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Summary: I'm with Haschka
Review: Joe Haschka's review hit the nail on the head. Disjointed and pompous, and the characters are utter cyphers. Blathering dreck with an incredibly disappointing ending. What happens to Andre? We'll never know. And "the Professor"? The one on Gilligan's island had more personality. Dreadful.
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Summary: Can I go back in time - before I wasted it on reading this?
Review: "Timeline" is nothing more than a rewrite of "Jurrasic Park," all the way down to the motives of the evil industrialist. Formula through and through - don't waste your time.
Rating: 
Summary: When are they going to film this one
Review: I am eager to see this fiction being adapted to silver screen. It has a wonderful mix of modern physics, suspense, early middle age adventure, some romance ( a little). I'd wish that there is a sequel to this one (just to know more what happen to Andre Marek).
Rating: 
Summary: Very Disappointing
Review: While I usually love reading Michael Crichton's books, this one was a disappointment for me. I did not find it up to the author's usual high standards. The story was not as captivating, and the background information Crichton usually includes, enabling readers to be further educated as well as entertained, was in limited supply. I felt like the author was more interested in writing a preliminary screenplay than a good publication. This is one Crichton book I would NOT recommend.
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Summary: Gee, I've written a book and a film in only one day!
Review: Heralded (by that great literary arbiter the Financial Times) as 'his best since Jurassic Park', Timeline had to be good to live up to the expectations it raised, and, true to the trend he began with 'The Lost World', Michael Crichton again demonstrates that no matter how good a film outline is, it doesn't make it a good book. He still displays above average inventiveness, he still fills his pages with action and verve, but being Hollywood's favourite author and top of the bestseller list time and again has made him lazy. Timeline is the bare bones of an idea, packaged by a factory worker, not a creative author. Plot, character, pacing, realism, rationalism, and historical authenticity seem to have fallen by the wayside in place of the regular movie message - cut it down to easily identifiable stereotypes, fill it with dare-devil antics and lots of skin's-teeth escapes, and it'll be a blockbuster. Too bad.As I said, Timeline is a lazy book, and reads more as one of those lousy fantasy books that place spectacle before every other of the writer's arts. In Jurassic Park, we had believable characters placed in a believable setting and subjected to a scientifically believable situation, and thus there was tension as to the outcome. In Timeline, he introduces Marek as 'tall, and very strong; muscles rippled beneath his T-shirt', which makes you go: 'hmm, is Marek going to be just another invincible 80's Arnold Schwarzenegger subhuman superhero?' And of course, the answer is yes. So instantly, you don't believe in the characters. Then, the setting: I don't know much about the Middle Ages, but I know enough to notice a clear division between the reality (grimy, dirty, dangerous) and the pretty-coloured Errol Flynn version propagated by this book. So maybe the situation can save the book - time travel is impossible, but travelling between different dimensions can be done. Okay, I can accept that, as Crichton backs it up with enough scientific explanations to keep any physics teacher happy. However, it then goes: 'so we can travel back into the 14th century, next question?' and you go: 'Woah, hold on, you just said time travel is impossible, crossing into another dimension is not the same as going back in time' but it moves on and fails to clear up that little enigma. Oh well. In conclusion, Timeline is quite a lot of fun, provided you don't pay attention to the pseudo-science, can stomach the Hollywood myth of how knights-in-shining-armour really looked and acted, and don't mind being denied any real characterisation. And where did this trend of marrying off characters at the end of books begin? Out of the blue, wham, both male characters get married, which has been set up by a line earlier on which reads something like: 'she suddenly realised that she actually found him quite attractive'. But hey, it would make a great movie, so what's the point of resisting? The book as an alternative to film is dying: if you need more proof, buy Timeline, and I promise you, you won't be disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: Very good and exciting
Review: The thing I like best about Michael Chrichton is his research he does for his books. Because of that, he knows what he writes about. Take "Jurassic Park" for example. You know that it is impossible to bring dinosaurs back to life, but in the way Michael Chrichton explaned it, you almost belive in it (as a little kid, when I first saw "Jurassic Park", I did actualy). Now he does the same with "TimeLine". In the past, everytime when someone is going to travel through time, nobody gives a good explanation how they do it. They just can. But in "TimeLine", Michael gives an explanation where you almost believe in. And when they are in the past (the middle ages, in this book), the main characters are presented with a lot of problems they have to deal with, which are logic. Things we now consider as normal, was in that time something you had to die for. Take short hair for woman for example. If you had that as a girl in the middle ages, you had to die because you were acting like a boy, and that was strictly forbidden. So the story that takes place in the past is very exciting, but the ones left behind in the present have to deal with a lot of problems too, because otherwise, they can't come back. And there are a lot of other problems, which you have to read for yourself. And, I loved the ending.
