Timeline

Rating:
Summary: Time travel and a whole lot more
Review: Books like Timeline are the reason I like to read so much. I read fiction to be engrossed and as a means to escape into another world. Timeline delivered this in spades. It is easily one of the most fulfilling novels of fiction I have ever read.

The first 100 pages or so of the novel deal with a professor and his graduate students studying a historic site in France as part of a school thesis. Or so they think. The professor soon finds out that the project is in reality funded through a corporation by the name of ITC, whose motives smell rather fishy to him. Upon learning this, he promptly flies back to America to have a word with the CEO of ITC. Meanwhile, the students at the site are dumbfounded about the professor's dissapearance. They don't hear anything for a while until a representative of ITC informs them that the professor is stuck in medieval France in the year 1357 and on the same site they've been researching as a result of an experimentation gone wrong using ITC's qantum travel equipment. ITC needs their help. Since these students have spent the past two summers researching the site and know it so well, ITC enlists a small group of four of them to go back in time to retrieve the professor and bring him back safely to the present time.

From then on the book turns into a full blown fantsy action adventure as good as any I've ever read. Not only is this book fun as hell, Crichton educates the reader on a wide range of topics: science, anthropolgy, quantum physics and of course tons of history. What amazes me is how he is able to explain these complex concepts in simple terms. The characters are very well drawn, although I found Chris to be a stumbling and bumbling idiot. If there is one thing that bothered me slightly about Timeline is that it sometimes felt to me as though Crichton was writing a movie script. As we all know, every single book of his gets the movie treatment. It will be interesting to see how Hollywood treats this novel (the movie is slated for a November 2003 release). Hopefully it will be better than "Sphere", that's all I will say on that.

Rating:
Summary: amazing book
Review: this book is one of his best works and i would recommend it to anyone who wants a book that keep them thinking on what will happen next this is the one. The action is great and the characters are awesome the choice he made for each one and how they act was perfect it just proves he knows what is doing when it comes to writting a great book I feel this is one of his best works to date

Rating:
Summary: Great Crichton Books
Review: Michael Crichton is a terrific writer! I consider this one of his best books, and I should know, since I've read most of them. It has alot of Quantum mechanics in it, which many reviewers complained about, but it is not necessary to understand it to understand the plot. It is one of Crichton's best work in my opinion! A must read for Crichton Fans!

Rating:
Summary: English Class w 132!!! TimeLine by Miles
Review: Timeline by Michael Crichton is a book about the medieval era and time travel. The book starts out slow, and keeps the slow pace thoughout the first ten chapters of the book. This however does not effect the book's story, the technical information presented within the first ten chapters of the book is imprortant for understanding the story and enjoying it.
The first chapters seem to focus more on the technical aspect of time travel, and a mystery around the company that deals with time teavel. The story is enjoyable and the technical parts are interesting. Once past the technical aspect of the story the action starts. A team of Medieval reserchers are sent back into the past in order too rescue a fellow researcher. The action keeps uo to the end of the book, and the ending does not leave you wondering what happens next.
The books was well written and is one of the best Crichton books out there since Jurassic Park. For some Crichton may be a bit boring and his books may be a bit tedious to read. If it was not for his focus on the little details of the story, it would not have been as believable as it was while I was reading it. I would recommend this books to anyone that likes to read fiction.

Rating:
Summary: One of my favorite books
Review: The book has an overpowering way of contorlling your life, so that you just sit and read all day! The suspence is emmence, and The situations believable. A must read for Crichton fans.

Rating:
Summary: Great premise, weak execution
Review: Time travel, knights, castles and an evil villain - this should have been a slam dunk page turner. Sorry, but this book was more miss than hit for me. The idea of time travel is very appealing (at least to me) and when the writer does his homework (always a Crichton trademark) about the facts and history, the story can be spellbinding. But I found Timeline to be weak on plot, weak on dialogue, and even weaker on characters. I didn't feel good about any of the main players and the cartoon character of the villain made me yawn. If you want to read a better time travel classic, read Time and Again by Jack Finney. It's probably the best novel on the subject and it makes Timeline look like an amateur's first draft.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent book, a bit overdone
Review: This was a great book, make no mistake about it. It was a fantastic idea, backed by good scientific explanation (for the layman), and had nice character development and plot distribution. It was, however, about 170 pages too long. About three quarters of the way through the book, Crichton gets away from the plot progression and spends way too long just letting his characters run around and fight soldiers, hide, and struggle to stay alive. This could have been done in 20 pages easily, but the plot just churns on mindless action and stagnates. Finally, after what seems like an eternity, the plot picks back up and the novels concludes. Great book, however, despite the pothole. A must read!

Rating:
Summary: Mind fluff meets quantum physics
Review: An archeological dig is funded by a huge technology company. When the question arises as to the real reason this company would be funding an archeology dig, it becomes clear that ITC has been working on a secret technology that would allow people to "go back in time". That's when the Professor overseeing this particular dig decides to take a trip into the past and see for himself, and he promptly gets taken prisoner. The only ones who can save him are 4 of his students, who are sent back for him.

TIMELINE was an incredibly fast read. There was a lot of dialogue, exciting battle scenes, and it was clear that Chrichton had put a lot of work into getting the technological and historical details just right. There were quite a few plot-twists along the way, and I really enjoyed those. The narrative pacing was extremely well done - I was enthralled by the book to the point that I wanted to read it in one sitting, cover to cover. The plot line itself was very creative. Having the technology available to time-travel was a fascinating premise, and it became even more interesting when the recovery team was stranded in the past along with their professor.

A few questions arose time and time again throughout this novel: if time-travel were possible, could we influence the past and thus, change the future? And just how important is it to know our history and to understand how the world we live in now was influenced by the past?

At times the book seemed a little too easy to read. Mind fluff can be fun, but every now and again I was craving something a little more challenging, especially since the premise had so much potential. However, the technological detail, and the discussion about quantum physics was fascinating, so there was a fairly good mix of theoretical speculation and action.

I'd recommend TIMELINE to Chrichton fans, as well as to those interested in historical details.

Rating:
Summary: Absolutely fabulous!
Review: This book is my favorite of all time. Very vivid, adventourous, and just A number 1! Crichton really broke the mold with this one! It describes it in very practical, reality terms making it almost believable. It's a must read for anyone that loves history, Crichton, or adventure.

Rating:
Summary: Medieval France and Quantum Physics?
Review: Timeline is another of Michael Crichton's amazing books that tend to take complex subjects such as airplane mechanics in Airframe, DNA in Jurassic Park, or in this case Quantum physics and mix them into perfect plots. You can tell that Crichton did a tremondous amount of research before writing this book which makes it all the better. The characters in this book are realistic, yet not so typical to the point that you can predict their every action. Timeline portrays Medieval France to be in my opinion, just plain frightening. Not that this ruins the book, it actually makes it fun to read. There are a large amount of unexpected surprises that keep the reader interested as well. Every event in this book seemed needed, and by the end of Timeline i was satisfied completely. Another great feature of this book is the amount of action in it. It wil definately keep you reading. I dont think i can really find a dull moment that wasnt needed. Overall, this book was truly excellent, Michael Crichton never ceases to amaze.