REVIEW: Timeline by Michael Crichton

Timeline

by Michael Crichton

A team of archaeologists are digging up a medieval castle when their funders, the mysterious ITC, accidentally drop a hint that they know more about the site than they let on. The lead archaeologist, Professor Johnson, flies to New Mexico to find out what is going on and he doesn't return. Meanwhile, his team unearths an ancient parchment in the ruins, a document dating 600 years old, with the words "Help me!" in the Professor's handwriting. With the questionable aid of ITC, they must travel back in time and save the Professor. Will their expertise help them survive the dangerous middle ages, or will they be crushed underfoot by the march of history?

This is my first Michael Crichton book and I can't say I am a fan. I loved the movie of Timeline (warning, this review is tainted by that), and I hoped the book would be even better. I was surprised at how different the two were, and how the movie streamlined and improved upon the story Crichton told.

For example, time travel is not even mentioned until page 109. The first quarter of the book is taken up with wandering through ITC and the dig site. I honestly would have stopped if I hadn't known that time travel would happen, and the knowing made it even more excruciating.

Crichton loves to bathe in science. The book is saturated with it and it verges on fetishism. And yet the science is questionable. I know little about scientific theory, and even I could see that the logic was flawed. The theory of time travel is based on the idea of the multiverse. That (in an uber simplified version) because you shoot light particles through holes and some hit their target and some disappear, that something blocks them. Obviously, it is another universe getting in the way. It seems like that is the most complicated answer possible for such a phenomenon. The science behind the time travel that ITC uses is really moving a person from one universe to another. But also back in time in that universe. It is an unnecessarily complex method of time travel.

Crichton treats history almost the same way as science, reveling in explaining to the reader why everything we think about the middle ages is untrue. I quite enjoyed his fact dropping as history is more my scene, but at times it did verge historical masturbation. It is full of long anecdotes and facts that have little to do with the plot and more to do with how knowledgeable Crichton was about the subject matter.

The movie simplified a lot of convoluted plot points (ex. the Professor makes greek fire, rather than almost greek fire). Some of the adventures the heroes encounter feel like filler and provide a momentary inconvenience before setting them back on their path again.

The book did maintain an element of the movie I loved: the reality of the middle ages and how the modern archaeologists are completely out of their element. Kate, Andre and Chris each have their own baggage and their own area of expertise that ends up being indispensable to the mission.  Kate is an expert climber and architect. Andre is an expert on medieval life, culture, language and martial arts. Chris is an expert in the history of technology, and the workings of a particular mill that plays a pivotal role. Chris' journey was the most meaty as he goes through the crucible of medieval peril, transforming from a whiny serial dater to a solid, stouthearted friend.

There were some elements to the book that seemed entirely out of place. One adventure leads them to a green chapel where a knight waits with an ax to chop of their head.  Did you just read Sir Gawaine and the Green Knight, Michael? And the Lady Claire, a sweet, smart, and determined character with a clear goal and a clear purpose in the movie becomes an absolute baffling mystery in the book: a randomly sexualized scheming deus ex machina and reward for sacrifice.

In the end, this book had an interesting premise which crawled, stumbled, danced a jig, and then awkwardly sat down again. All in all, the story and the history ended up being entertaining, but I thought, with Crichton's reputation, we would get a better book.

Books like this (but better!)
The Domesday Book by Connie Willis

ARCHIVED REVIEW: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (7/14/10)

Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

by Douglas Adams

Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency. This is what Amazon says it is about: "There is a long tradition of Great Detectives, and Dirk Gently does not belong to it. But his search for a missing cat uncovers a ghost, a time traveler, AND the devastating secret of humankind! Detective Gently's bill for saving the human race from extinction: NO CHARGE."

It's kinda about that, but it is not really about that.

Dirk himself doesn't show up until about Chapter 16 and you never get a story from his perspective.

It is really the story of an Electric Monk (a robot whose function is to believe in things very strongly, though not necessarily consistently), a man named Gordon Way, who soon becomes a ghost named Gordon Way, and a guy named Richard, who has girl troubles and is working on some pretty cool software that creates music out of the mathematical representation of every day activities, like the flap of a bird's wing. And the eccentric and forgetful college professor, "Reg," who I think was my absolute favorite!

Those were the characters I cared the most about, and really that is who the story is about. Dirk comes in to be the person who figures stuff out.

And the mystery is not even what you think it is. You expect that they will solve the mystery of who murdered Gordon Way, but it turns out that you kinda already know who did it, and the real mystery is incredibly bewildering, and you are not quite sure how exactly they resolve the situation in the end.

But it is Douglas Adams! He is a comedy genius, with strange and witty situations, delicious turns of phrase, and an astronomical scientific imagination! This was written in 1987, and it was a bagillion times more creatively advanced (science fiction wise) than The Doomsday Book which was written in 1992.

If you liked this book, you may like
The Fourth Bear by Jasper Fforde
Thursday Next: First Among Sequels by Jasper Fforde

ARCHIVED REVIEW: The Doomsday Book (7/10/10)

The Doomsday Book

by Connie Willis

Oxford has developed time travel, and historians, in conjunction with archeological digs and research, now travel their chosen era to observe history in the making. The 20th Century historians have been doing it for years, and, now that the Head of Medieval History is on a fishing vacation, the Acting Head feels he has a chance to prove that a trip to the Middle Ages is not as horribly dangerous as everyone thinks it is. Of course he is wrong.

The book volleys back and forth between Dunworthy, a professor of the 20th Century at Oxford in the present day who finds himself in the middle of a dangerous epidemic, and his protege, Kirvin, a student who practically bullied her way into being the first historian to visit the Middle Ages.

All in all I really enjoyed the book! The Kirvin side started out very slow, as she had a virus and was hallucinating. You only got her distorted visions, and it went on for a few more chapters than it needed to. But once she was awake and everyone could understand each other, I got swept up in the story of the family who was caring for her. I was intrigued about the things Kirvin found "wrong" with the research she had done before hand, like how the dialect she was supposed to be speaking was completely wrong. It made me wonder which was actually correct: the research she was discrediting, or the fictionalized version of the past. I loved watching the Middle Ages though the eyes of someone who understood them completely, but had a 20th century perspective. It brought a few disturbing things to light (for example, arranged marriages between a 12 year old and a 40 year old letch).

The Dunworthy section was harder for me to enjoy, and I almost put down the book a few times because of it. His section focuses on dealing with the epidemic and getting permission to open the net to retrieve Kirvin, despite the Acting Head's selfish insistence that the trip went perfectly. A good chunk of the book he spent on the phone listening to busy signals, trying to reach the same people about the same issues. It would have all been resolved quickly if they had had the internet, but even though this book takes place in the future, it was written in 1992. So no wireless phones, no incoming call notification, and no real answering machines. They did have video phone and they could send documents to a phone, but very clunkyly. It frustrated me to no end.

But then a spunky 12 year old boy showed up and he was the delight of my reading. So the Dunworthy section picked up.

I loved the author's use of parallel motifs and characters between the two times. They both have horrible epidemics. They both have a young character who thinks they know best, they both have insufferable characters who you want to punch in the face (b/c of who they are, not b/c they are written badly).

This is not a Disney book of hearts and flowers. Shit goes down, people die in horrible ways, which I didn't expect.

Think Michael Crichton's Timeline.

If you like books on the plague, try:

Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks