I have to re-record this and I don't feel like changing into regular clothes and I'm about to go work out So you know you're gonna be seeing me dressed like this, but don't mistake my annoyance from me thinking timeline was bad Because it's actually pretty good. This is the introduction song. It's not very good, but it's not too long So timeline is a Michael Kretten book and his works usually fall into one of two categories There's the books that are pretty much just all about science and all about people doing science and trying to figure out problems and solve puzzles The Andromeda strain and spear are both pretty good examples of this and then there's His books where the science is kind of just a setup for more of an action adventure type story and Jurassic Park is the best example of this But timeline also falls into this and Don't mistake me saying that for me thinking that his science based books are bad. They're not they're actually still pretty good I love sphere and I think Andromeda strain is pretty good That said Jurassic Park and Timeline and stuff like that are more cinematic I think and they've lend themselves to being movies better and they're just a little bit more accessible So timeline is just about time travel, you know It's a pretty simple idea like there's some archaeologist working on an old castle in France And then they find some evidence there that people were time traveling of course They don't realize that's what it is at first They're just confused and then one of them goes off to this company which has invented time travel and he goes back But he winds up getting stuck there so they bring all his friends over there like hey We need you guys to go back to 1357 in France and get your friend back or he'll probably die and then Obviously once they go there some stuff goes wrong and then they're stuck for a while So we have a two parallel stories one with the people trying to fix the time machine and trying to get them back And then one with the people back in France that are in trouble and just trying to survive now like pretty much All Michael Crite and books this one has a pretty great plot. There's always crazy stuff going on There's a bunch of twists and turns which are all pretty phenomenal and then you know kind of like Jurassic Park where it's Oh shit run away from dinosaurs and this it's oh shit people trying to kill us we got to fight them off or run away or escape from prison or whatever and In that sense. Yeah, it's great. The problem is with the characters now In this I will say most of the characters are fine. They're you know, they're perfectly okay There's two that stood out which I'll talk about in a second But that's still better than most Michael Crite and books where kind of everyone is just an asshole like I remember Dr. Grant from Jurassic Park being okay and the main character from Spear also being okay But other than that pretty much every character in every Crite and book I've read has been just a major dick Which you know that that can work sometimes but it just makes it impossible to care about them when they get in trouble or anything Whereas in this they're all fine except for two dudes now There's Merrick who I actually really liked because he is a Historian who doesn't just learn about history, but he quote tries to live it So he actually learns like horseback riding and he learns how to Fight the way Knights did and he actually learns to speak a certain languages like Middle French and Oxyton Which wind up being useful for them when they go back in time and so Yeah, he's not a particularly deep or complex character But I liked him and he does go through some development as the story goes on and then there's one character that I Strongly disliked his name is Donager and he's just the guy that helped invent the time travel and Well, he he is a huge asshole, but the thing is he's supposed to be an asshole You know he's supposed to be bossy he's supposed to be He's supposed to look down on other people he's supposed to be someone who's smart, but really knows he's smart He's supposed to be greedy, you know you're supposed to not like him very much So I can't fault the book for that really and he's I don't really really want to call him villain, but you know he's He's I don't know he's a minor antagonist will say that that's the best way of putting it and as for the regular antagonists they They all have potential, but the problem is that there's like three or four characters that are all working to hinder the heroes and None of them really get enough time to shine as a result of that like there's one who has a pretty interesting backstory that I won't go into because It's a major spoiler and it's actually one of the best parts of the book when you find out what's going on but He just doesn't get enough time to really be in the story and to really shine So I kind of wish that he had been the main villain or if they had just picked one of the others and focused on them because splitting attention this much is kind of It's not a good thing Now just like other Michael Critan books you can tell he really researched the hell out of the science in this Like with everything from Andromeda strain to speeder to Jurassic Park See you can tell that Michael Critan really poured himself into researching, you know biology or Genetics or physics in this case or whatever else that book happens to be focused on and I would be lying if I didn't say that some of it went over my head But it is still fascinating to hear his take on time travel where it's like oh well You see time doesn't actually move time stands still and we move and Then they're talking about like quantum fluctuation and how things can be in two different distinct states at the same time and You know, it doesn't make a lot of sense, but it's also not supposed to make a lot of sense. I don't think and You know he clearly did his research so if you're into that sort of thing then you'll probably be happy about that But what made me happy was that he also very clearly did his research into medieval France and what that was like because He knows a lot of things and Some people are annoyed by his writing style where he occasionally like almost breaks the fourth wall and tells the audience Hey, here's explaining this concept or whatever, but you know I was happy with that he very clearly understood Medieval France what life was like there, you know They weren't speaking modern French at all. They spoke either middle French or oxytin in the area where they were But even in the areas that spoke middle French or oxytin it was a whole muddled mess of dialects where do you go from one town to another and it's basically a different language? They're almost impossible to understand each other and That's very accurate to real history He understands how warfare worked he understands how society was structured He understands that people just had a different way of looking at the world in different belief system back then than they do today So yeah, I was really impressed with Michael Craig in there and I'm happy that he Spent some time in my wheelhouse of the only thing about this book that really really got under my skin was that Okay, I just don't like time travel stories very much in general because No matter what there's almost always going to be some sort of plot hole in there and This book is no exception unfortunately Basically they say that you can't change the past Somewhere near the beginning and when you hear that you think okay, it's gonna be something kind of like 12 monkeys or the first terminator movie where no matter what you do That's just gonna wind up helping the future to become what it is But then we also get very clear evidence in your the beginning that you can change the past and then When they ask somebody about like the grandfather paradox where like what if you went back and killed your grandfather So that you can never be born and therefore you could never go kill your grandfather how would that work out? And he basically just tells them well If you're an actual human being then you're just gonna Not want to kill your grandpa So you're you're not gonna actually be able to pull the trigger and they're trying to say well like Theoretically how would it work in you just to kind of dismiss it? He's like theory doesn't matter when we're talking about people and Yeah, he's kind of right but Considering how much time this book spends on just talking physics and talking how time travel works You could try to give a little bit of a better explanation there like hell this talks about different parallel dimensions and stuff You could have just done something like well We don't actually send you back in time. We just send you to a different dimension where it's this current point in time and that Dimension is pretty much exactly like ours and if you change something then that one will change But then we'll just send you to a different dimension because there's an infinite number of them and this other dimension is exactly the same as the last one and You know something like that that would be fine, but as it stands just a Major plot hole, which I really would not have expected from Michael Critan all in all though Solid action adventure book, you know, there's fight scenes. There's swashbuckling. There's horseback chases There's people escaping from prison. There's all kinds of fun stuff and You know the entire time that the timer is counting down and if they don't get out of here in time and Something bad that they're gonna be stuck here. So Overall, yeah timeline if you're looking for something good then check it out Thanks a bunch to everyone who watched and thanks to my patrons op-o Savillane and Ava Ava Tumor Brother Santotis cavity sanity Christopher Quinten Emily Miller Joel Madison Lewis Bennett Taylor Briggs tobacco crow Vavictus and all the others thanks a bunch for your support if you would like to get your name on here as well as access to some other stuff Then consider donating to my page and if you can't do that then just liking this video commenting on it sharing it around So it gets more popular, you know that that really helps me a lot too and Yeah, that's all see you next time. Bye