Timeline - Large Print

Rating:
Summary: Dan Berg
Review: A group of student archeologists led by professor Johnston are digging up old monestary ruins and their sponsor ITC came to the groups encampment in france to take the professor to see the owner of the company Mr. Doniger.
After a few days the group becomes very concerned to the where abouts of the professor so they go and see the company for themselves and get things straightened out. ITC tells the archeologist group that the have been working on a machine that can break all laws of the known world.
This is a great novel that has many twists and turns that will leave the reader bewildered and wanting more. Micheal Crichton is a masterful wrighter that gives insight and factual detail that makes this novel so believable.

Rating:
Summary: Dan Berg
Review: It all starts off with this group of archeologists excavating these ruins in france. The group is led by professor Johnston. They don't realize that they are actually working on a monastary going back to the 14th century.
Their sponsor the major comapany ITC calls the professor to the main lab in Blackrock. After a few days with out the prof the rest of the group was getting worried so the go to the main building to the president Mr. Doniger to see what the deal was. So he had revealed the startiling truth to the group and then they have to go on to a resuce mission for the prof.
Micheal Crichton's work puts you into a surreal envrronment because when he wrights he puts many countless facts that may actually take place in the real wrold. With hsi style of writing you can feel like you are actually there with the main characters.

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Summary: "Timeline," a book for all ages
Review: "Timeline," yet another New York Times Best Seller by Michael Crichton, is an action packed adventure that begins when a young team of archeologists make a startling discovery at a medieval site in France. They eventually are transported across the ocean to a facility owned by a top-secret company, which is in control of a tremendous new technology, the ability to travel through time! Ultimately, the group of students is sucked back hundreds of years into the past, and when something goes wrong, they are left to fend for themselves in a strange new world. This novel is most definitely comparable with Crichton's other best-sellers such as "Jurassic Park," "The Andromeda Strain," and "The Great Train Robbery." To say this novel is suspenseful would be an understatement. "Timeline" is a thrilling work that sweeps you away and leaves you panting, wanting more. Crichton's brilliant imagination creates for the reader a world very different from our own with knights, battles, lords, and castles. He masterfully follows the archeologists as they explore their new world and ultimately fight for their very survival, blending new scientific concepts with his familiar excitement and adventure. In the book, the scientific explanations for a valid method of time travel are strikingly believable and leave you asking, "why not?" All in all, "Timeline" is an excellent read that will bring you along on a breathtaking journey...if you're up for it.

Rating:
Summary: Worth the 50 cents it cost me.
Review: (...) after having read and thoroughly enjoyed some of MC's past works I snatched it up.

In summary, if you love Crichton, you'll like it and if you aren't that enamored of his works, skip it.

By far, the biggest flaw in this book is that it (1) isn't consistent nor is it (2) as intelligent as one expects from Crichton.

It relies on the reader's suspension of disbelief, but so do all Sci-Fi stories. However, it relies on it more heavily than good tales should.

I put down the book at least a dozen times in frustration at the insult to my intelligence, wondering if MC had lost his ability to write books as smart as he did 10-15 years ago. However, I did finish the book -- if mostly to see how the author would attempt to resolve the mess he'd made.

(...)

[MILD SPOILER WARNING]

Early in the book he sets up a "reality" of time travel (and causality) by explaining about parallel universes, then violates it. If the bifocals were in a parallel universe, how did they end up where they were and in that condition?

That didn't completely spoil the story, but does indicate that the author needs an editor with the nerve to use a bit more red ink.

The two worst inconsistencies were:
1) the team sent "back" is there to rescue someone who's overstayed their 37 hours. So, if that's impossible why are they there? And if it is possible what's the big deal (aside from finding them)?
2) Why would the 37 hour limit affect the present "timeline" too?

Ultimately, the suspense that fuels the novel is contrived and poorly executed. A good editing job and another few weeks rewriting could have made this a MUCH better story.

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Summary: Review for Timeline by Michael Crichton
Review: -James Maloney

Overall, this book was very entertaining. If you're a person for sci-fi books, this book is for you. I learned a lot too. Now I kind of look at time and space a different way. How it begins with a couple finding an old man in a desert is very interesting. The characters aren't really important at all there but the plot that it leads up to is. The only problem about the book is that there are a lot of characters that are irrelevant to the story. Once you start to get to know a character, they don't come back for the rest of the story.

