Book Review:Timeline

Timeline is a another Michael Crichton sci-fi novel, and when I say 'another', I mean 'yet-another-Crichton-sci-fi-novel'.

Don't get me wrong, it's pretty alright actually. But I'd have expected something fresher and slicker from Crichton.

Timeline begins with a group of postgraduate students studying a historical excavation site that's very heavily funded by a tech corporation called ITC.

Mayhem and adventure ensues when 4 people were summoned to the ITC, only to find out that they had to go back in time and rescue the professor, who had been trapped in medieval France.

You get generous dollops of knight battles, medieval-era weaponry and politics. And lots of bloodshed and gore.

But. It feels trite. The time-travel (oh wait, they claim it isn't time travel per se, but shifting between different alternate dividing timelines but that's trivia) themes are played to death, the suspense's sorta predictable and all. It's entertaining, but it remains as that - no interesting sci-fi dilemmas or paradoxes that would creep us out.

You'd be better off reading other more polished sci-fi works of his like Sphere, Congo or Jurassic Park. Just like Prey, Timeline falls in a category of Crichton novels that are fun-to-read, yet not special or witty enough to make you remember it.