Rating: 
Summary: Wonderful! fabulous! Exciting! Suspenseful! Great! Audacious
Review: It was a great book. It was extremely suspenseful and kept me reading the whole night. I just couldn't put the book down. Imagine: I read this 449 page book in two days. Non-stop! Read it. Read it. READ IT!
Rating:
Summary: My most favorite of Michael Crichtons books
Review: I think this is one of Crichtons best books. The book put me there! Period! Whether it be the technologic offices or the green forests in a counrty side of mediaeval europe. I was actually there, I was fully educated, and I wanted to be a part of the book and go back in time just for the time that the protaginosts were. And in a sense I really felt like it.The protagonists were pushed to their physical and mental limits and the illustration of this therein painted how rough a time it was to survive in. I loved the politics, the battles, the history of it all. The individuals that did best were the ones who were both strong of heart, mind and body and that was how our protagonists were created. The writer clearly paints how brutal it is to kill a man with a sharp weapon. It can get pretty gruesom in my opinoin. It should be told in a way so you can appreciate the evil, or courage, when going into a battle and being force to face a horrible task such as killing someone.
Rating: 
Summary: Timeline, very good but not exceptional
Review: Timeline keeps your interest but doesn't go the extra distance to make it an exceptional book. One is fascinated with time travel and the implications of going into the past. You get this with the development of a time travel machine from a powerful and devious scientist. However, after being set up we want to get into the details which are mundane. There is no real development of characters and subplots, such as a love story or mano a mano showdown between good and evil. Yes there is some fighting and some allusion to romance but it is rather light. For instance, this period of the early 1300s saw the superiority of the longbow versus the crossbow (Battle of Crecy) in battle. Also, the Arabs developed in 1304 the first arrow shooting device by gunpowder.That would have been a good concept to exploit. We get no flavor of this but get the usual joust story in the book which is OK but lame. Love story? Forget it. No one really cares about the characters..who loves, dies, lives. At the end, there is a hint but for a book this should have been fleshed out. Still, the concept is good and there are some curve balls to keep you guessing. There are also allusions that this period of the early 1300s were not the dark ages that we were taught. We get a flavor but not enough substance other than being told that the fabrics had nice colors. A TV movie is about the speed of this book versus earthbreaking grounds like the book, Coma. Buy the paperback for the long flight as it more than satisfies "chewing gum for the eyes and brain".
Rating: 
Summary: Dull, boring, uninteresting
Review: I found Timeline to be a very stupid book. I wanted to read it to learn more about theory of time travel using quantum physics in easy-to-read and entertaining language. However, the whole time travel aspect is just glossed over. Time travel is simply the means of justify putting the characters in a time and place where, presumably, every other person got their head lobbed off. The book started out with a promise of being a sleek science fiction thriller but by the time I was halfway through it I realized it was just boring, violent tripe. The characters are dull, Dull, DULL! Plots and characters appear and then never develop. There's no suspense at all because whatever terrible obstacles arise the protagonists always just overcome them without seemingly much effort. Unfortunately I'm one of those that just HAS to finish a book once they've started so I actually wasted my time reading all 400+ pages. (Although I have to admit by the end I was just skimming.) The only thing that kept me going were the few (very few) interesting details about how life differed in the 13th century. (Although I really question how well researched and accurate the presentation of life back then was.) If they make this into a movie like they do EVERY Michael Crichton book I will avoid it at ALL COSTS! However, this might make a good bathroom book because surely it is a good substitute for bran muffins. You can just tear out the pages as you read and need them.
Rating: 
Summary: Not a good one!
Review: I am sorry - I tried reading this one but found it was awful! Storyline started off great but by the middle of the book I had had enough! Very disappointing cause I think Michael Crichton could have done so much better!
Rating:
Summary: Great page turner
Review: One of the few books of fiction that both my husband and I read and we both liked. No boring sections either. There is always something happening and it keeps you wanting to turn the page. The characters could have used a little more development and parts were rather predictable but I didn't even care. Enjoyable read!
Rating: 
Summary: Starts with a bang....settles for cliche.
Review: Ok I admit it. I am a geeky tech nerd who actually enjoyed taking physics in college, and Excalibur is one of my favorite movies, therefore, I enjoyed this book quite a bit. A great idea. pretty darn adventurous and even a bit stimulating - kind of like looking a family picture from long long ago and seeing a resemblence of yourself. Anyway, my only criticims are that the book seems to retreat into cliches, and fairly predictable outcomes late in the book. "My Hero" ? Where did that come from ? MC could have taken it 100 different directions but he settles for plain ole adventure story. That's fine. I would have like less adventure and more medieval insight, but maybe that's not MC; its me.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting SF adventure; too many loose plot threads
Review: An intriguing combination of science fiction and a medeival adventure, TIMELINE reads like the fusion of a screen play and a novel. Many novels lose a bit in translation to the screen. Crichton appears to finesse that problem by merging screenplay and novel. A potentially great story gets watered down in the process. While the 20th century megalomaniac CEO is a bit shallow, the quantum physics discussions make enough sense to allow suspension of disbelief. Later revelations that characters do not "time travel," but instead regenerate in alternate universes, conflict with a critical plot element placing 20th century artifacts at the "dig" in France. This paradox is never addressed. The action is descriptive enough, and only one of the many combat scenes depicts a 20th century medeivalist in a Holywoodesque fight against multiple opponents. Tough to suspend disbelief on that one. A sincere effort is made to overcome the 14th century vs 20th century language problem by providing quantum computer driven translators to medeival scholars specializing in a particular region of 14th century France. Regrettably, the language barrier isn't sustained throughout the 37 hours that the mission is alloted, though the early confusion experienced by some characters is well described. Picking up and conversing in a language you have studied in books and on tapes takes more than a few hours. Try studying Italian; then converse with a man who only speaks Neapolitan dialect. It is confusing. On the bright side, Crichton provides some intriguing alternatives to commonly accepted medeival anachronisms, gives a great description of old growth forests, and has an eye for action. Unlike some reviewers, I did not find the beheading of a character to be gratuitous violence, and found the joust scene to be credible enough to fit. He does a shallow exposition of medeival intrigue, and gives Chivalry a nudge or two in the ribs. Overall, the story could eliminate some plot digressions: for example, what story value did the crazy green knight add? Or Chris falling out of the boat? Why not develop Kate and Chris' realtionship more fully throughout the story? TIMELINE is good for reading on an airplane flight, but below the standard Crichton set with ANDRIMEDA STRAIN. Hope the film deal works out, it could be a lot of fun.
Rating:
Summary: Timeline - One audio book that I couldn't finish.
Review: I tried for 4 tapes to get interested in this book and could not do it. I put it up and tried again later and still thought it was one of the books that I would throw away. Wasted money. I never did finish it. My daughter read the book and she didn't finish it either.
Rating:
Summary: Liked it more than I thought I would
Review: This is one of those novels that changes directions several times just to throw you off a little. I enjoyed the physics element in the beginning and the adventure of the rest of the book. It was quite fast paced. I could see it as a movie but the book was quite descriptive of the characters and battles. Good fun!
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