Rating: 
Summary: Pleasant page-burner
Review: Or in this case, mileage-burner, since I listened to the tapes during my usual 40-minute commute to and from work. A friend gave me the recording and I decided to try it. It consisted of four 2-hour tapes. I'd listened to short sci-fi stories on tape before but had never tried a full-length novel. The person reading the book does a good job of doing the different voices. It appears to have been "voiced" by a single actor/reader who does everything. It's not exactly like having a full-production with different actors but it was okay as is, as the person who did it is pretty good with the different voices. As a pleasant way to pass the time while driving in the car, you could do worse. The basic premise of the story is that you can use some properties of quantum particles to travel between different worlds made possible by these different quantum dimensions or properties. One of the scientist characters explains this is based on some speculation and/or research by Richard Feynman, the famous physicist and Nobel Laureate. I am a little out of date with my physics, but what I do recall is a little different from the way it was explained in the story. Feynman once showed mathematically that a positron could be explained as an electron moving backwards in time. This doesn't mean this is how it works out in reality--merely that there is no mathematical problem or contradiction in describing it this way. But back to the book. Whatever the real explanation is, Crichton uses this quantum time-travel gimmick to take you on a swashbuckling adventure back to the midst of the Hundred Years War in France, in the mid-1300's. This was a very dangerous time, where treachery and death seemed to lurk behind every castle or even monastery wall. An important professor has disappeared back into this time, and a rescue party is dispatched to retrieve him. One of the team is a modern archaeologist who is expert on the period and can even speak Middle English and French. He has waited his whole life for a chance like this, but even he gets more than he bargained for. I'm about 3/4 thru with the tapes so I don't know who it ends yet, but as a pleasant way to pass otherwise wasted commute time, this little historical thriller was better than most. No doubt it will be made into a movie.
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Summary: Very Exciting and Interesting
Review: This was the first Michael Crichton book I've read, and I can't wait to read another! I would recommend this book for anyone who is a fan or interested in Sci-Fi / History / Action. This action packed thriller kept me thinking all day about the advanced technology in this book and how maybe someday it could happen. Timeline was so interesting that I read it in a couple of days! I couldn't put it down! I have to warn some people though, if you are not familiar with some math or science, BEWARE, this book will make no sense to you.
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Summary: Timeline Summary and opinion
Review: Many novels have original sounding titles which draw attention and make a person want to read them, while many other novels have very unoriginal titles. I, for one, am attracted by the sound of certain titles of books and look forward to reading them. Timeline by Michael Crichton was an extremely original sounding title, and it appeared to have an extremely exciting plot. An exciting plot is also accompanied by many creative ideas. But, sometimes, novels that begin with exciting plots tend to fizzle out towards the middle of the story and taper off like a burnt candle at the end, leaving the reader very disappointed. In Timeline, an exciting adventure through time, a group of scientists must go back in time to help save a friend. In doing so, they encounter many problems relating to mediaeval times. Michael Crichton describes the adventures that befall this group of people in great detail using vivid language. However, on further reading, I found that there were too many problems that the group of scientists had to encounter and the solutions to these problems were very unrealistic and appeared to be based in fantasy. But, overall, the book made very enjoyable reading
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Summary: A Great Starting Point for a Series
Review: I agree with most reviewers that character development was sorely missing from the book. And, yes, it does read like a screen play more than a novel. Yet I still found myself fully enjoying the read and hoping that this is just a "jumping off" point for a series of books.
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