Rating: 
Summary: Better than Time Travel
Review: I've read this book three times since it was published.As one of the early reviewers suggested, the setup to the time 'travel' process stumbles on itself. Crichton uses the correct terms and suggests a way in which this kind of travel might be possible, but the possibility is virtually nil, so the whole description is difficult to swallow and stalled me. The power of the writing comes after arrival in the 'past' when Crichton gives us - by his writing - a more close view of what life in that period would have been like. Reading about the past or future is probably as close as humans will ever get to time travel, and in that sense, most books are time travel experiences. No need to be a history major - mine were EE/physics/math/CS from 1972. The trouble with Crichton's presentation of the mechanics of 'time travel' is that the words are there, but the linkages are hopeless, and after surmounting this obstacle the first time, I just wanted to get to the past. Still, it is a benefit to see how convoluted any explanation of time travel can get; Crichton made a valiant attempt. I wish that some of the physicists who offer similarly ludicrous hypotheses would consider using a mirror instead of just tossing it out to the world. Everybody wants to be the next Einstein, but it isn't that simple. In this universe, garbage 'science' is garbage, no matter how much the population will pay to read, hear, or watch it. Crichton is a writer, so we can give him the artistic license, and even find value in the flaws of a presentation. Scientists should be held to a higher standard.
Rating: 
Summary: Effortlessly breaks the time barrier
Review: Timeline is a story of time travel to the Middle Ages that someway down the line goes wrong for its protagonists.
Only Crichton has the ability to describe what is for me, the most mundane period inhistory seem interesting.
Such books inevitably (eg Jurassic Park, Disclosure etc) become Hollywood fodder and I hope that with the technical wizardry shown in similar period films like Lord of the Rings that its translation reflects the deep content of this book
Rating:
Summary: OH WOW OH WOW OH WOW
Review: This book was recommended to me from a friend, and I am forever grateful to her that I read it. A thrilling epic tale that mixes medieval england with the modern day world. This is a definite for you histroy buffs out there...Crichton actually kept most historical details accurate. (thanks Crichton many times)
Please read it for me! You won't be sorry that you did, I swear!
Rating:
Summary: This one got me started
Review: I was given this book last year as a gift. I read it and immediately was thrilled with this book!! Since being given this wonderful book, I've read Clancy, Harris, Grisham, Pat Conroy, and several others - as well as other Crichton works - and this is the only book I've ever re-read! It is excellent. The imagery he's developed is remarkable. The characters are super. The plot is thrilling fun! Like with other Crichton works, you feel educated when done. I have recommended this book to everyone I've met. And am now doing so to you. Buy the book and get ready for a wild, exciting, and engrossing ride!
Rating: 
Summary: Too bad he didn't write this many years ealier.
Review: Starts off great in classic Chrichton fashion with unexplicable events that hint at something very mysterious going on and gets you hooked right away. After the first 25% of the book, the master has all the elements together to make you think you are about to read the best storyline ever written. Unfortunately, what follows this great premise is a huge disppointment. <<POSSIBLE SPOILERS>> Two thirds of the book are wasted on the totally unbelievable concept that 3 archeology students from the year 2000 with only theoretical knowledge about the middle ages can fight it out against a host of strong warriors that have spent all their lives doing nothing but fighting. So our students win one-on-one battles fighting with broadswords, knives, bow-and-arrow etc. They hold their own in jousting matches, they escape several times from well-guarded prison cells, and they can even outwit large groups of fierce soldiers and battle knights, they are smarter than even the opposing warlords themselves. And to top it off, they manage to escape from at least a handful of other dangerous situations that are just too unbelievable. I really liked all the events taking place in the year 2000, on that level the book is classic Chrichton with a lot of suspense and mystery and a storyline as good as most of his other SF-books. However the parts taking place in the middle ages are a total let-down, and after the heroes fight and win the 14th or 15th time when they are totally outnumbered by savage warriors, I couldn't help but cringe and cringe at how bad the story was. A great chance wasted, Crichton could have done so much better, he put all the right elements together in order to write maybe the best book of all times. And then he dumbs it down into what is essentially a movie plot for a simplistic action film. Maybe, if he had he written this book 10 years ago, before JP, he would have turned this into a classic...
