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Summary: Timeline, by: Michael Crichton
Review: I think the book Timeline is a great book. It is about a group of people who get asked to go back in time with some other scientists to see what people did in the 1700's. Everything is going well until they get spotted and a few of the people are killed. If you want to figure out what happens to the rest of the scientists you are going to have to read the book. I would recommend this for people who like science ficton and for ages 12 to 15. It does have a little bad language, otherwise it is a very good book.
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Summary: Timeline
Review: I think this was a great science fiction book. I like how the author mixed science with action. The plot has many twists and turns throughout the book starting at about the twentieth page. The characters are described pretty good with their personality unfolding through the chapters even some of them do not make it alive all the way through the book. The beginning is disappointingly slow, but it picks up as soon as the characters are taken to a facility where the technology to take them back into the past is being developed. This was a pretty good book to read and anyone interested in sci-fi and adventure should read it.
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Summary: Quick-paced. Action-packed. Awesome.
Review: All three of those words describe Michael Chrichton's "Timeline" to the fullest. I was at my school library one day and for some reason this book seemed to catch my attention. Without thinking, I grabbed "Timeline" and checked it out. What I found was an extraordinary tale of action, honor, adventure, and a little bit of love compressed into a single, well-written package. Chrichton uses believeable explanations for his timetravel. And when it comes to the aspect of creating a Medieval world that existed over six-hundred years ago, Chrichton is an expert at this.
When you read this book (something that I highly recomend) you will find yourself immersed in a living, breathing world. The jist of the story is this: An intelligent professor manages to go back into 14th century France-- aparantly unaware of the warnings that the company ITC informs him of. The professor's students find out that he's in trouble (I won't tell you how because that will spoil one aspect of the book) and go back to find him.
If you read this story, you will most likely not regret it. I found myself reading for two hours and not even realizing the time had passed by. An excellent book by an excellen author. A must read.
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Summary: Timeline
Review: Timeline is a great book for the patient action/adventure reader. Crichton does an excellent job mixing realistic action with unbelievable sci-fi into his book. Even though it starts out a little slow it picks up greatly towards the middle so keep with it. It has plenty of complicated theories of time travel and atom reconstruction with lots of bloodthirsty knights and steel on steel action so you wont get bored. You will actually think you're in medieval France during the One Hundred Year War. The book content is for more mature readers; high school level and up. This book would be for adult only but Crichton explains the hardest ideas like he's been studying them his whole life. I definitely recommend this novel by Michael Crichton.
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Summary: contrived and formulaic
Review: This strikes me as a book designed to cash in on his own popularity following the Jurassic Park novels. It's poorly thought out, with characters who are insufficiently fleshed out, and a premise (multiple universes?) that's even more unbelievable than time travel. it's full of baldly milked suspense, and the whole thing comprises 4 archaeologists trying to get together long enough to press a button to send them back to where they came from. sounds boring? well, it's about as exciting and rewarding as watching grass grow. and the obligatory obstacles that MC puts in their way are, this one gets lost. then the other. and then the 3rd. and then the 1st one again. wow. talk about a roller coaster ride in slow-mo. colour me bored.
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Summary: Not His Best
Review: I consider Michael Crichton one of the better writers of contemporary popular fiction around. At his best, his books are riveting. Unfortunately, I didn't feel that TIMELINE was quite up to that standard. What bothers me is that I don't quite know why. There are plenty of ingredients here: interesting technology, lots of action, and a plot that's a real cliffhanger. As it turns out though, I found Crichton's attempt to explain quantum physics in laymans terms to be the single most interesting part of the story. Ultimately, I guess, I just didn't find the mid-1300's as dangerous as some of the other scenarios Crichton has given us in the past. The dangers are all human and, while there is plenty of violence, it always seemed that young, fit well-educated people from the late 20th century ought to be able to cope with neer-do-wells from 1350. Admittedly, being in their own environment would give the villains some advantages, but not enough.All this is not to say that this wasn't an entertaining book; it was. I just didn't find it as compelling as some of Crichton's other tales. If you've read most of his other books, you'll probably want to read this, too. If you haven't, I suggest giving some of his other books a try. I liked ANDROMEDA STRAIN, SPHERE, JURASSIC PARK, LOST WORLD, and even EATERS OF THE DEAD better. Nevertheless, while TIMELINE isn't top-notch, I still rate it better than average. Give it a try -- just don't expect too much.
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Summary: The best book I've read in years!
