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By: sooz
Date: 7/16/01 7:07:09 AM
# Replies: 8
Anyone read that "pop fiction pablum crap," as my writer friend calls it? You know, best-seller list stuff. "Stuff that's ok for reading on a plane."
I just finished Michael Crichton's (sp?) "Timeline." Anyone else read this? I'd love a nifty discussion on it.
Response #1
By: Gowan McGland
Date: 7/16/01 8:18:56 AM
I finally finsihed reading Nicholson Baker's "The Fermata" a few weeks ago.
It was pretty good. It's about a guy who can stop time and walk around and do whatever the hell he wants. It's his memoirs. He tells how he first realized he could do it and how the mechanism for stopping time changes frequently in his life. He tells about what he's done with "all the time in the world" and yes, that includes undressing people and taking advantage of them at times.
Well done, includes a lot of situational humor and never takes itself too serious. Very interesting book, but not for kids in any sense of the word. This is an adult book, but a fun and interesting one.
I recommend it.
Haven't read "Timeline", but it's on my list.
Response #2
By: rorschach
Date: 7/17/01 11:04:44 AM
I have read "timeline". Not one of his best stories. the time travel mechanism is a little too trite (remember, I like HARD SF... I'm not fond of authors that say "it just works, don't ask how..."), but if you don't focus on it and just treat it as a plot enabler the story ain't too bad. I wondered though why the quantum changes always affected the brain and not other stuff and then only in approximately the same way. logical inconsistancies drive me nutz....
Response #3
By: sooz
Date: 7/17/01 3:25:41 PM
The quantum changes affected the whole body, Ror... remember the guy with the split face? The cat with the split body? The professor with the hands that exploded?
Response #4
By: rorschach
Date: 7/18/01 10:34:37 AM
ok let me rephrase, of the people/animals that survived, it was only brain transcription errors (at least as far as I remember), what? no genetic changes? no mirroring? Cancer? no subtle enzyme deficiencies? sterility? I would have expected a lot more of those types of fubars than the half/cat variety... and if there were that kind of thing happening, why were there no "human fly" sort of things where two people or animals were merged?
Response #5
By: sooz
Date: 7/18/01 10:58:08 AM
Erm, there were LOTS of genetic changes. Mirroring, enzyme deficiencies, etc.
Honestly, I was more interested in the plot than the sci fi angle. I tended to start grazing over the parts that were overly technical.
I mean, we can't do this type of quantum stuff anyway, so why make up science to back it up? Bah, I just wanted a novel.
Response #6
By: Roxanne
Date: 7/19/01 10:10:11 PM
I tried to read "Timeline", but I just couldn't get into it, as they say.
Response #7
By: sooz
Date: 7/20/01 7:39:45 AM
I really had trouble in the beginning. I stayed with it because, well, I spent $7. I'm so cheap.
Response #8
By: Ralf
Date: 7/20/01 2:42:26 PM
It twas a silly book. It smelled like a screenplay from page 1. Nuff said.
I liked the historical stuff better than the science.