Yet Another Time-Travel-To-The-Dark-Ages Book
Michael Crichton's 1999 novel "Timeline" is getting a lot of attention nowadays, in anticipation of the movie version. Lileks gives it a mention today, and Jen blogged about it a few days back.
I haven't read the book and I have no reason to doubt that it's up to Crichton's usual standards, although I wonder why it needed a movie to push it into the limelight. Regardless, I have a hard time believing that it could be much better than a novel entitled "The Doomsday Book," written by the award-winning sci-fi writer Connie Willis. Ms. Willis' novel was published six years before "Timeline," and the plots sound quite similar, in theme if not in actual detail.
If you read some of the reviews on Amazon.com, you'll see mixed reactions to both books. Crichton fans will love "Timeline" and Willis fans will love her book, and there may or may not be room for crossing over. Both have been knocked for having plot flaws, and for providing more history than science, but neither of those criticisms are entirely valid. After all, we're talking about time travel, and despite any advances we've made in quantum physics and other disciplines whose theories I can't describe, let alone understand, we're still no closer to doing it than the 14th century alchemists.
Crichton's always had a knack for making technology accessible. Willis' strength is character development and "world re-creation." If you've read neither book, keep that in mind when choosing.
Jared, you make an excellent observation about Twain's book, proving once more that there's nothing new under the sun.
It's been decades since I read "Connecticut Yankee" but I don't recall Twain as being overly concerned about the paradoxes of time travel. My recollection was that whatever modern technology the traveler had with him, he used to his advantage, wherever he could. In Willis' and, I suspect, Crichton's novels, the travelers are preoccupied with trying to avoid sending those "ripples" into the future that are such grist for the sci-fi mill.
Posted by: Eric at November 25, 2003 09:45 AMReally, you have to suspend disbelief to buy into the time travel stuff, imho. It could be that scientists are close, but as pulp fiction it's just fun to read and speculate "what if."
I am a fan of Crichton, will read pretty much anything he writes. I'll have to check into the Willis novel - sounds interesting.
Posted by: jen at November 26, 2003 09:23 AMI read Crichton's book "Timeline" and it wasn't good at all. Nothing like his best work. I think he wrote it as a throw-off just to get something done. It is not only implausible, it is uninteresting, unmotivating, and poorly executed. I've done some writing in my time, and this one stinks. The movie trailer may be full of exciting scenes, but they are few and far between, and are just contrived for flash.
* * * End of scathing review * * *
Just realize that I expect lots more from a writer of his caliber.
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I wasn't aware of either book until recently -- "Timeline" until the movie previews and "Doomsday" until this post of yours.
Posted by: Jared at November 25, 2003 09:36 AMI think perhaps all time travel to the middle ages books owe a debt, though, to Mark Twain's "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court."
That book was definitely more history than science, and more humor than either of those.