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Timeline by
Michael Crichton
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Mass Market Paperback: 496 pages ;
Dimensions (in inches): 1.09 x 6.89 x 4.19
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Publisher: Ballantine Books; ISBN: 0345417623;
(October 24, 2000)
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When you step into a time machine, fax yourself through a "quantum foam
wormhole," and step out in feudal France circa 1357, be very, very afraid.
If you aren't strapped back in precisely 37 hours after your visit begins,
you'll miss the quantum bus back to 1999 and be stranded in a civil war,
caught between crafty abbots, mad lords, and peasant bandits all eager
to cut your throat.
You'll also have to dodge catapults that hurl sizzling
pitch over castle battlements. On the social front, you should avoid provoking
"the butcher of Crecy" or Sir Oliver may lop your head off with a swoosh
of his broadsword or cage and immerse you in "Milady's Bath," a brackish
dungeon pit into which live rats are tossed now and then for prisoners
to eat.
This is the plight of the heroes of Timeline, Michael Crichton's
thriller. They're historians in 1999 employed by a tech billionaire-genius
with more than a few of Bill Gates's most unlovable quirks. Like the entrepreneur
in Crichton's Jurassic Park, Doniger
plans a theme park featuring artifacts from a lost world revived via cutting-edge
science.
When the project's chief historian sends a distress
call to 1999 from 1357, the boss man doesn't tell the younger historians
the risks they'll face trying to save him. At first, the interplay between
eras is clever, but Timeline swiftly becomes a swashbuckling old-fashioned
adventure, with just a dash of science and time paradox in the mix.
Most of the cool facts are about the Middle Ages,
and Crichton marvelously brings the past to life without ever letting
the pulse-pounding action slow down. At one point, a time-tripper tries
to enter the Chapel of Green Death. Unfortunately, its custodian, a crazed
giant with terrible teeth and a bad case of lice, soon has her head on
a block. "She saw a shadow move across the grass as he raised his ax into
the air." I dare you not to turn the page!
Through the narrative can be glimpsed the glowing bones of the movie
that may be made from Timeline and the cutting-edge computer game
that should hit the market in 2000. Expect many clashing swords and chase
scenes through secret castle passages. But the book stands alone, tall
and scary as a knight in armor shining with blood. --Tim Appelo
--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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