Rating: 
Summary: Great beginning but eventually falls apart
Review: This was a terrific read up to the point where the archeologists actually travel to the 14th century. It seems Crichton didn't really know what to do beyond that point, so decided to pile on a thick layer of medieval butchery and gore to compensate for a disintegrating plot. Disappointingly, it was never explained why the inventors of the technology chose this particular time and place in France. There was some muttering about Disneyworld for time travellers (can you spell Jurassic Park?) but this lack of a "why" made the book seem silly in the end.
Rating:
Summary: Don't expect too much science here
Review: Crichton leads the reader to believe that this book is about time travel and one expects him to explain all that he knows about it. He initially succeeds, but the scientific background for which Crichton is so famous comprises only a quarter of the book. The rest of Timeline involves the main characters stuck in 14th century France and constantly avoiding caputure and death. Little else happens. Indeed every time traveling character in the novel should have been killed, injured, tortured or imprisoned half way into the book. Crichton of course finds a way to get them out of trouble regardless of the circumstances. While this group is back in time, another group of underdeveloped characters don't seem too alarmed that their friends are lost 600 years in time. They attempt to get back their friends home, but the head of the time travel operation, a cruel and selfish corporate head, doesn't invest much in getting them back despite the risk to their lives. One suspects that someone THAT bad would get theirs in the end, but Crichton doesn't end Timeline as most readers might expect, and it rings hollow.Crichton can tell a story well, and he does a fine job keeping a reader at the edge of his seat. While he may have set out to write a book on medieval France, one expects some science spread throughout the book, and in this regard, he just doesn't deliver as well as he is capable.
Rating: 
Summary: great book
Review: Timeline by Michael Crichton is a really good book. i reccomend that anyone who is interested in history or even if you're not, you will like this book. this was my first book that i've read by Crichton and i thought it was a really good book. i didn't want to put it down. i don't even usually like to read, but i liked this one. i definitely reccomend you read it.
Rating:
Summary: I Can Smell A Movie
Review: Great mixture of science fiction and fantasy. The action in the book was paced so well, I didn't want to put the book down until I reached the end. The story-telling was vivid to the point that the morning after I was done with the book, I had the feeling I had watched a movie rather than read a book. It felt like I was an extra person in the characters' midst when I was reading the story. The fantasy portion of the book should appeal to those who like stories about the medieval period of knights and damsels in distress. The only drawback to me was that the technical parts explaining the theory behind travelling to another time/universe was a little convoluted. Crichton does a good job, but explaining quantum theory to a layman was always going to be a difficult task. How the characters could pinpoint a destination time and place precisely, and how they came up with an electronic Babel Fish (bells should go off if you've read the Hitchhiker's Guide series by Douglas Adams) was not really explained. However, if you're not the type to look at and question every single detail, this is an adventure that is truly captivating. It has knights and castles and secret tunnels; it has power struggles; it has violence; it has a hero and a love interest; it has cool technology; it even has a jerk who only has his goal in mind and doesn't give two hoots about what happens to his employees. It set my imagination to overdrive. I will be patiently (or impatiently) waiting for the movie.
Rating:
Summary: Good use of history!!
Review: This novel falls slightly short of masterpiece, but does not disappoint you in any way. Good mix of history, science and thrill!!
Rating: 
Summary: Crichton has a new masterpeice
Review: Crichton uses a powerful combination of history, science, and action to make this book a powerful masterpeice. This book is fast paced and exciting and he uses fascinating new scientific concepts that I find particularly intriguing. If you are a Crichton fan at all you will love this book. I havn't read a better book in a while.
Rating:
Summary: good mix of fiction and physics
Review: Couldn't put it down. Brilliantly meshes science and fiction.
Rating:
Summary: The best by this author
Review: This is his masterpiece! I loved his characters they seem to come alive! Great excitement!
Rating: 
Summary: Crightonesque: predictable page-turning action
Review: What an interesting subject ot write about, but about two hundred pages into the book, I knew exactly what was going to happen: the man enthralled by these times wants to -and does- stay behind; everybody past the first one hundred pages survives throughout the rest of the book; all but the enthralled man make it back safe. Maybe Mr. Chrichton should have just written a physics journal or something, because these incredibly thin plots became stale some time ago. He has so much promise (Sphere, in my opinion, ranking in the upper echelon of fiction)! But I just do not see why the story in this case must be so damn simple. It would have been so nice for the complexity of the story to match that of the subject. Sorry, Mr. Crichton; with all due respect, I disliked this novel. But I will say that he attempts to innovate subjectwise with every book he writes, and this is beyond commendable.
Rating: 
Summary: a cartoon
Review: Judged on its own terms this is okay, but there is so much of this sort of thing churned out regularly that I am not satisfied with these terms. Its prose is plodding, its dialogue crude. Characters are introduced gratuitously and never return. A great effort seems to have been made never to use a word or expression (except for the "science") that the lowest of lowbrow readers might not be familiar with. (I suppose this is a savvy commercial move, but I often felt I was watching "Sesame Street".) Its depiction of the fourteenth century is fun for a while, but completely ridiculous. Its "scientific" (not) explanation of time-travel is lifted whole from David Deutsch's "The Fabric of Reality" (which, though it purports to be popular science, is really science fiction itself--not very good science fiction either). Although I didn't care for Connie Willis's "The Doomsday Book" (published several years earlier), I am uncomfortable with "Timeline"'s rather remarkable resemblances to it. It is difficult for me to believe these resemblances are fortuitous.
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