Document Type
Forum Theme 1
Abstract
Michael Crichton's best-selling suspense novel Timeline combines futuristic science with medieval history, resulting in a remarkably successful and thrilling page-turner. By authoritatively blending academic arcana with fabricated scientific innovation, Crichton also convinces the average reader that the science in the novel is based on current scientific knowledge and that the medieval portions of the novel are based on solid historical research, which, for the most part, they are. Given the fantastic premise of the supposedly present-day science of quantum transportation between universes, one would expect the history-based sections of the book to have the stronger underpinnings. But, surprisingly, the plot becomes less believable in the medieval portions; the action in the fourteenth century simply involves too many plot twists, too many feats of derring-do, too many miraculous escapes to be believable.
Publication Date
Spring 2006
Journal Title
UNIversitas
Volume
2
Issue
1
First Page
1
Last Page
12
Copyright
©2006 Linda Bingham
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Language
en
File Format
application/pdf
Recommended Citation
Bingham, Linda
(2006)
"Crossing the Timeline: Michael Crichton's Bestseller as Social Criticism and History,"
UNIversitas: Journal of Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity: Vol. 2:
No.
1, Article 8.
Available at:
https://scholarworks.uni.edu/universitas/vol2/iss1/8