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Summary: i would have given it 10 stars...
Review: I am an avid reader, mostly concentrating on fiction such as Crichton, Tolkien, Carr, Wrede, Rowling, etc. So if you don't like any of those, then maybe this isn't the book for you...

But if you do then I would say that this is one of the best books I have ever read. I don't throw that around lightly either. Taking place in a time and place quite different from our own, I was completely drawn into this fictious world of knights and warfare. Having read this book no less than five times, it is still just as interesting each time. I have every single one of Crichton's books and in my opinion this is the best. Of course, medieval (spelling? ha) warfare is a subject I find extremely intriguing, so maybe that's why too...Nevertheless, two of my uncles also read Timeline and agreed with me, so I know I'm not completely alone. :)

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Summary: "Timeline" a Classic Crichton Thriller
Review: If you have read and enjoyed any book by Michael Crichton, it is well worth your time to read Timeline. The book is Chrichton's traditional mix of high-tech science and old-fashioned adventure. In short, Timeline is to time travel what Jurassic Park was to genetic engineering. While the similarities between the two might be enough to call them overly formulaic, it is definitely a good formula. This story will clearly become a movie in the near future (when reading it, try Sean Connery as Johnston and Antonio Banderas as Marek), and sell millions of copies, but don't allow Crichton's commercial success to spoil your enjoyment of the product. Timeline flows smoothly from cutting edge physics to obscure but interesting history to heart-stopping suspense, all Crichton trademarks. Few authors are able to make the reader simultaneously think and be entertained, yet with Timeline Chrichton does just this. This book is his best since Jurassic Park, perhaps because of a shared literary algorithm, and it may sound simple, but if you liked Jurassic Park, Timeline is worth your while.

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Summary: Can I go back in time & get my money back for this book?
Review: The only other Crichton novel I had read was Jurrasic Park and I really enjoyed it. So, after just finishing Barbara Tuchman's A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century, someone suggested Timeline. Good premise--history majors get to go back in time to rescue their professor. Too bad it was done so badly.

Someone already mentioned the huge leaps of faith you are required to perform in order to suspend disbelief, so I won't rehash. But if you can do it, the first 3/5 of the book aren't so bad. Sure, there's the gaping logic flaws ("If they're not really traveling back in time but to a different universe, why did the professor's message...oh, forget it.") and the 2-D characters, but the action is good. So, if you're a sucker for medieval history & way of life, you'll enjoy most of the book, as I did.

However, the ending of the book just sucks all the joy out of the entire story. SPOILER ALERT!!!! One of the coolest parts of the book for me was Gordon admitting that they didn't know how the people re-appeared on the "other side"--that, in effect, someone ELSE in a parallel universe did know & was doing it for them. Wow, what a premise--these aren't the "real" Chris & Andre', but from a universe who is even more technologically advanced! Too bad it was never revisited. Ever. Then take into account Crichton waxing poetic about Andre's self-immersion into all things medieval--it was patently obvious that something was going to go wrong & he would volunteer to stay behind at some point. And what about our evil coporate CEO, Doniger? No one's going to miss a multi-billionaire genius? Hell, if he were that easy to get rid of, why didn't someone do it earlier?

The last 2/5 of the book were tied up far too quickly: The cop & the doctor are reduced to a few throw-away lines, Doniger is dispatched far too easily & stupidly, all the novel's foreshadowing comes to a close in the last 30 pages of the book, and, sappily, we find that everyone (but perhaps Doniger) lives (lived) happily ever after. Like I said--good premise gone horribly awry.

I wanted to use the book as kindling by the time I was done.

Rating:
Summary: Bad movie script disguised as a book
Review: The subject of time travel has always been of interest to me so when I heard of this book I thought it would become one of my favorites. It didn't.
It's easy to be impressed by the first chapters of the book with all the scientific terms thrown around and the promise of adventure but then that's all the book really is.
The characters are so underdeveloped, it was difficult to care about them. The light romance between two of them felt forced, like, somebody had to get some so it might as well be those two.
My three stars are for giving props to the attention to detail given to the science and history supposedly behind the concept of the book.
It was entertaining, something you can read between classics to give your mind a rest. Your brain won't have to work too hard to read this one through.

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Summary: Don't be fooled by the lousy movie, this book is good
Review: This is a very good book, long before it became a movie. It's too bad that lame casting, adaptation, and apparently promoting the movie as a teenfest sullied the book's reputation.
In any event, the book is well done time-travel. There's good pacing that keeps the pages turning, fun characters, and a good setting.