Review: I LOVED this book. This was my first venture into the land of Michael Crichton (written word that is) and I'm going back for more. This book explores the idea of time travel and gives an amazing look at life in Medevil times. I was consistantly amazed at the details that were in this book and how everything tied so nicely together, while maintaining a great aire of suspense. A must read.
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Summary: inaccurate and inplausible with wooden characters
Review: with each book, Crichton seems to do less and less research while his characters remain as wooden as ever. Even the young adult at whom the text is aimed will scoff at some of the contradictions.
Knights on horseback fire arrows? never.
In an early chapter, we learn that the travel does not actually occur in time but occurs between parallel universes. Yet a character who is left behind in the parallel universe leaves notes (and presumably progeny) which show up in the original.
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Summary: Great premise, but the plot is too typically Crichton.
Review: I'm an on-again-off-again fan of Crichton's, so when stuck at an airport this past week with several layovers, I picked up Timeline, because the premise caught my eye. I am a sucker for 'Time Travel' type stories, so I dove right in. Imagine my surprise when I found out that Timeline has basically the exact same STORY as Jurassic Park, just a different set of trappings to frame the story in. "Mad billionaire wants to get richer by making an Outrageous Theme Park (tm) that would have very bad implications for the world. Something goes wrong, information leaks to the world, a few scientists are brought into the fray and stranded in the midst of danger and must somehow save the day, dethrone the evil billionaire, and still manage to get back home safe and sound." That was the theme for Jurassic Park. In case you hadn't noticed, it's the EXACT same theme for Timeline. Another frustrating thing about this book (wait, there's more?) is that there are some major holes in the continuity. It's like Crichton wrote several scenes he thought would be interesting (in no particular order) and strung them together. Continuity be damned! For example -- in one scene, Marek demands that Chris not speak to anyone, because his lack of knowledge of middle english will give them away. It's DANGEROUS! Only ten minutes later, Chris is chatting quite amiably with a pair of squires, and they seem to understand everything he says. No danger. Suuuure.... There's a ton of convenient plot happenings as well. It's like Crichton couldn't come up with anything better, so he had to cheese his way out. Marek happens to speak 3 different medieval dialects. He knows how to joust. Pull a longbow accurately. Swing a sword well enough to hold his own. He's Mr. Perfect Medieval Man. Shouldn't every time-travelling trip have one, of course? Or the 'battle' that's saved through a conveniently clumsy action of another character. Yeah. I was disappointed by this book, and actually a little bit insulted that Michael Crichton doesn't think better of his readers to give them a more thought-out story. I'm sure it will be a pretty story in a Hollywood movie, though.
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Summary: Action-packed medieval adventure...but confusing at times.
Review: It's been a while since I've read another Michael Crichton novel. This one caught my attention because it's about time travel and the medieval period, two subjects I'm fascinated with. However, I had many questions after I finished the book. The author's idea of "time travel" was not easy to understand. The novel begins with a group of graduate students (Andre Marek, Chris Hughes, Kate Erickson, David Stern) and their professor (Johnston) doing archeaological work on a site in France, with the ruins dating back to the 1300's. This group was sponsored by a billionaire named Doniger whose actual intentions were unknown to the group. In fact, Doniger's corporation had developed technology that will enable people to travel to other universes. The theory goes like this: there are an infinite number of universes and our universe is only one of them. The universes can be in other time periods. The universes are always splitting to become other universes, so what we do today will turn out different universes tomorrow. Knowing this, Doniger's company was able to send people to other universes with a specific time and date. In this case, he had sent people back to the 1300s to scale out the architecture in hope to recreate the castles and surrounding site like it actually existed more than 600 years ago. However, the technology is not perfect. During the travelling process, there can be transcription errors in that a man can come back not put back perfectly together (physically and mentally). Somehow, the professor had travelled back to the 1300s with no way to come back. Therefore, Doniger sent the students (who studied the time period and have a better chance at survival and finding the professor) to bring him back. They have 37 hours before the machines run out of battery. During this time, they encountered violent knights and warlords and other dangererous obstacles. An ancient puzzle of where the secret passage into the castle was located is essential to their survival. But that's not their only obstacle. Unknown to them, an accident occurred in the lab after they left and the facility was almost destroyed. Therefore they were stuck there until the lab gets rebuilt. So it was a race against time on both universes, the modern and medieval period. The odds are really against them. After finishing this book, I'm still not clear what Doniger's intention were. He mentions about owning history, with the patented technology, but what does he intend to do with it? Just build theme parks? I think that's such a waste (and very Jurassic Park feel). And with one person stranded at the end, why didn't they send another machine? That point wasn't very clear. Overall, a good but confusing read.
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