Rating: 
Summary: Sure makes a long drive faster
Review: I borrowed the book on tape from a friend to make a tedious drive I do once a month more interesting. Unfortunately, the drive R/T is only 7 hours long - not enough to finish. So I find myself frustratingly listening to 10-15 minute snippets around town. Okay, so it's not "great literature." However, it *is* engaging, interesting, very vivid, and extremely well read. Makes me wish I had to make that drive more often so I could find out what happens next.
Rating:
Summary: Wow - what a page turner
Review: It was evident after the first few pages that Mr. Crichton had done serious research on this book. The action was amazing, and the concepts that the book touched on and the historical aspect definetely make this one worth reading. I'm interested to see what Hollywood's feeback will be.
Rating: 
Summary: Another star from Crichton
Review: Timeline was another exciting adventure from Michael Crichton. He is a great mind who has a very interesting ideas, ie. faxing people to parallel dimentions. Timeline was not his best but it is a must read for Crichton fans. I enjoyed it immensely.
Rating: 
Summary: hmmmmm....
Review: Entertaining story...yet overdone in many ways. It evolves into a total action movie, with one action sequence after another, and too many James Bond type improbable escapes and incredibly lucky breaks...basically not something you would expect from Crichton. Also, scientifically the concepts were cloudy at best. My 2 stars are for idea.
Rating:
Summary: If you have time on your hands
Review: Michael Crichton writes science fiction that somehow avoids being genre-typed as Science Fiction. Because his genre is Best Seller, I suppose, or maybe because it's really lousy science fiction. His formula is to paint a pseudo-scientific background with broad, glib strokes. Then, to create some kind of deadline for a set of cut-out characters to race against to a breathless, but oddly anti-climactic, conclusion. Notice how many of his books have times or dates as chapter titles. In the latest iteration, he invokes a bunch of quantum physics and some mumbo-jumbo about molecular computers to send a gaggle of historian/archaeologists back to France in the Year of Our Lord 1357. Then, he thinks very deeply about the Medieval culture to conclude--guess what--that people back then were just like us, only more open about their aggression. The action toggles back and forth between bloody sword play in the past and corporate animus in the present. The chapters that take place in the past have time titles like "30:45:15" because the students are stuck in the past, see, and they only have 37 hours to get back to their time machines before they will be trapped in the past forever and every second counts. This is the countdown, get it? It's a Timeline. Except, they've gone back to rescue their professor, who over-stayed his time machine on a previous trip--so maybe someone else could come and get them if they miss the bus. So what's the big rush already? I don't know--something about parallel universes and transcription errors. How did they get stuck in France--during a castle siege yet? (which is even worse than a Metro strike) Well, remember the 100 year storm that takes out the control room in Jurassic Park and lets all the dinosaurs loose. Well this time, it's an explosion in the time machine control room. And the good guys would be able to fix things okay except the dastardly computer genius/business mogul who invented the time machine keeps getting in the way. He's really nasty, kind of like Bill you-know-who. Never says please or thank you. A real bad-un. All this happens in the first 50 pages, so I haven't given anything away, yet. The chapters in the present have place names like "Black Rock, New Mexico." This is handy in case you forget whether you're in the past or the present. Another clue is when one of the good guys in the past gets in a real jam--like someone's about to get chopped in half by a big ax, or it looks like a good guy's been blown up in a big explosion, or maybe a good guy is hanging over the edge of a really big cliff--this happens several times, hence the term "cliff hanger." Anyway, when one of these exciting things happens, then that's a sign that a new chapter will begin on the next page and it will be called "Ft. Stockton: Outside the Gas Station" or something like that. And we'll have to read on helplessly, while the evil computer nerd steps on puppy dog tails and refuses to return library books. Did I mention that he's really bad? What's this geek up to anyway? Why is he sending ex-marines back through time and buying lots of real estate in France? (as if a billionaire needed a good reason to buy castles in France) This emerges as a point of unbelievable suspense during the book. Even though there's tons of other suspense to go around, I suppose I could really spoil things if I told you... Want to guess? Want to avert your eyes? Here it comes, the BIG SPOILER. The bad guy wants to build a chain of amusement parks based on historical themes. (Does this remind you of something?) Yup, he's invented a way to travel back in time and to anywhere in the universe and to all the parallel universes--which turn out to be everywhere, and the most profitable use he can think of for it is to do really accurate research for theme parks. Golly. This must be why all these computer geeks business types are billionaires and all the physicists and archaeologists I know are scrambling for post-doc positions. Well, all I can say is, if you have time on your hands and someone gave your this book and there's nothing much else to read--like say you're on a long flight and the computer geek who had your seat on the last flight took off with all the Sky Mall catalogs--then reading "Timeline" would not actually cause your brain to turn to quantum foam and run out your nostrils. Buying this book at hard cover prices though, now that would be a bad time.
Rating:
Summary: A good audio book
Review: I bought the unabridged Audio Book version of Timeline and was completely entertained. I do not particularly care for Medieval History, but I found myself unable to wait for the next opportunity to listen to one of the tapes. However, I am willing to bet that I would have skimmed the written word version. I can picture it being tedious.
Rating:
Summary: This book is too short
Review: The only problem I had with this book is that it is less than 500 pages. As I got near the end of the book I kept hoping the story would keep going. When you get a book this enjoyable you don't want it to end so soon. The story is great and the characters are very real. I hope there is a sequel soon. Don't miss this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Grade school mentality appeal
Review: Silly. Perils of Pauline nonsense. Weak characterization and plotting. Not satisfied with cliffhangers, ad infinitum, Crichton insults us further by attaching sub-cliffhangers to each. I browsed through the book in the public library and was impressed with the extensive bibliography. With all this backup, the book must be great. Right? What a disappointment. I doubt that he used 1% of it. Just another prop.
Rating: 
Summary: In the end, a genuine disappointment
Review: While the premise is engaging and several tantilizing notions, concepts, and ideas are alluded to in the first half of the book, ranging from time paradoxes to multiple universes, few of any of these otherwise interesting ideas are ever broached in the book's second half. Granted, the book was a page turner, but the page turning aspect seemed more attributable to the author's pedigree and track record than to the text itself. I trust Mr. Crichton's storytelling based on the integrity of his earlier works which contain elements that have been instilled in timelines narrative and plot; however, despite page-turning in seach of a payoff, the payoff here never arrives. In the end, the book diverges from Mr. Crichton's other works in that the characters are ostensibly mired in one long chase, intellectual resources are rarely brought to bear to solve problems at hand, and there are some contradictions and holes in the science that in other books (Jurassic Park, The Lost World, Sphere) both ground the logic of the premise and readily suspend disbelief. While entertaining, the book's early promise, which so successfully piqued my interest, is unfulfilled by story's end. A strong ending, in which many of the ideas and concepts that are alluded to earlier in the book, would have greatly improved the book by providing a satisfying conclusion to an otherwise provocative story idea. As is, the book is like Michael Crichton light- better than most, but less than what the author is capable of...
Rating:
Summary: Not enough twists
Review: I've read most of Criton's books and have enjoyed them all. Unfortunately, this one wasn't up to the high standards set by the others. The "time travel" technology is poorly explained as follows: "we don't know why it work but it does." C'mon, loyal Sci-Fi fans deserve better than that. Jurassic Park had thorough believable explanations. I could come up with at least five better scenarios to explain he technology in this book. Perhaps being TOO true to the theories of quantum physics was the downfall. Although the book was in fact enjoyable, it shoulg be noted that the story is quite flat: single goal with predictable end. I needn't go on. Now that I think about it, this book was more a 3 than a 4. Sorry Michael.
| 
