Timeline

By Micheal Crichton
Timeline is a very interesting book involving time travel to 14th century France. The book begins with the discovery of an ITC scientist appearing in the desert babbling nonsense. After getting picked up by a passing couple, he is quickly taken to the hospital and soon succumbs to some mysterious ailment.
Our focus is then shifted from New Mexico, onward to France where we catch up with a group of students guided by their Professor in the excavation of a long forgotten town. The Archeologists are scouring the grounds for clues about what life was like in the town during that time period, and digitally reconstructing the castle and other buildings. Combining certain assumptions about the buildings and the geography with what they discover, they begin to piece together a fairly accurate blueprint of the town. Or so they thought. When an ITC representative shows up, and they see documentation of the town which is more detailed than their own, they begin to wonder. The professor is whisked away to ITC headquarters, and soon loses contact with his students. The students continue to work, until they discover a handwritten note from their Professor, in a cache of old documents. Somehow their Professor wrote them a note from over 600 years ago, and no one can figure out how.
Going to ITC themselves, they prepare to go on a journey of a lifetime as they learn that time travel is possible through the use of quantum technology. The author briefly describes the concept of quantum computers (as a means for tremendous processing capability), and explains how the machines ITC has developed is able to fully transcribe someone into an alternate universe in the past.
The group transports back in time, and things begin to go wrong immediately. They are accosted by knights and need to flee for their lives if they hope to ever bring the professor back. The time period is captured wonderfully as we traverse the castle, meet various characters, and follow along with our main characters as they race the clock to get back to the present time. Along with their main goal of finding the professor, they get themselves into conflict with the residents, often through ignorance about the time period. The story is well paced, and contains a great deal of action occurring parallel to the main plotline. I loved the medieval weapons, jousting and all the stereotypical stuff you would think of for the 1300’s. I really enjoyed the book, with my only complaint being the part of the ending was very obvious. About 1/3 of the way through the book, I knew what would happen with one of the characters. Fortunately this did nothing to spoil the book in any way.
Rating: 4 out of 5 Bunsen Burners
Up Next: The Listeners by Christopher Pike