Rating: 
Summary: Entertaining, but of course flawed
Review: I believe it is an unwritten rule that every science fiction writer must take a stab at a time travel story line at some point in his/her writing career. All time travel story lines suffer from similar major logistical flaws, but I still find them entertaining. I had hoped that MC would have constructed a storyline that was more plausible than most, but he didn't. It is my opinion that MC's greatest strength is that his books are much more realistic than those of other science fiction/fact writers, but it is my perception that Timeline is much further divorced from reality than any of MC's other books. I never bought into the whole "sense of urgency" the characters were operating under (time travel would of course have permitted many opportunites to achieve the same goal).
Rating: 
Summary: Crichton Clones Self!
Review: After the fantastic success of Jurassic Park, why should Crichton mess around? Substitute quantum mechanics for DNA, and instead of bringing the past into the present, bring the present into the past!What you've got here is a very entertaining screenplay for a blockbuster action flick. Very enjoyable, very forgettable and very familiar. Don't look for much in the way of character development, although I did enjoy this cast more than the whining kids in Jurassic Park. Let the ancillary rights bidding begin!
Rating: 
Summary: Wonderful
Review: Michael Crichton delivers again. He makes accessible something not usually so (quantum physics), and entertains and even teaches the reader things he didn't know. (I learned a lot about Japan from RED SUN, while being riveted with suspense at the same time). TIMELINE is the best thriller I've read since AIRFRAME and Craig Furnas' THE SHAPE, and I would like to see TIMELINE as a movie, so I hope a studio doesn't jerk Crichton around on TIMELINE the way Disney did with AIRFRAME (who bought the rights for $10 million, but that Crichton bought back from them for $9 million when he saw no movie would result. He took a $1 million loss on AIRFRAME! ) That's dedication to your work, and dedication comes across in TIMELINE. I wish he were as prolific as Grisham. But, if he were, his books would probably be as bad as Grisham's.
Rating:
Summary: His best since Jurassic Park
Review: Easily his best since Jurassic Park - you just can't stop reading. Saw some of the negative reviews at Amazon and just don't understand - this is pure entertainment that will keep you up all night.
Rating: 
Summary: Can I get my money back?
Review: I was surely interested in reading a story that actually addressed time travel as quantum physicists believe it to be. But what is this? Crichton explains away Time paradox unconvincingly and then after telling me that his heroes really didn't travel back in time, but just to a parallel universe and that real time travel isn't possible, he drills a hole in his own story by conveniently dropping artifacts into our world from the past. Huh? As for the characters, I really never got to know them and didn't care one hoot what happened to them. This was all pure eye-candy. I read it quickly and then forgot it just as quickly. Crichton would best remember that the best books deal less with the intricacies of science and more with the inner workings of the human heart. How about a few characters I care about, Huh? Asimov, Heinlein, and Frank Herbert all got me to care about their science fiction work because I cared about their sharply drawn characters. This book was just a rehash of Jurassic park and was obviously written as little more than a fleshed-out (and poorly at that) movie screenplay. Yeesh.
Rating:
Summary: A stunning page-turner
Review: This is Chrichton's best yet, a beautiful blend of science fiction and high tech wizardry with historical action and adventure. Makes you feel like you're there alongside the 20th century multiverse travelers in 14th century France. My only quibble: don't teleport an unsavory villain to a plague-infested medieval village unless you're absolutely certain he has no means of returning home infected.
Rating:
Summary: Accurate portrayal of uantim tecnology and Middle Ages Life.
Review: After I read the inside cover I was excited to know that Timeline Iinvolved Quantim Tecnology. I know a lot about Quantum theory, or Quantim Mechanics, but the Tecnology... People are lacking on ideas of just what to do with our new look at the universe. Not michael. He put it to use. The whole book makes time travel seem believable, makes it seem real as youre reading it. I was impressed with the realistic details of the middle ages, my history teacher said it was accurate when I asked her about some things. Truely an amazing Book!
Rating: 
Summary: Why did he bother to write a novel before the screenplay?
