By: Michael Crichton
Essence: sci-fi, time travel, secrets, past, kings and conquests, teamwork
I had very high expectations from Timeline as many friends told me that it was a great book. I had my fears though, as I generally stay away from sci-fi and made up adventure. Sadly, the book wasn't that good :|Towards the end the plot got so boring and repetitive that I totally lost interest. I somehow went through it in a desperate attempt to turn over the last page. The ending was pretty decent though, but the tiresome descriptions of the architecture and land had totally put me off by then.
But yes, the plot was pretty fresh and intriguing in the beginning and in the middle. It is towards the 60-90 % of the book when you start losing interest.
The book starts off brilliantly and has a very fresh feel to it. The conspiracies and the hidden truth and all add to the effect very well. The story kicks off after maybe 20% of the book and you will enjoy it till half-way. And then, it sadly drops down :|
Anyways, the book talks about time-travel and in this particular story, they travel to the medieval times where a conquest is about to take place. They get caught up in it pretty bad and they keep getting separated. 'they' are a team of historians who have traveled back to find and rescue their professor who went in through the time portal rather accidentally and out of curiosity.
Their story is pretty dramatic but gets very irritating towards the end and you can see that the author is just trying to elongate the story by adding uncalled for drama. This really put me off :|
The fundae about quantum physics and time travel and stuff were really awesome and gripping. Though just a fantasy, it was explained rather well, as though straight off some paper. Brilliantly done. And since this happens in the first half of the book, the author ensures that you stay with him for the second half too. Its like when you see a movie and it is really fresh and crisp before the intermission and after that you feel as though the director has totally lost track and the story has lost itself.
Its an awesome book if you love sci-fi novels, but otherwise, you could stay away from this one.