Timeline
by Michael Crichton · first published 1999
27% recommend50% neutral23% critical
Why HN recommends it
Fast-paced adventure with suspense and fun pacing; praised as an easy, non-taxing read that also gives a surprisingly accessible look at medieval history, suiting readers who want a gripping page-turner.
Common criticism: Critics call it a typical made-for-TV Crichton story, not especially deep
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
Timeline is a science fiction novel by American writer Michael Crichton, his twelfth under his own name and twenty-second overall, published in November 1999. It tells the story of a group of history students who travel to 14th-century France to rescue their professor. The book follows in Crichton's long history of combining science, technical details, and action in his books, this time addressing quantum and multiverse theory.
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> Interesting, care to provide arguments? Read a history book. Hell, read Timeline by Michael Crichton.
on “People Aren’t Dumb, the World Is Hard” ↗I don't know, I saw that you said you haven't read a book in months - I thought maybe you had one in mind. If not, I recommend "Timeline" by Michael Crichton. It's not a taxing or immensely intellectual read, but it's a great adventure story with very interesting and suspenseful parts. It's a lot of fun to read and definitely won't feel…
on “Help, I'm Too Smart For My Job” ↗The Michael Crichton novel Timeline is basically about this. It’s good. Spoiler: saltpeter makes an appearance, as suggested by someone elsewhere in this thread.
on “Why the Stranger Things ‘red room’ is confusing younger fans” ↗His early stuff is excellent, but the last Crichton book that I enjoyed was Timeline. I found Prey to be disappointing and State of Fear was just about unreadable with its complete misrepresentation of climate change science.
on “Michael Crichton and Computers” ↗Surprisingly, Michael Crichton's book "Timeline" is a gentle introduction to the state of the art in knowledge about the so-called dark ages, shattering many of the myths we learned about that era in school. The myth of the overburdened armor wearer…
on “Brawny Bones Reveal Medieval Hungarian Warriors Were Accomplished Archers” ↗Prey and Timeline are two of my favorite. Micro (which was finished by another author after Crichton's death) is also very good an dissimilar to Prey. Since I like Timeline so much it made watching the movie so painful.
on “Michael Crichton, Science Studies, and the Technothriller (2015)” ↗…really is good. The second book of the series (The Wise Man's Fear) is also excellent. Actually, just reading through the list, I was a little disappointed. Yes, there are some great classics, but Timeline" by Michael Crichton as the "time travel" sci-fi novel of reference. No, just no. For time travel based sci-fi, Timescape by Gregory Benford is my pick of the lot. Bedford is actually an astrophysicist,…
on “Sci-Fi Novels You Should Read” ↗Interesting list. Timeline by Michael Crichton is only worth reading because of how it portrays history. As sci-fi or entertainment it’s horrible and it basicly assumes everyone is an stupid but it does show history far more accurately…
on “32 Sci-Fi novels that you should add to your reading list” ↗There may or may not be a new revisionism, but the idea has been around a while. I first remember coming across this idea in Timeline by Michael Crichton: http://www.amazon.com/Timeline-Michael-Crichton/dp/034541762... And I doubt he came up with the idea. I also think I heard that this debate has been going on in medieval scholarship…
on “Why did science make little real progress in Europe in the Middle Ages?” ↗Very interesting. If I understand correctly, does this mean cloning is a functionally impossible task? I've always been entertained by the paradoxes where someone is teleported ala Michael Crichton's Timeline, and is then (due to some glitch) "duplicated", leading to interesting quandaries about "who is who". If Penrose is right about consciousness [0], this means all these fantastical paradoxes are just…
on “Sustained, high-fidelity quantum teleportation” ↗Timeline was the last book of Crichton's I read. It really turned me off. I had been a fan from a young age, but that was it. He ignored or twisted science, reason, and logic just for "cool" plot points, far more…
on “Michael Crichton has passed away” ↗Was expecting the faeces to carbon date to some tens of thousands of year ago (cue Timeline by Michael Crichton).
on “Memory stick found in frozen seal faeces in New Zealand” ↗There are a couple odd choices on that list. I thought Timeline was pretty entertaining, but it's a typical Michael Crichton made-for-tv story and probably not worthy of such a list. I guess it sort of makes quantum physics palatable to the average joe but you could…
on “32 Sci-Fi novels that you should add to your reading list” ↗…see how the fairly reasonable science in the novel was just flat out massacred in the film. Worse yet, the film absolutely killed the best parts of the plot. However I was yet another turned off by Timeline. It was the next book of Crichton's that I read after JP2, and I was seriously disappointed... I don't remember the details now, but there were several glaring flaws in the logic of the story, not to…
on “Michael Crichton has passed away” ↗The idea for this btw is not a new one. I remember this reading Micheal Crichton book called Timeline ~ http://www.crichton-official.com/books-timeline.html which in itself is based on an idea by Leo A. Frankowski who wrote a book called Cross-Time Engineer ~ http://www.amazon.com/Cross-Time-Engineer-Adventures-Conrad-...
on “Survival tips if you find yourself in the Middle Ages?” ↗