Rating: 
Summary: Come On!
Review: All those bad reviews! What do you expect. This is not literary fiction. Take this book for what it is - very good escapism. Enjoy the story as you will enjoy the upcoming movie.
Rating: 
Summary: How can you not like this?
Review: This book was so intriguing, so utterly interesting that I could not put it down. I don't know how you can not like this! I liked how wierd Doniger was. That's my sixth grade son....but I loved this book too. Sometimes a fast, exciting read can be fun. This was actually my favorite M.C. book by far. It certainly would make a great movie!
Rating:
Summary: Not his best not the worst
Review: That pretty much sums it up. This book has an interesting concept that's not as well executed as it could be. I recommend another book I just read-- THE ROCK by Doherty. Another interesting concept but executed in a more exciting manner.
Rating: 
Summary: Will the REAL Michael Crichton please stand up?
Review: Like many of the other reviewers, I've been a HUGE Michael Crichton fan for more years than I care to remember. The Andromeda Strain and Jurassic Park are masterpieces. Sadly, I can't say the same for Timeline. The setup before the time travel scenes was overly long and boring. The characters of the doctor and the cop who seemed pivotal in the beginning never appeared again. The characters were shallow, the action was frantic, but seemed pointless. Most of the scenes involved our heroes frantically running from one scrape right to the next. Often, one would get lost, but end up in the exact (and only) place where he/she could save the other characters in the next. And the way Doniger was handled at the end seemed almost more cruel than any medieval atrocity. Like The Lost World, the narrative was extremely visual and Hollywood-friendly. I may skip the movie...I feel like I've already seen it. We even had the classic Schwarzenegger-ish one-liners during some of the fights: 'Go to hell.' 'You first.' Oh, pleeze... I'm still a Crichton fan, and will eagerly buy his next book. I find, though, after the last couple of books, that I'm getting less eager than I used to be.
Rating: 
Summary: Not bad, but not great
Review: After reading many of the reviews of Timeline, I didn't really have high hopes for the book. Most readers had come to the conclusion that the book was tedious and ran on too long, but I decided to see for myself. The book certainly wasn't the most exciting that I had ever read, but it was definitely an engaging novel. The incorporation of medieval history was very appealing since it's a subject matter that I didn't have much knowledge about. Crichton has always had a knack for blending a wealth of factual information into a fictional novel, and this was the case when it came to his dealings with thirteenth century history. The action in the book was pretty good, and the plot was quite good once you got beyond the whole time-travel thing and focused on the events taking place in the past. The characters weren't developed all that well, and it was plain that Crichton had concentrated much more on story line than on the characters. The one aspect of this novel that I found to be truly disappointing was Crichton's signature incorporation of science into the plot. Breaking down quantum physics to the point that the average person can comprehend it is a difficult task, I must admit, but even so it was not accomplished very well. Even the books characters are baffled by the explanations provided, and there are several instances where the events of the novel occur in defiance of the physical laws described in the book. Despite this shortcoming, I would still judge Timeline as a fairly enjoyable book, but it should be noted that pretty much anything seems interesting when you've been snowed in for two weeks straight!
Rating: 
Summary: Jurassic Park with time travel
Review: That's not a compliment. I think Crichton took his manuscript of Jurassic Park, and did a search-and-replace with his word processor. The word "dinosaur" gets replaced with "knight", etc etc.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Book That Makes You Think
Review: This book as many other Crichton books keeps the reader on the edge of their seat while providing a very interesting discussion of science and history. I want to address the reviewer who suggested that his book was full of inconsistencies. The characters don't change history because the things that they appeared to go back and change actually already happened. So the message: HELP ME, written by one of the characters in the 14th century to get the attention of the characters in the present was actually there all along because in the past that person was there to put the message there. Therefore the person who left the message in the past could possibly have seen the message even before they went back and left it. This subject is rather hard to comprehend, it just appeared that they had changed history but they didn't because those actions already had occured even though the person had not done them yet. This is addressed when one of the characters states the fact that when you transverse universes to travel back in time cause and effect are reversed so that an effect happens before it is even caused. At one point in the story one of the characters addresses the issue of time paradox's, such as you going back in the past and killing your grandfather and you not existing as a result of that. It is correctly addressed that these don't exist because if you went back in history the person that you killed would not be your grandfather in the present time it would be someone else because the person who you thought you killed was not actually your grandfather. Because the effect happens before the cause in this case, your grandfather cannot be the person you go back to kill or you would not be born in the first place. The effect (you being born) obviously had to be caused by you not killing your real grandfather. Clearly this subject is very abstract and confusing, but I see no scientific inconsistencies in this book. Of course I could be way off base but I have thought about it and I think my explanation while abstract is correct. As a result of this I believe this book makes you think a great deal and is also extremely interesting and intense. The fact that he was able to tie in modern quantum mechanics with 14th century French history is simply spectacular. This is a must read for anyone interested in science and/or history.
Rating:
Summary: Far from his best
Review: I had the impression I was reading a description of Riven or some other computer game, rather than a book. Unlike Congo, Eaters of the Dead and Sphere, the science is minimal, unbelievable and uninteresting. The plot moves from event to event in a plodding, uneven fashion. Look, I'm a big Michael Crichton fan, and I'll read most anything he writes. But I had the impression he scribbled this between ER episodes, or while reading old Scientific American issues. I just think he didn't put enough effort into the story.
Rating:
Summary: In a word- boring
Review: The science in Timeline is fairly interesting, but the book ultimately drags on waaaay too long. The action scenes get pretty redundant,and the characters never really came alive for me. I haven't really liked a Crichton book since Disclosure...Airframe was just okay, and I actually gave up on the Lost World after 100 or so pages. I really hope Crichton's next book is much better.
Rating:
Summary: A kid's book.
Review: I'm a history buff and I expected more of a history story. I had high hopes, never having read Crichton before, but I was very disappointed. It was more like watching a movie than reading a book. It was just one "scene" after another. And an Indiana Jones movie at that. Our heroes go from cliffhanger to cliffhanger, from one close call to another. It was tiring to read. And the characters were so one-dimensional. The book had nothing to do really with history or time travel. It was just an excuse for a big adventure, on-the-edge-of-your-seat type movie.
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