TIMELINE by Michael Crichton

★ ★ ★

“‘You have the advantage of your knowledge. You know the site, and you know the time, in detail. You know languages and customs.’

     ‘But our knowledge is academic,’ Chris said.

     ‘Not anymore,’ Doniger said.”

TITLE—Timeline

AUTHOR—Michael Crichton

PUBLISHED—1999

PUBLISHER—Alfred A. Knopf

GENRE—archaeology/historical/techno fantasy

SETTING—New Mexico & France

MAIN THEMES/SUBJECTS—archaeology, quantum theory (Multiverse) & quantum mechanics, “time travel”, rescue mission quest trope, medieval France, architecture, medieval science & technology, fast-paced, all quite dull white cis-hetero characters unfortunately…

WRITING STYLE—it was fine; appropriate for the genre

CHARACTERS—only one character had any sort of an arc & at the end I was very confused about what differentiated the good guys from the bad guys & I totally thought two of the good guys were like double agents or something bc they were written so vaguely… & two other characters’ arcs made no sense. & there were zero interesting characters from the 14th c…

STORY/PLOT—★—this, unfortunately, was the book’s weakest point—there were absolutely no plot twists at the end; literally everything I thought was like too obvious to be all that happened was literally all that happened. So that was very sad. Tragically predictable for the potential this story had imo.

“Watching them go, Bellin clucked his tongue. ‘Ah, dear, dear. It is so difficult to trust these days.’”

IMAGINATION & WORLDBUILDING—★ ★ ★ ★ ★—*standing ovation* this was the book’s strongest point—absolutely fantastic, really well done. Literally the only thing keeping me interested in this story.

BONUS ELEMENT/S—shoutout to my boy Hugh Everett! #CadwellTurnbullReadalong #iykyk

PHILOSOPHY—★ ★ ★—I think it might have been ok? I liked the author’s acknowledgments comment but… idk it could have gone a lot harder…? basically I couldn’t really tell if we were for or against all the capitalism in the book, like, at times it seemed like Crichton is assuming we’re all on the same page about it but then he also doesn’t really critique it at all he just presents it as the bad guys’ whole shtick? so… I really don’t know. 🤷🏻

PREMISE—Think Jurassic Park but with medieval European archaeology & quantum mechanics instead of paleontology & bioengineering—which is a really good premise but it needed a stronger plot & more complex characters…

EXECUTION—★ ★ ★

“As the Professor left, Marek said, ‘I pray God look with favor upon your journey and deliver you safe back.’ That was what he always said to departing friends. It had been a favorite phrase of the Count Geoffrey de la Tour, six hundred years before.”

My thoughts:

I read this book for the #ArchaeoBookclub & basically binged it on audiobook in one day to be ready for the chat. I liked Marek. I loved all the exposition the science & the history & literally every single detail of the worldbuilding was *mwah* to me but it definitely felt like an *incredibly* nerdy book like it was sooo much of those things where if that’s not your thing you would hate it. 😂

↓ ↓ ↓ SPOILERS ↓ ↓ ↓

My main issues were that Johnston & Kate totally seemed like they were getting set up to be secret villains or double agents or something & that Marek was very much written to make it sound like he was originally from the 14th century. Chris was so weasely I thought he was going to like be the one that dies towards the end of the book but yet he was the only one that got any kind of character arc? We never find out why Taub was there or Dekalb even? Did D send T back? How did T’s device drop him in the desert? I totally thought Olivier was going to be the guy from the present… Also Gordon & Kramer were just as, if not *more,* guilty/responsible as Doniger so they should have at least shared his fate (but apparently they were redeemed somehow? somewhere? that I missed?) & speaking of Doniger’s fate that was WAY too harsh. So I’m just very confused about who the bad guys were & why the good guys were the good guys. *beat* I mean HOW was Johnston not the villain, seriously? And Marek really wasn’t originally from the 14th c.?? Seriously!? Also the animal cruelty in this book wasn’t cute.

↑ ↑ ↑ END SPOILERS ↑ ↑ ↑

I don’t know I guess overall I was disappointed that the plot wasn’t more twisty & that the characters weren’t more complex & realistic because I think if they had been this could have been really excellent.

I would recommend this book to readers who love a fast-paced historical / techno fantasy with lots of scientific, archaeological, & historical tangents, descriptions, & explanations with very uncomplicated characters & plot. Basically if you’re a Dan Brown fan you’ll probably like this too. This book is best read at your leisure, I probably would have enjoyed stretching out my time with it a bit more than I did. I did enjoy the audiobook though.

Final note: I do suspect that the more knowledge you have of things like quantum theory, physics, archaeology, & 14th century France the more you might get distracted by the minutiae that doesn’t add up unless you’re really good at just accepting a book for what it is.

“Professor Johnston often said that if you didn’t know history, you didn’t know anything. You were a leaf that didn’t know it was part of a tree.”

★ ★ ★

CW // animal cruelty, graphic medieval-style violence & gore

Season: pool-/beach-side season

Music pairing: John Williams

Further Reading—

• the ‘All Souls Trilogy’, by Deborah Harkness

• the ‘Convergence Saga’, by Cadwell Turnbull

• JURASSIC PARK by Michael Crichton

• A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN KING ARTHUR’S COURT by Mark Twain

• THE DA VINCI CODE by Dan Brown

• The Mummy Returns (2001 film)

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