The Reverend Reads … Timelines by Michael Crichton
As a young teen I read Jurassic Park and was mesmerised by it. I then read The Lost World and found the writing put me right back into the story. This was quickly followed up with other books by Michael Crichton that I really enjoyed. I felt like catching up on one of his more recent books and so I bought Timelines and settled down to read it.
Summary
The book starts in present day. A man is found in the middle of a desert but something is not right with him. He talks in rhymes and his clothes look kind of odd. After being rushed to hospital he dies but not without the suspicions of a doctor there, and the local police, being raised.
We are then introduced to a company involved in ITC and the company’s genius founder, Robert Doniger. Although very much a tech company, it is sponsoring some archeological digs across the world. The book moves on to France where a team are working a site which allows us to meet the remaining main characters. They all have particular skills that will certainly come in handy later in the story!
The archeological team are summoned to the US and asked to take part in a rescue mission. Unknown to them at the time it is to travel back in time to Medieval France!
The story develops as the team try to complete their mission. There is death early on and danger is around every corner. They meet knights, deal with issues of the time and have a number of challenges that they must face. Will the team make it back? Will the future be changed by their actions?
Michael Crichton has spent a lot of time building the historical feeling of the book. It is obvious that a lot of care went into researching not only what life was like in France during this time, but also some information in Quantum Mechanics and archeology in general.
I enjoyed the book an awful lot. Early in the book I felt that it would be going in a different direction. I don’t want to ruin any of the story-line but they mention something about the machine that sends them back to the past which could have led to other interesting arcs in the story. The book doesn’t go that way but I still enjoyed the visit to medieval France.
How?
I bought this on my Amazon Kindle Paperwhite. It is a great piece of kit and a massive improvement in screen resolution and technology against the old Kindle (with buttons) it replaced. The Kindle Paperwhite has its own back-light and this makes reading in the dark a possibility – great for late night reading and not waking anyone else up.
Buy it
You can buy Timeline by Michael Crichton from any good bookshop. If you want it for your Amazon Kindle then you will need to buy it from Amazon.
Cost
I bought this from the Kindle Store for £1.99 however the Kindle Book Store has dynamic pricing so it can change on a daily basis. Amazon also do occasionally give out bonus’s with purchases. I’ve received £1 credit toward other digital items (videos, kindle books, mp3) and also £3 credit towards an Amazon Pantry order.