Timeline

Timeline by Michael Crichton (1999, 464 pages)

One thing Michael Crichton is really good at is faking science. To the average reader, he'll have you believing that we can clone dinosaurs and travel back in time. He cites "scientific papers" with a bibliography. He often has characters explaining to others the actual "science" so that even non-STEM-inclined readers get a rough idea.

In the middle of the Arizona desert, a man mysteriously appears, injured, with an odd map in his pocket. There's an eerie connection to an archaeology team working in France, who are funded by a big tech company, ITC. An irregular find in the 14th century castle ruins combined with the lead researcher on the team going missing lead a group of archaeologists and historians to the ITC headquarters basement. The company's been working on a secret project for years, but it might not be as safe or reliable as the PR team makes it out to be.

This is easily one of my favorite Crichton books; it has meaningful and complex characters, mystery, suspense, and of course, science baloney.