Rating: 
Summary: Bravo!
Review: Bravo!
This book deserves a standing ovation!
Chrichton does it again by weaving an interesting tale of medieval culture with modern science. This is a must read for sci-fi readers and history buffs alike.
Rating:
Summary: Great book, non-stop read
Review: This was my first Crichton novel and I thought that it was amazing. I started reading it and could not stop. This book is full of action and adventure. I actually thought that time travel was possible after reading it explained in this book. I'd recommend this book to anyone who likes sci-fi or fantasy.
Rating: 
Summary: Has it come to this?
Review: If your aim is to while away time--in an airplane, in the dentist's waiting room, wherever--this works fine, but that's really all I can say for it. As fluff stuff goes TIMELINE is not top grade, but it is all right. Don't get me wrong: I like fluff as much as the next guy, and even if you disagree and think this IS top grade fluff stuff, that's fine by me. It is NOT fine by me if you call it "a masterpiece"--not because I myself happen to consider it mediocre, but because the nature of the genre itself rules out the possibility of masterpieces. Understand me, by "the genre" I do not mean science fiction--science fiction has masterpieces (Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" and H.G. Wells's "The Time Machine", for examples)--; I mean fluff: There are no fluff masterpieces. You'd might as well compare Britney Spears to Mozart, and our (lack of) culture has got to a sorry state when this is not universally recognized.
Rating:
Summary: Time Travel? Ho Hum...
Review: "Timeline" is an uneasy mixture of "Jurassic Park" (without the dinosaurs) and "The Princess Bride" (without the laughs). Once again, super-secret cutting edge technology puts a non-descript (i.e. dull) group of scientists in mortal jeapordy. Can they escape the snarling knights and return to the 20th century before time runs out? Does anyone really care? For all the dangers that the 14th century apparently presented, Crichton is simply not a good enough writer to maintain any suspense whatsoever. His "action" scenes read like outlines for a proposed screenplay. And because the characters are such ciphers, our emotions are never invested in what happens to them. Don't waste your time.
Rating: 
Summary: Anthony Michaels review for "Timeline"
Review: It was a very good book. Very well written, and very well edited. Michael Crichton, again, managed to entertain his readers. It had a creative and wonderful story, along with great action. The only reason this book got 4 stars instead of 5, was because it was a little drawn out. The story wasn't as confusing, but some parts of the book were kind of boring, which is why it got the number of stars that it did. But, please don't get me wrong. This is an excellent book, and if you read it... I think you'll enjoy it.ALSO WRITTEN BY MICHAEL CRICHTON
The Andromeda Strain
Jurassic Park
Sphere
Rating: 
Summary: Crichton disappoints me.....disappoints me terribly.
Review: It is difficult to believe that the man who wrote excellent novels such as "The Great Train Robbery" and "The Andromeda Strain" actually had this garbage published. Crichton takes the concept of time travel, propably the most worn-out and overused idea of science fiction, and implements it in a manner so moronic and unconvincing that I actually had difficulty believing he wrote the damn thing. Perhaps he left it to his marketing team. ;) Timeline features a rich array of stereotypical characters and a plot with more holes than a Swiss cheese, intertwined with implausible physics techno-babble. The majority of this 500 page book is spent on describing how the stereotypical protagonists again and again miraculously escape from brutal death at the hands of late 14th century butchers. I cannot help but wonder if Crichton has let fame rise to his head. If he thinks he can get away with stuff like Timeline, he's wrong. This is trash, and even worse, it's popular trash.
Rating:
Summary: Good, if a bit slow
Review: A corporation in New Mexico has figured out how to send people back in time. Meanwhile, a professor working for them in France wonders how they know certain things about the medieval site he's working on. The professor travels to New Mexico to find out what is going on, he ends up traveling back in time and getting stuck there. Now a group of historians must travel back to the 14th century to rescue their professor... While other reviewers seemed to be disappointed that there wasn't more science in the book, I was quite happy about that. I would have liked to read more about them in the medieval period. The concept of the book was very interesting. The problem was that it really dragged in parts. In fact, the first 100 pages or so were so slow that I almost gave up on the book. Overall I ended up liking it, so I'm glad I pushed on.
Rating:
Summary: A familiar successful formula
Review: Michael Crichton uses a similar formula to tell his tale in Timeline as he used in Jurassic Park. He fabricates a quasi-believeable scientific breakthrough to create an almost realistic adventure. In Jurassic Park, he uses the utterly brilliant concept of using DNA gleaned from insects trapped in prehistoric amber to replicate dinosaurs. The concept used in Timeline is slightly less remarkable. Quantum theory is used by a high tech corporation as the basis for time transportation. Characters in the book are sent back to the Dordogne river valley in France in the Middle Ages to rescue a colleague that has become trapped there. The story shifts back and forth from the boardroom of the huge corporation to the midst of The Hundred Years War in 1347. I found that I was more involved with the action taking place in the feudal Middle Ages, which was far less predictable than the present day. Although Crichton did an adequate job in describing the Middle Age setting, I definitely craved more of that. All in all, I kept on turning those pages but there were times that I longed to be lost in the past, as the characters were, rather than muddling through the present.
Rating:
Summary: Crichton doesn't write books, he writes screenplays.
Review: A truly desperate effort to pen one on space-time. The first few chapters squeeze-in some interesting theoretical-physics (pre-existing and proposed theories like quantum foam, dimensional interference etc.) to set the base for a poor storyline in false hopes to sling-shot a then drawn-out medieval tale. Crichton should stick with the pop genera.
Rating:
Summary: Transmission Errors Indeed!
Review: Mark Twain did this much better in A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN KING ARTHUR'S COURT (itself derivative). It would seem that it is a great advantage to believe that literature must stand on its own merit, not on a future movie rendering. Alright, alright, Crichton is no Twain, but still I can see no excuse for issuing this shameless screenplay as a novel. I look for TIMELINE to appear on the Sci Fi Channel or perhaps HBO rather than as a major motion picture. But what do I know - no doubt Crichton made a bundle on the awful CONGO.
| 
