Footprints Of Thunder

This book was made into a movie, and a pretty good one at that, though by necessity not as complex and in-depth as the book. Crichton does have a habit of going maybe just a bit too far with his desire to ensure verisimilitude. A group of history students end up traveling back in time to 14th century France because their professor happened to get 'lost' there. (Means something went seriously out of whack with the time machine he used, and they couldn't get him back). Also, this time machine has some serious issues because, and the temporal displacement process tends to misalign body parts of the transportees; usually at a microscopic level, but when you do it repeatedly the errors add up; fatally so. Back in the 14th century the travelers end up at a critical juncture of historical events. This involves serious fighting between the French and the English and has great potential for getting killed, or dicking around with past events. Why it's at this place on the list: Meticulous and thorough, as typical of Crichton, with some damn good storytellingthough I'll be honest, I found it somewhat long and actually prefer the movie. Time-travel is integral to the story, with significant emphasis on the 'technology' aspects, as well as the idea that you'd better just observe or else you just might screw things up. Or notbecause things are as they are because they were as they were; and they were what they were because they are as they are. That's time-travel logic par excellence.