{"product_id":"timeline-by-michael-crichton-3575d","title":"Timeline by Michael Crichton","description":"\u003cp\u003eSometimes, it seems like you can reach out and touch the past...  An old man wearing a brown robe is found wandering disoriented in the Arizona desert. He is miles from any human habitation and has no memory of how he got to be there, or who he is. The only clue to his identity is the plan of a medieval monastery in his pocket.  In France, Professor Edward Johnston and his students are studying the ruins of a medieval town. Suspicious of the knowledge of the site shown by their mysterious financier, he returns to the US to investigate. But in his absence, the students make a disturbing discovery in the ruins: the long-decayed remains of Johnston's glasses - and a message in modern English.  The implications are staggering. The consequences are earth-shaking. And the distant past isn't so distant any more. ______________________  Increasingly considered an underappreciated classic that stands proudly alongside his more famous works like Jurassic Park and Westworld, Timeline confirms Michael Crichton as the king of the high-concept thriller, and a master storyteller to boot.  Amazon Review When you step into a time machine, fax yourself through a quantum foam wormhole and step out in feudal France circa 1357, be very, very afraid. If you aren't strapped back in precisely 37 hours after your visit begins, you'll miss the quantum bus back to 1999 and be stranded in a civil war, caught between crafty abbots, mad lords and peasant bandits all eager to cut your throat. You'll also have to dodge catapults that hurl sizzling pitch over castle battlements. On the social front, you should avoid provoking the butcher of Crecy or Sir Oliver may lop your head off with a swoosh of his broadsword or cage and immerse you in Milady's Bath, a brackish dungeon pit into which live rats are tossed now and then for prisoners to eat.  This is the plight of the heroes of Timeline, Michael Crichton's thriller. They're historians in 1999 employed by a tech billionaire-genius with more than a few of Bill Gates' most unlovable quirks. Like the entrepreneur in Crichton's Jurassic Park, Doniger plans a theme park featuring artefacts from a lost world revived via cutting-edge science. When the project's chief historian sends a distress call to 1999 from 1357, the boss man doesn't tell the younger historians the risks they'll face trying to save him. At first, the interplay between eras is clever but Timeline swiftly becomes a swashbuckling old-fashioned adventure, with just a dash of science and time paradox in the mix. Most of the cool facts are about the Middle Ages and Crichton marvellously brings the past to life without ever letting the pulse-pounding action slow down. At one point, a time-tripper tries to enter the Chapel of Green Death. Unfortunately, its custodian, a crazed giant with terrible teeth and a bad case of lice, soon has her head on a block. She saw a shadow move across the grass as he raised his axe into the air. Try not to turn the page!   Through the narrative can be glimpsed the glowing bones of the movie that may be made from Timeline and the high tech computer game that should hit the market in 2000. Expect many clashing swords and chase scenes through secret castle passages. But the book stands alone, tall and scary as a knight in armour shining with blood. --Tim Appelo   Review Timeline combines all the ingredients that make Crichton's books compulsive reading ... a brilliantly imagined story  Los Angeles Times  Hollywood's favourite thriller writer evokes the experience of time travel superbly ... a rollicking read  Observer  A thrilling race against time  Daily Express  A cracking thriller  Daily Express  The present and the long-ago past collide [as] three young historians whisk themselves back to fourteenth-century feudal France to rescue a friend - and engulf themselves in all manner of mind-blowing intrigue  Chicago Sun-Times  Review Timeline combines all the ingredients that make Crichton's books compulsive reading ... a brilliantly imagined story  Los Angeles Times  Hollywood's favourite thriller writer evokes the experience of time travel superbly ... a rollicking read  Observer  A thrilling race against time  Daily Express  A cracking thriller  Daily Express  The present and the long-ago past collide [as] three young historians whisk themselves back to fourteenth-century feudal France to rescue a friend - and engulf themselves in all manner of mind-blowing intrigue  Chicago Sun-Times  From the Publisher Imagine the impossible  From the Back Cover An old man wearing a brown robe is found wandering disoriented in the Arizona desert. He is miles away from any human habitation and has no memory of how he got to be there, or who he is. The only clue to his identity is the plan of a medieval monastery in his pocket.  This mystery will catapult a group of young scientists back to the middle Ages into the heart of the Hundred Years' War. Imagine the risks of such a journey. Imagine the impossible.  'Timeline combines all the ingredients that make Crichton's books compulsive reading... a brilliantly imagined story' Iain Pears, Los Angeles Times  'Hollywood's favourite thriller writer evokes the experience of time travel superbly... a rollicking read' Observer  'A thrilling race against time' Express  About the Author Michael Crichton(1942-2008) was the author of the bestselling novels The Terminal Man, The Great Train Robbery, Jurassic Park, Sphere, Disclosure, Prey, State of Fear, Next, and Dragon Teeth, among many others. His books havesold more than two hundred million copies worldwide, have been translated into forty languages, and have provided the basis for fifteen feature films. He wrote and directed Westworld, The Great Train Robbery, Runaway, Looker, and Coma, and created the hit television series ER. Crichton remains the only writer to have had a number one book, movie, and TV show in the same year.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Book Express","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":41821251764298,"sku":"3575d","price":6.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0618\/9101\/8826\/files\/3575d_937b2bed-3347-4add-8ddb-e242a123d94b.jpg?v=1764343998","url":"https:\/\/www.bookexpress.nz\/products\/timeline-by-michael-crichton-3575d","provider":"Book Express","version":"1.0","type":"link"}