A time-shifting thriller by the internationally bestselling author of Jurassic Park.
Born in Chicago in 1942, Michael Crichton first trained as a doctor before going on to become one of the most successful writers in the world. In 1994 he achieved a feat unmatched by any other writer- by having simultaneously a number one TV series, book and movie with, respectively, ER (which he created), Disclosure and Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park, on its release the highest-grossing film of all time. He also directed several movies, including The Great Railway Robbery with Sean Connery and Donald Sutherland. His high-concept thrillers were international bestsellers, and in total his books have sold more than 200 million copies worldwide. He died in 2008.
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*
No word yet on the plot, but the first printing is 1.5 million copies.
"And the Oscar for Best Special Effects goes to: Timeline!" Figure maybe three years before those words are spoken, for Crichton's new novelÄdespite media reports about trouble in selling film rights, which finally went to ParamountÄis as cinematic as they come, a shiny science-fantasy adventure powered by a superior high concept: a group of young scientists travel back from our time to medieval southern France to rescue their mentor, who's trapped there. The novel, in fact, may improve as a movie; its complex action, as the scientists are swept into the intrigue of the Hundred Years War, can be confusing on the page (though a supplied map, one of several graphics, helps), and most of its characters wear hats (or armor) of pure white or black. Crichton remains a master of narrative drive and cleverness. From the startling opening, where an old man with garbled speech and body parts materializes in the Arizona desert, through the revelation that a venal industrialist has developed a risky method of time-travel (based on movement between parallel universes; as in Crichton's other work, good, hard science abounds), there's not a dull moment. When elderly Yale history prof Edward Johnston travels back to his beloved 15th century and gets stuck, and his assistants follow to the rescue, excitement runs high, and higher still as Crichton invests his story with terrific period detail and as castles, sword-play, jousts, sudden death and enough bold knights-in-armor and seductive ladies-in-waiting to fill any toystore's action-figure shelves appear. There's strong suspense, too, as Crichton cuts between past and present, where the time-travel machinery has broken: Will the heroes survive and make it back? The novel has a calculated feel but, even so, it engages as no Crichton tale has done since Jurassic Park, as it brings the past back to vigorous, entertaining life. Agent, Lynn Nesbit. 1,500,000 first printing; Literary Guild nain selection; simultaneous large-print edition and audiobook. (Nov. 16) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.
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 *
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