Review: As the latest in a series of increasingly obvious mass-market Crichton thrillers, Timeline shows the clearest example yet of Crichton's formula for maximum sales. Take a well-worn idea (in this case, time-travel); populate the story with characters that have "typecasting" written all over them (Antonio Banderas as Marek, Oliver Platt as the English lord, Chris O'Donnell as Chris Hughes); and string together a half a dozen Big Scenes (the mill blows up; the French attack; the monastery burns down) with all the plot rationale of a video game. The concept would've made a far better book had Crichton been able to think outside the "gotta make a movie" box. What's more, the "science" of this science fiction is nonsensical even by its own logic. For instance, [abbreviating whole chapters of posturing about quantum mechanics], the cast travels to a _parallel universe_ which only appears to be our 14th century; and yet, one of them buries a document (in that other universe) that somehow turns up at an archeological dig in our universe. Huh? Fans of Robert Heinlein's madcap time-travel stories (or Orson Card's underappreciated "Timewatch") will find this kind of thing disappointing; if Crichton is going to make up rules, he should at least have the discipline to follow them. As a kid, I was a big science fiction fan; and the first book of "grown-up" science fiction I read was The Andromeda Strain. It was creepy, and subtle, and a literal page turner. What happened since then?
Rating:
Summary: Chrichton writes an excellent screenplay...
Review: I truly love Michael Chrichton, his blend of Science Fiction, Science Fact, and Thriller elements, is a trademark of his that I've particularly enjoyed. This book is no exception, with some truly harrowing moments, and entertaining dialogue, timeline plays like a big budget Will Smith movie, unfortunately, that's all it is. Crichton wrote Timeline not for the reading crowd, but for the moviegoing crowd. The book makes use of several movie cliches 'Rot in Hell!'-'You First' and others. The character development is all done through dialogue, the bad guy gets what's coming to him, the good guy gets the girl etc. Timeline even goes so far as to include illustations in the text. It really is a pity, because when Chrichton writes for direct book-to-screenplay conversion, his novels lose something.
Rating:
Summary: "...an unrelenting piece of entertainment."
Review: In 1992, Denver-area writer Dan Simmons published "The Hollow Man," a Dante-esque novel that involved the use of quantum mechanics. It was a soulful story that delved into the mystical as well as the scientific. Michael Crichton explores some of the same territory in his latest thriller, "Timeline,'' which hits bookstores nationwide today. But Crichton's novel leans much harder on science,and, except for some minor philosophizing, completely avoids the mystical. (For an interesting reading experience, read the two books back to back.) Nevertheless, "Timeline," a tightly plotted, futuristic thriller involving quantum mechanics and time-travel, expertly and seamlessly blends the past, present and future. When a mentally disturbed old man is found in the desert and taken to a hospital for treatment, where he suddenly dies, physicians discover a strange anomaly: The man's arteries are misaligned. Before anyone can further investigate the matter, his company, ITC, cremates the body. The people at ITC aren't talking, especially Robert Doniger, corporate wunderkind and founder of ITC. A genius who believes himself above mere mortals, Doniger has put together a team that discovers a way to travel through time - sort of. Using a newly developed quantum computer, ITC scientists have been able to completely duplicate the essence of a human body (think of a digitally reproduced voice, only on a larger scale) and transmit it from one point to another. (Jaded readers take note: Crichton's research for this book delved into the cutting edge of current scientific know-how.) They also learn it is possible to send someone back in time, using parallel universes that are nearly identical to our own. What his employees don't know, however, is that Doniger has less-than-admirable plans for the technology. When a team of historians and archaeologists in France makes an unusual discovery, the team's leader, Professor Edward Johnston of Yale, is lured to ITC headquarters. A day later, his assistants (AndreÚ Marek, Chris Hughes and Kate Erickson) find a note written by the professor in the midst of their archaeological dig. The three volunteer to go back to 14th century France and find him. Rigged with earpieces that translate the unfamiliar language of that time period, the three are nevertheless unprepared for the violent world in which they land. Only Marek, who virtually immersed himself in 14th-century lifestyle while working on the dig, is able to interact with little difficulty. Beset by knights, nobleman and ladies (who all have ulterior motives), the trio don't know whom to trust. And when they finally find the professor, they learn of yet another unforeseen danger. Structured with a high degree of narrative flow, "Timeline'' is an unrelenting piece of entertainment. Even readers who aren't normally drawn to historical fiction will find themselves turning pages at a fever pitch. Crichton also sprinkles grains of philosophy throughout his narrative. As Doniger notes when preparing for a sales speech: "We are all ruled by the past, although no one understands it. No one recognizes the power of the past.'' Fortunately for his readers, Crichton understands the power of the past and the promise of the future. He puts that knowledge to good use in "Timeline.'' (Nov. 1999, Denver Post).
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