Politech: FC: Review of Michael Crichton's _Timeline_

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

********

http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,32918,00.html

                     Crichton's Bad Timing 
                     by Declan McCullagh (declan () wired com)

                     3:00 a.m. 9.Dec.1999 PST 
                     It may be one of the oldest ideas in
                     science fiction, but an original take on
                     time travel and dimension-skipping can
                     make for a rollicking good yarn. Michael
                     Crichton's Timeline, unfortunately, is as
                     enjoyable as being bound, gagged, and
                     forced to watch a Back to the Future
                     marathon. 

                     Timeline's premise is straightforward
                     enough: Advances in quantum technology
                     let a vaguely sinister megacorp digitize
                     humans and forward them, well, backward
                     through time like an transmillennial FedEx
                     package. The destination: Europe's
                     Hundred Years War. 

                     Then -- you guessed it -- there's a
                     glitch. A trio of grad students get dumped
                     in the middle of 1300s France, where
                     they have to learn, in no particular order,
                     how to flee armored knights, joust,
                     swordfight, and escape from even more
                     nettled knights. 

                     [...]



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