Rating: 
Summary: Don't waste your time...
Review: Yet again, Crichton lets the science overshadow little things like plot, character development, and so forth. Mike, a word to the wise. If I wanted to read a book on theoretical quantum physics, I would buy a book on theoretical quantum physics. If I wanted to read a book on medieval history, I would buy a book on medieval history. When I read a fiction piece, I want to read about well-developed characters in a well-paced plot delivering believable dialogue. Three things this "novel" was completely lacking in.
Rating: 
Summary: Hold on to your seats.........
Review: This book is tiring. I mean that in a good way. The characters (graduate students) have 37 hours to spend in medieval France trying to retreive their professor from being caught in the past forever. The amount of action crammed into this 37 hours is unbelievable. Just when you think that the students won't make it out of their current situation, they are thrust into another scrape more harrowing than the previous one.The students are slashed by swords, pierced by arrows, knocked unconscious, almost drown in a river, and get caught in explosions (just to name a few episodes), but like the Energizer Bunny, they keep on ticking. Following the action was hard at times. Some of the suspense inherent in the action scenes was lost because it took too much effort to visualize exactly what was taking place. The diagrams helped somewhat. I enjoyed the time travel theory, but the book was heavy on technical explanations. Learning more about the medieval time period was a bonus. All in all, a quick, fun read.
Rating: 
Summary: Strongly Recommend it!
Review: The whole book is like a journey, that you follow. Each chapter sweeps you into another world. The way that the time traveling is explained, I don't see why it's impossible! I mean it's very scientific and totally interesting. Maybe a little too much blood, but most of Crichton's books are that way. It's a good choice to make, read it, and you will like it.
Rating:
Summary: You've got a time machine and a movie camera....
Review: ...and the first place you send it is to record the Gettysburg Address? Wouldn't the first place you'd send it be to watch the Red Sea part (or not)? Or to watch Jesus walk on water (or not)? Or to see who killed JFK? The whole book is filled with stuff like this that just doesn't make any sense. You will be infuriated by it.
Rating: 
Summary: Not his best but still a very good story
Review: The best things Crichton wrote, in my opinion, are the jurassic books (Jurrasic Park & The Lost World). The other books weren't that good but they were interesting enough, some of them better (Congo, Andromeda strain) and some worse (Disclosure, Airframe, Terminal Man). Timeline falls in the category of Congo andAndromeda Strain. It's not great, but good. I love history, so this was a bonus for me while reading it. One of the things I love the most about Crichton is his imagination. He allways thinks and writes about technologies that aren't exist. But the beauty in it is that it's not impossible, and maybe someday it will be common. That makes him something like a modern Julles Verne, predicting the future. Crichton makes it sound very realistic as in this book, when he describes time travel as a possible technology. The suspence in the book and the graet characters ad a lot of good qualities to the book. The only problem is that there are not enough surprises in the plot.
Rating: 
Summary: Typical Chricton
Review: A rather dull ramble through the usual Chricton style. The 'action' was slow, the characters flawed and the plot a litle underdeveloped. The only interesting part was the theory behind time travel. Here, Chricton shows his ability to perform detailed research and to put it accross in his clear and precise manner. Not a great read, but fairly interesting nonetheless.
Rating:
Summary: I can see the movie script now
Review: Crichton, author of such blockbuster book-turned-movies as Jurassic Park and Andromeda Strain has cooked up another scientifically interesting but rather vapid action book. I bought this book for my airplane/vacation read as I went down south this spring break and it kept me reading. The thought of time travel never ceases to be a hot topic in the sci-fi world. Authors are famous for cooking up new ways that this can be achieved and as a fan, I like that. Chrichton has done a good job of doing this; the concepts he brought up on quantum science and the possibility of other worlds were convincing and actually made me do some research about it on the Internet. With that said, Crichton still made one of those kind of action-packed books where the action implausibly continues non-stop. People are experiencing such cliches as hanging by their hands from water wheels, finding near death from waterfalls, and having to get back to the "present" just in time or they will be stuck in the past. The action scenes would probably make for an entertaining but not so original movie. I am hoping that they won't try to do it. After all, it was done already when it was called "Back to the Future". This book served its purpose in keeping me reading something light as I sat in the sun. But I don't think it was nearly as deep as Chrichton intended.
Rating:
Summary: I liked it.
Review: This book was pretty cool. I guess you could say I liked it. It was about quantum theory and time travel. The characters were pretty good. I think this book would make a cool movie. There is a plethora of research put into this book. I read this book fast. There were lots of exciting parts in the book. The knights were very brave. I thought one part was funny, too. I think it was Chris. He was on the horse and he was running toward the other guy, and he couldn't see.
Rating:
Summary: Cliche City
Review: Fairly entertaining, but I got the distinct impression that Crichton gathered every science fiction, action/adventure, and medieval cliche he could find and crammed them into this book. Main characters are shallow, intriguing characters (the Gallup cop, for one) are dropped. After awhile, I greeted every new twist with "Oh, please -- like we haven't seen that one a few hundred times." For someone who purports to want to set the record straight about the middle ages, Crichton seems to me to pretty much follow the images established by old Hollywood. And his explanations about time and inter-universe travel conflict each other all over the place. You know, I really liked "Coma".
Rating:
Summary: Criticism valid -- so what?
Review: Read all the critiques you want about this book: It's formulaic (you can almost hear Crichton "plugging in" his characters into the Jurassic Park templates: the dubious scientist, the nasty obnoxious mastermind, etc.), it reads more like a screenplay than a novel, character continuity is completely thrown out the window... all of it's true, and none of it really matters... "Timeline" is a fun, fast read, with Crichton's trademarked meticulous research, both into the quantum theories going into his time travel apparati (note the bizzarre statements, typical of trying to explain quantum phenomena in everyday terms), and the details of "Dark Age" life (the phrase getting a well-deserved debunking by Chrichton at the end of the novel). Sit back for an evening or two, and go back to when chivalry wasn't dead (although you might be, if you're not careful), castles were deadly serious places, and plotting, fighting, backstabbing, and intrigue were all part of a day's work.
| 
