Timeline
Looking for a book full of science, action, and suspense? Michael Crichton delivers it in Timeline. This book was recommended to me by a well-read friend, and it also fit my reading challenge of “A book you got from a used book sale.” So I decided I’d give it a try.
It chronicles a set of grad students, and their professor, who are studying a historical site in Europe from the 14th century. What they don’t know is that their backer, a multi-billion dollar tech company, has ulterior motives. The group suddenly finds themselves trying to fathom the knowledge that this tech company has discovered a way to travel to the past when their now-historic site was being battled over in the late 1300’s. To top it off, one of their team members has already traveled there….and they are in trouble. Will the students take a risk to travel back in time for one of their own? And if they do, will they all make it back safely?
This was a quick and extremely enjoyable read. The science is higher level, but explained quite well. The action was all consuming and made this book a total page-turner. The only point that I would say I was on the fence about that I may have not enjoyed as much, was the fact that the protagonists couldn’t finish getting out of one sticky mess before they found themselves in the middle of another. Part of me thinks this amount of struggle is too much and that the author could have pulled back on the barrage of obstacles they faced, while the other half of me thinks it probably was like that on a daily bases during the 14th century. Everything was a threat, including your friends and neighbors if the outcome was beneficial enough. So I’m still on the fence about that part, but it really wasn’t so bad that it colored my view of how great the rest of the book was. Also, the ending is perfect!
I would recommend this book to people who like action packed books like those from James Rollins or Dan Brown. I would also recommend this novel if you like the history from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.
Malia's Pizza Rating
A trencher pizza at Medieval Times