Timeline

Rating:
Summary: TIMELINE: Willis did it better
Review: TIMELINE, despite its intriguing opening, cannot escape inevitable comparisons to THE DOOMSDAY BOOK by Connie Willis, a Hugo- and Nebula-award winning novel on the subject of time-traveling graduate students stuck in the Middle Ages. While Willis was able to generate suspense in about fifteen different ways at once, Crichton is stuck with a plot outline that is heavily reminiscent of JURASSIC PARK and details that amount to little more than a bloodier Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. His lack of interest in creating vivid characters a reader can care about particularly hurts this story, for some reason. If you liked this, then DOOMSDAY BOOK will blow your socks off.

Rating:
Summary: Very Interesting Read
Review: I thoroughly enjoyed TIMELINE. Although some of the details needed to be read more than once to grasp, I found it fascinating. I believe that Michael Crichton does a wonderful job of taking a lot of detail and making it interesting. I haven't read any of his books that I haven't liked on some level. I find writers who can incorporate such detail into a story amazing. I couldn't put this book down once I started. Maybe not completely realistic, but then it is fiction, right?

Rating:
Summary: Ghostwritten by committee!
Review: Once again, Dr. Crichton has turned out a book he seems to have only edited, and apparently didn't personally write.

Read it, and you will find that the writing style changes frequently. The book only occasionally shows a Crichton-ish twist of plot.

Also, the story is very bizarre and often incredible (even if you grant the basic premise of time travel). And much of it reads like a bad screenplay.

But who can blame him? If I were as rich as he, I'd stop writing, too!

Rating:
Summary: Expected more, much more
Review: I really expected this book to be to physics what Jurassic Park was to genetics.... and it failed badly. It is just a medieval story with some 21st century insight. It was almost a waste of time.

Rating:
Summary: TIME TRAVEL, SCIENCE AND MIDIEVAL ADVENTURE
Review: Crichton has ever been my favorite author. His books are scientifically researched for their "basic" accuracy (he has a bibliography in his fictional books!) -- when it comes to the science, facts and such used to support his story.

In this book he finally addresses one of my life long interests -- time travel. In this story time travel become possible through quantum physics. It is not true time travel as it is actually dimensional travel. Nor is it true dimensional travel, as the travellers are "recreated" at the destination, rather than just travelling there.

In this book the focus is on an mega-company called ITC that is researching this time travel and at the same time, funding archealogical research into an area they are time traveling to!

However, there are problems and the archealogy professor is stuck back in the past and a team is sent to rescue him, only to get stuck there themselves! Once there, they must survive in the archaic deadly 14th century France!

Meanwhile, in present day, the time travel center suffers a major disaster and things must be fixed to allow those in the past to return, should they be able to survive, get all together in the same place and in the right place -- to come back. It is a race, literally, against time.

I can't wait for the movie.

Rating:
Summary: Timeline is for everyone..
Review: Gosh, I am only 15 years old and I couldn't put this book down, I was so amazed at how cleverly written this book was. I enjoy Michael Crichton's books for their true scientific facts, it is great to know that the author actually knows what he is talking about, by far I think this book is Crichton's best!

If you liked this book, check out: The Fabric of Reality: The Science of Parallel Universes and Its Implications by David Deutsch. This is like a Non-Fiction version of this book..

Rating:
Summary: Stick figures galore.
Review: I haven't actually finished Timeline yet, so my review is based on the first two thirds of the book. I've read worse books, but this one is far from good. By biggest problem is that there does not appear to be a single character (with the possible exception of Kate) to care about. All of them are stick figures--no past, no future, just filling a hole in the plot. Also, there's lots of techno-babble about parallel universes, blah, blah, blah. It becomes mind-numbing without being convincing. But I'll finish the book. I'm just hopeful I'll remember this book when Crichton publishes his next one. Excellent Crichton books like the Andromeda Strain seem to exist in another universe--the one where the writing is convincing and the peril seems real. Sigh.

