it will be down-counted to the last possible second. This is a very hackneyed device; it's been done to death in Hollywood thriller after thriller.
Fourth is the reason provided for why this particular time and place was selected as a prime location to time-travel to, as it is another example of a very clichéd plot device. Worse, this justification is not provided until the very end of the book, so for the entire earlier portion, I was left with a nagging doubt about why they were going here and not some other more historically important time and place. Similarly, at one point there is great importance attached to the finding of a certain secret passage, but later events do not demonstrate why this passage is so important.
Fifth is characters performing actions that are not supported by the previously defined type of person that character supposedly is. Certainly characters can and should change, but these were radical shifts and inadequately led up to.
This is far from Crichton's best, needing a lot more attention paid to details and much better justifications behind the basic plot scenario.
---Reviewed by Patrick Shepherd (hyperpat)
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