[Ciaphas Cain]

This was central conceit of Michael Crichton's novel Timeline. They weren't really "time traveling". They were going into a side universe where it was still medieval France simultaneously with the modern era of "our" universe. A person was destroyed at the quantum level here, then "faxed" through holes in Wheeler Foam into the "dark ages France" timeline.

Sounds pretty cool. Except that at one point one of the heads of the project confesses something rather dark: that they have to destroy a person in order to recreate them elsewhere... but they don't know who is doing the recreating. It's not technology which THEY possess themselves. So when they send one of their marines - a female incidentally - to scout ahead, they are destroying her existence and that's ANOTHER marine from somewhere else in the multiverse who is coming back on the return leg. From a timeline almost precisely identical.

Probably one of Crichton's best novels. And among his scariest.

[okkev68]

Still one of my top 5 books of all time. I have read it 4 times now, and will watch the movie if it is on. It is not great but not the worst movie I have ever seen.

[Future Snake Eater]

Probably one of Crichton's best novels. And among his scariest.

The movie was garbage, but the novel was good (though the reason for creating the "time travel" setup was pretty lame).

Probably his scariest novel, and an extremely underappreciated one at that, was "Prey." I read that one in practically one sitting.