Rating:
Summary: Timeline Review
Review: The Author's investigations into quantum time travel, and into 14th Century France were very interesting. Creighton always goes to great lengths in his research in his novels, (Airplanes, Diseases, Eastern Customs, Etc.).

My problem came with the action sequences. I'd have an easier time believing in quantum foam than I would believing that these 20th Century time travelers could defeat 14th Century Knights in hand to hand combat. Great script for a suspenseful thriller movie, but not what Creighton Fans are used to.

Rating:
Summary: A fast-read, which is part of the problem
Review: This book moves a little fast. There's something missing, be it more scientific fact, or more history, I can't place it. In any event, this book combined two of my passions: medieval european history and genetics/time travel. Chrichton really does know his stuff, and has an immense bibliography which acts as a testament to how committed he was to giving his readers the truth, about both facets, the science and the history. My quibble lies in the impression I got after reading it: there's something he's not telling us. There's more to this. But, this is a very well-written book, and I would reccomend it to someone who likes science and history, and has trouble finding a book that satisfies both interests. But read this if you have time on your hands: it's HUGE.

Rating:
Summary: Get Thee To An Editor...
Review: The problem with Donigen, the villain in Michael Crichton's latest, TIMELINE, is that he is surrounded by yes-men who refuse to question his considerable genius, even though they surely must realize he has strayed badly off-course. It would appear that Crichton has first-hand knowledge of how this must feel.

Initially, TIMELINE is a fun read; a fast-paced, well-researched novel that seems to continue the Crichton tradition of blending scientific content with a rousing action-adventure story. As the story unfolds, however, the book strays far into the realm of nonsense and eventually degrades into a insipid mess of tired clichés, contradictory pseudo-science, ludicrous motivations, and overly-obvious plot twists. The truly disappointing thing is that among the rubble exists the basis of a very good book; with a little editing and a bit of literary restraint who knows how good it might have been?

Let's start with the general premise of the book; a genius scientist develops a quantum teleportation machine which allows people to travel to parallel universes, in essence (but not precisely) going back in time. So far, so good. Crichton's meticulous research into quantum physics and multiverse theory allows him to create a believable scenario for this.

Now that this scientist has developed the technology, however, what does he choose to do with it? Does he choose to go back in time and witness the birth of Christ? Does he choose to go back and speak with Leonardo DaVinci or Abraham Lincoln? Does he choose to find the lost gold of the Incas? Does he solve the great mysteries of history or have some evil plan for world domination? No, he wants to build historically accurate theme parks and corner the world vacation market! This would be analogous to Crick and Watson discovering the double-helix structure of DNA and deciding that the best application for their work would be to make up some "really cool" t-shirts featuring the design.

As for "original" character development, we have the aforementioned evil genius science-geek with the Walt Disney complex, a spunky Lady who masquerades as a boy, a studly scholar who has completely immersed himself in the culture of 14th century France (gosh, I wonder what will happen to him at the end of the book?), an evil "terminator" from the future, a dopey side-kick, and a brave, intelligent female scientist who thinks she's Spiderwoman. All we need is a prostitute with a heart of gold and we'll have ourselves a junior college creative writing class.

One gets the feeling reading TIMELINE, that Crichton desperately wanted to write a story about the middle ages; knights and castles and jousts and such. The rest of the book was merely tacked on for convenience; haphazardly and with little regard for continuity.

Next time out, Michael, find yourself an editor who's not afraid to tell you that your Green Knight is a character from a Monty Python movie, that items hidden in a past parallel universe would not show up in our present universe, and that a device which could be worn in the ear and translates any language into English would be an infinitely more valuable invention than an historically accurate vacation destination. Seeing you waste your immense writing skills on such an unfocused mess, I have a vision of one of Donigen's theme parks; one where Picasso has been brought back to the future and sits in a little booth doing pen and ink drawings of the tourists for ten dollars.

-Pike-