Michael Crichton along with Arthur Hailey is my favorite author. It gives immense thrill to read their books and their storylines are full of insights on the industry or genre or the institution about which the premise may be based, almost like reading a subject matter book but interestingly written in simple language which can be followed by laymen. I remember reading this book sometime around my college first year or may be bit earlier around that time. It was obviously a hard copy and was shared with me by a school mate of mine, who was also the one who introduced me to Asimov. He gave me "Prelude to Foundation" that i read for almost an year. "Timeline" was intriguing and kept me interested sheerly by its concept of time travel and i was smitten by the thought process when i read it first. This time, co-incidentally, i was also watching the movie based on the same story in parallel and somehow both the book and the adaptation were disappointing! I can understand the movie being a letdown, for the story was not one of the brightest by plot from Crichton. But the book felt bit underwhelming as compared to the first read couple of decades back can only mean the overkill of that genre off late!! This book, even thought it was a pioneer if one can use that word, is flimsy at best when it comes, how the professor and his crew manage to time travel though the worm hole that will only take them to the exact place to the exact time about which his archeological dig was about and that too, they can stay only for couple of days after which they wouldn't be able to come back to their original timeline!! The mad scientist, who would've been the Elon Musk of his time, has managed to create a time machine that can only send people from here successfully, but can only wait for so long to bring them back. And how did they manage to come back without that machine being available in the past is known only to Crichton!!
When i read this book, i felt, how tastes change with time (ironic, considering the theme) and how too much of anything makes it loose its novelty!! When i read it for the first time, it was only my limited imagination that kept me happy and intrigued to the plot. With so many dozens of books and movies and series having been made on the same topic, it felt some what subdued and considering that i also happen to the see movie version of it in parallel, didn't help either. And my attention span was slightly higher then, as to compared to the couple of micro seconds at present, which could've added to the mix i guess. Either way, it has set me on the Crichton quest and i am off to read "State of Fear". Will keep you posted on how it goes.
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