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Summary: This was a great book!
Review: Michael Crighton did it again. Another fantastic book! The warriors, the knights. I really felt like I could explain the past. He really fooled me with this one, Jurassic Park, i knew they would get out alive. But Timeline, I wasn't sure. That's all you need in a book. Suspense, good plot, and of course, imagination. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes Sci-Fi, or history. One ore thing, I didnt know squat about Quantum Physics, and I still read and understood the book!!
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Summary: Imaginative
Review: The book Timeline by Michael Crichton is one of the most imaginative books I have ever read. The way the author incorporates all of the tangent stories that he tells is especially invigorating. I love how he leaves character traits to implication so he doesn't describe every habit: "Edward Johnston, Regius Professor of History at Yale, squinted as the helicopter thumped by overhead" (p 48). This book is very suspenseful and I highly recommend it to those with a child's heart and an active imagination.
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Summary: 14th century France through the eyes of historians
Review: I listened to the unabridged audio version of Timeline and I don't know whether that is why I enjoyed it more than many other reviewers. The audio version is wonderful. Fortunately, the cast is fairly small, but Stephen Lang's reading never left me in doubt as to which character was speaking.The complaints in some reviews about the science in the book are puzzling. David Deutsch's "many worlds" theory is real science, not fiction. All Crichton had to do was give a brief, simplified explanation of "multiverses" and imply that his fictional company had found some variation on this. Nobody's intelligence is being insulted here and Amazon has several books for sale on the subject for anybody who's interested in learning more. Most importantly, Timeline is a book about history, not science fiction. A group of university archaelogists investigating an old monastery are "teleported" back to the real thing: fourteenth century France. We then get a guided tour of life in those days through the eyes of historians -- alternately thrilled at seeing what they had only imagined and stunned by what they'd got wrong. Crichton has a tendency to be didactic, but he really is a wonderful teacher. The history lesson rides along on the back on a fast-moving adventure story - of course our heroes run into trouble - and comes to a satisfying conclusion.
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Summary: Review from Author, Joy Lee Rutter
Review: If the characters expressed more feeling, and normal human reaction to what they experience, it would have easily earned 5 stars. That aside, I have to admit, I read it from cover to cover, and loved the concept. The explanation of "faxing" a person to another of the many universes actually sounded do-able and yes, I recommend the book, and sorry I missed the movie. Now I have to patiently await its arrival on DVD. Now...if only I could get my hands on that machine to "fax" a couple of my peers to another universe...another time...
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Summary: Great ideas, great action, but robotic charachters.
Review: Crichton's books are chock full of interesting facts and carefully crafted plausibility, but the characters are shallow. They are like little sims playing out the personality traits they are given when they are introduced. Still - time travel is fun to think think about and that's what the book's really about. It starts slow, but it's a real page turner by the end.
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Summary: Hard to put down
Review: Novels and films require its fans to suspend their disbelief, but if they have to suspend too far, the medium becomes laughable. Crichton has a unique ability to create situations that, although currently impossible, seem absolutely probable to his readers. This ability shines in Timeline. He has scientific theory to support time travel and also gives us an accurate and compelling glimpse into life in the 14th century. This is a difficult novel to put down and does not disappoint. Whereas many novels fizzle toward the end, this one never lets go.
Rating:
Summary: pretty good
Review: Timeline is a fascinating book that involves quantum physics. The idea of time travel is fascinating but Michael Crichton makes it slightly boring with his explanations of quantum physics. This allows the author to bury the reader with extraneous details that are not really necessary to the story. Other than that it was really good. I have read his other books and this one follows the same pattern as Jurassic park. It jumps around from character to character making it slightly difficult to follow. Chrichton goes into more detail than necessary in explaining how things work. This conflicts with the lightning fast pace of action that makes you wish he told you that something works and not how it works. This book reads considerably faster than his other novels and is also shorter.
Rating: 
Summary: Entertaining
Review: I have read a number of Crichton books, from his early novels to the most recent. After a string of books that I thought were dissappointing and actering more to Hollywood, 'Timeline' was better. Crichton's explaination of the history, the locations, and the peroid were great. The plot was fast paced and once I was hooked the book was hard to put down. The science behind time travel was a little weak. Having read books on quantum physics (I am far from knowledgable)I understood Crichton's concept of alternative universes. However, I couldn't buy Crichton's handling of the time travel paradox and if the characters were in the past. These are minor points. They raised some questions for me, but the story was non the less very good. Even though a movie has been made of this book I didn't get the feeling that the plot was laid out for a script. Enjoy!
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Summary: Crichton is true to form; science sans SciFi
Review: Like most Crichton readers, it seems you either love him or hate him. After reading many of the reviews here, that maxim still appears to hold true. With TIMELINE, Crichton has created a novel transcending genres...science fiction, factual science (i.e. non-fiction), and historical fiction. Regardless the reader's liking of the storyline, this genre-crossing is a monumental task in and of itself, particularly when a great deal of the "facts" are indeed, facts. If nothing else, we know Michael Crichton for his great creativity and abundant resources. However, you gotta love him for his intellect. Edward Johnston, a professor of history, is the leader of an archeological dig for a castle near the Monastery of Sainte-Mere, in France. The dig is being financed by a wealthy international corporation interested in excavating and reconstructing the site to convert to a tourist attraction. Johnston and his crew of three graduate students are provided with information from this corporation which is seemingly dubious, as most of this information could not be known without actually having excavated the site. Johnston is floored and infinitely curious when he discovers that his client does indeed have information about the dig site that has yet to be discovered, and it appears to be factual. True to his inquisitive nature, Johnston heads to New Mexico to investigate and speak with Robert Doniger, head of the corporation, ITC. Soon after Johnston leaves for New Mexico, the graduate students uncover a hidden room and an impossible, incredible message...an SOS that Johnston wrote to them - in 1357! Upon arriving in New Mexico, Johnston meets with Doniger and learns that ITC is into quantum mechanics and has developed a "quantum-fax machine" capable of "faxing" a person to a parallel universe (i.e. time travel). What makes this fax-cum-time travel work is the grand scale of it all-Crichton sets up big stakes. The scientific mechanics would have the person traveling vaporized by lasers, then "faxed" through tiny wormholes into another potential universe, of which there are an infinite number. Crichton shows us a big underground complex, fabulous cyclotron-scale machinery and a compelling demonstration of the technology. This is big science involving huge risks; it is grand in scope and the details "feel" right. We want to suspend disbelief for time travel because time travel has reached a mythological status in our society. Who wouldn't want to travel back in time? Thus, the story begins. The grad students are suddenly intrigued and mortified as Johnstons medievel SOS indicates and imminent need to be rescued. Not only do they have to make their way through 14th Century France to find the professor and bring him home - but they also have an incredibly short deadline...or become trapped in the 14th century forever. The story that follows is told in incredible historical detail, medievel at it best. We have sword fights, damsels in distress, twisted,cruel villains, and other stereotypical characters. While science does play a major role in this story, it is peripheral in nature as this storyline is true fantasy albeit true-to-life. Without any doubt, this is a fast-paced thriller. A truly thrilling read and, I'm certain, soon-to-be-released movie.
Rating:
Summary: Impossible to put down
Review: A riveting story of a ruthless technology company head who discovers a wormhole to the past, then uses company employees and graduate students as guinea pigs in time travel. The story begins as a mystery,which is later explained by quantum physics, and results in a group of graduate students trying to fix a compnay's foray into the medieval town of Castelgard, France. Suspense, science, and history all come together and make this an incredibly enjoyable read. Sure, some of the science is speculative, but that's why it's called science fiction. There wasn't anything I disliked about this novel.
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