Rating:
Summary: Yet another tired time-travel story
Review: I thought this book would have Crichton's usual blend of sci fi dazzle and high storytelling flair. Instead I got a dash of pseudoscientific babble (wormholes, quarks, probability fields, oh my,) mixed with another rehash of the old H.G. Wells script (Man invents time machine. Man travels to another time where things are more complicated than he expects. Many problems ensue. Man returns to modern era enlightened.) Yawwwwwwn.
Rating:
Summary: Timeline is a great book period
Review: I have read timeline up near 5 times and everytime I read this masterpiece I find something else I didn't catch when I read it the first time. The characters are very well done and Michael Crichton fleshes them out nicely. Timeline contains mystery, action, and a little of everything else and suits just about any type of reader. The way Crichton writes is very detailed and paints a perfect picture of what exactly the characters are seeing, feeling, and experiancing. The excitment of the chases through the woods flows straight into the reader and makes it feel like they are the ones being chased. This is an excellent book that will find it's way into the hearts and bookshelves of anyone who reads it.
Rating: 
Summary: MC Writing Screenplays Now?
Review: I am an engineer and I love the deep detail that Crichton goes into in his techno-thrillers. Timeline is much simpler and straight-forward than the Crichton novels I have read (that being almost all of them). Having just read the reviews for Prey, it seems that MC is trying to make it much simpler to adapt his books for the silver screen. I read books to get the rich detail that you can't get from movies. This book lacks that detail. While Timeline is a good book that I enjoyed reading, it doesn't measure up to Crichton's other excellent novels.
Rating:
Summary: Time runs out for plot appeal in 'Timeline'
Review: Set at in the year 1999, Timeline tells the story of a group of young Archaeologists who make a startling discovery at a dig site in the midsts of the ruins of one of the most famous battles during the Hundred Year war between France and England. Not only do the Archaeologists revist the past on a daily basis, they get to visit the past and put themselves in a situation so dangerous, they might not even get back... Michael Chricton wowed readers and viewers alike with his novel 'Jurassic Park', he grossed his audience out with 'Eaters of the Dead' and with this novel he'll put his readers through a 'B'-rate novel tie-in of a tv movie of the week. 'Timeline' reads like a cliche'd second rate script, filled with sporratic snipets about real midevil life and practices and yet set them against a dumbed-down children's version of the Middle-Ages. It appears as if Chricton, learned in his legendary numerous hours of reasearch that Life in Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire was not pretty, and instead of setting that fact to a realistic tone he overwhelms us with making every bit of life to the extreme of grusome and harsh in attempt to emphasize to his readers a realistic view of the middle ages and overtrumph up the severity of his protagonist's sitauation. Chricton fills the novel with random bouts of time travel theology and then leaving the theories hanging as if one was speaking in the middle of a sentence then abruptly saying "so anyway onto something else." Readers will enjoy the fast pacing and, wonderful action sequences. But the novel itself is filled with such cardboard 2 dimensional characters, it's a wonder if we're reading and actual novel or watching a machine describing the actions sequences of a soap-opera. This novel gets 3 stars for it's wonderful pacing and partially good plot. It's definately a "You'll either love it, or hate it or won't be affected by it" novel and I was definately "wasn't affected by it."
Rating:
Summary: Great Idea Formula Fails On This One
Review:
Michael Crichton and Robin Cooke are my two favorite entertainers, so this is a fan being straight up. This one failed. The idea of writing about the technologies involved in teleportation (which is indeed a credible possibility, one Charles Platt did a great job discussing in a past issue of WIRED Magazine) is a good one, but then the author spent three-quarters of the book with "filler" material about people actually stuck back in time and wandering hither and yon. Airframe and Prey, both of which spend most of the time focusing on the minutia of the technology, are much superior.
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