Timeline

Title: Timeline
Author: Michael Crichton

Michael Crichton is one of those authors whose sci-fi works are simply brilliant (Jurassic Park series) but, as a result of terrible screenplay, the movie sucked a little bit. (Probably because of the dialogue and the casting). I'd like to say sorry first if I mixed up the movie and the book because I found both interesting.

The story started when an old man wearing a brown robe was stranded in the hot desert, but he suffered from hypothermia, which was very uncanny. Much worse, the x-ray reports indicated that his veins and bones, although in tact, were not in place, as if it was teared up and being put back again. He had no idea how he got there, and the only thing that they found on him was a blueprint of a monastery (Mon. Ste. Mere), which meant Monastery of Saint Mother in French. Later, it turned out that the monastery existed, but in 1357 near Castelgard, France. And the man's name was Traub, an employee of International Technology Company (ITC), founded by a Bill Gates- wannabe, Robert Doniger.

At the same time, a group of archaelogists led by Professor Edward Johnston was excavating a site where the French and the English army warred each other during the Hundred-Year war. If it sounded familiar, the place was Castelgard, France, and one of the team members, Kate Erickson, was processing the Monastery site. Not a coincidence, but the project was also funded by Robert Doniger, the ITC founder.

Prof. Johnston's team also included his son, Chris, who was rather smitten with Kate, Andre Marek the Scotsman, Francois Dontelle the Frenchman, and a physics expert David Stern. Prof. Johnston was curious at why Doniger was so eager to fund the project and gave him too much information as if it landed from the sky or something. He decided to go to New Mexico to talk to Doniger.

While he was gone, Kate discovered a hole under the spot she was working on and realized that it was an underground room in the monastery. In the room, she found some documents and a stone carving which was ruined badly. When Stern processed the documents, he was dumbstruck to find Prof. Johnston's writing on one of them. It dated 1357. Panicking, the group decided to question Robert Doniger and flew to New Mexico.

When they got there, they met Frank Gordon and Steven Kramer, Doniger's right hand men. They were even shocked to know that Doniger sent Johnston and Gordon to Castelgard 1357, and Gordon actually left Johnston alone. Now, the group's job is to go there, find the prof and return, through a revolutionary machine which works like a fax-machine (that is, by tearing up the electron particles of a body and putting them back together again.) Actually, the machine was meant to be a super fast posting machine that could send a package from point a to point b in seconds. But, they had no idea why they were sent to the past. The only thing that could bring them back was a marker with a button which they could press to return to the future. While Stern was against the idea, the others decided they had to save the professor. Frank Gordon, and his two sidekicks joined the crowd, as guides, since they did the traveling too many times already. THere were a few rules: They had to be back beofre 6 hours, and they were not allowed to bring any modern weapons.

Unfortunately, this trip was going to be different from Gordon's past trips. They went back on the day where the French attacked the English's stronghold La Roque, and brought it down. Worse, the English wrongly attacked them (they thought that they were the French spies). One of Gordon's men was shot by arrows and pressed the marker to return home. Even worse, he brought grenades with him. When he returned to the future, the grenades blew, thus ruining the machine. This meant that if the others were to return, it might not happen until the ITC employees fixed the machine. Doniger was very mad. It may be that even if they managed to save the professor, they might not be able to go back.

During this trip, the group had to go through lots of grueling things of living through the medieval times. Innocent lives were taken, and an unlikely romance that wasn't really supposed to happen bloomed between one of them and a French Dame. There were many plot twisters, including a former ITC employee who was betrayed, and lots of other interesting things that were never shown in the movies. Will the course of history change? With their interruption, will the English win the war instead of the French?

If you saw the movie, you better pick this book up.
If you haven't seen the movie, pick this book up first before laughing at the movie.