Book info

• Title Timeline
• Author Michael Crichton
• Year 1999
• Genres Science Fiction, Thriller

In an Arizona desert, a man wanders in a daze, speaking words that make no sense. Within twenty-four hours he is dead, his body swiftly cremated by his only known associates. Halfway around the world, archaeologists make a shocking discovery at a medieval site. Suddenly they are swept off to the headquarters of a secretive multinational corporation that has developed an astounding technology. Now this group is about to get a chance not to study the past but to enter it. And with history opened up to the present, the dead awakened to the living, these men and women will soon find themselves fighting for their very survival -- six hundred years ago.

Review

I can’t believe I haven’t reviewed this one before because I first read it a long, long time ago and have dived back into it a handful of times since. It’s one of those long standing favourites, a bit of comfort reading when you’re not ready for something new.

Michael Crichton is a firm favourite of mine, and this being a time travel book, it’s bound to be up there with the best. I love the writing, that it starts out quite sedately albeit with the intriguing mystery, and gradually ramping up as things get hectic and time gets tight.

The characters are interesting, the different ways they have of reacting to the world they find themselves plunged into. And I like the surprising nature of that world, how violent it is, how poorly women are treated, how hard it is for the travellers to reconcile these things against what they had thought from the ruins. It’s just a fascinating glimpse of history layered on top of a great thrill ride of a story.

Rating: 5 / 5