Rating: 
Summary: Can't Wait for the Film!
Review: This novel is one of the best Crichton has produced. Yes, it's another time travel book, and I found the science/physics explanation of how the characters are able to travel backwards in time more than a little obtuse, but it is a gripping adventure that's definitely worth reading. I also enjoyed the characters: Professor Edward Johnston, Andre Marek, Chris Hughes, and Kate Erickson are all three dimensional protagonists who make the sometimes fantastic plot developments plausible. The plot concerns a major corporation that has been bankrolling archaeological research in France, coordinated by Johnston. When it's discovered that the corporation seems to have more information on the archaeological site than the field team has, suspicions are aroused, and Johnston and his assistants travel to New Mexico, where it's revealed that time travel to 'alternate' versions of earth is possible. The drama comes in when first Johnston, then the others, are trapped in the 14th C during the Hundred Years' War, when France and England fought for dominance. It would be a shame to reveal all the plot nuances, but historically this is an accurate depiction of what life was like in the Middle Ages. Definitely a good read.
Rating: 
Summary: Give him a B++++++++++
Review: After the disastrous Lost World, I was expecting and prepared for the worst. What a turn around! From the first sentence I was captivated with the story of quantum displacement (not Time travel as the title implies). All the comments about the "absurdness of the plot" or " that the idea is not clearly explained" misses the point. This is a sci-fi chase tale on which literary and scientific license should be bestowed. As in all Chricton novels, the weakness is in the characters. The conversations are very surface and never serve as an integral part of the plot (which is primarily action; no real relationships emerge - just people thrown together by events. The habit of "movieizing" the book is becoming annoying. One can almost visualize the director yelling "Cut" or "Action". If the middle had not degenerated into a castle chase tale this book would rate an A+. As it is, it's great escapist fare for a cold night. A last word on the "scientific" aspect. The author's novels are always more intelligent and deeper than the movies. The pattern continues here and it is unfortunate that it will not be present in the movie.
Rating:
Summary: Suspend your disbelief...
Review: It's been a long time since I read anything by Michael Crichton, but I remembered liking the stuff I had read. When I recently saw the trailer for the upcoming "Timeline" movie I thought, "Hey, that doesn't look bad... I better read the book first, though." The book was a well-told, if somewhat conventional time travel story. A group of historians and students are sent back in time to rescue their professor, who went back on an earlier trip and somehow was lost. Crichton obviously put a lot of research into the customs, traditions and language of the era he writes about, and it shows through in a pretty good action story. The first hundred pages or so kind of drag, though, and the explanation for time travel STILL gives me a headache. "So wait... if they're really travelling through alternate universes how did they end up in the 1400s? How did the professor leave the message? Where did... ARGH!" Eventually I gave up on understanding it and just accepted it the way I accepted that a kid bit by a genetically-altered spider would get superpowers or that a scientist who caught a dose of gamma radiation could turn big and green instead of get cancer and die. After that, I enjoyed the book a lot better. Suspend your disbelief for this one and you'll do fine.
Rating:
Summary: Time travel and a whole lot more
Review: Books like Timeline are the reason I like to read so much. I read fiction to be engrossed and as a means to escape into another world. Timeline delivered this in spades. It is easily one of the most fulfilling novels of fiction I have ever read. The first 100 pages or so of the novel deal with a professor and his graduate students studying a historic site in France as part of a school thesis. Or so they think. The professor soon finds out that the project is in reality funded through a corporation by the name of ITC, whose motives smell rather fishy to him. Upon learning this, he promptly flies back to America to have a word with the CEO of ITC. Meanwhile, the students at the site are dumbfounded about the professor's dissapearance. They don't hear anything for a while until a representative of ITC informs them that the professor is stuck in medieval France in the year 1357 and on the same site they've been researching as a result of an experimentation gone wrong using ITC's qantum travel equipment. ITC needs their help. Since these students have spent the past two summers researching the site and know it so well, ITC enlists a small group of four of them to go back in time to retrieve the professor and bring him back safely to the present time. From then on the book turns into a full blown fantsy action adventure as good as any I've ever read. Not only is this book fun as hell, Crichton educates the reader on a wide range of topics: science, anthropolgy, quantum physics and of course tons of history. What amazes me is how he is able to explain these complex concepts in simple terms. The characters are very well drawn, although I found Chris to be a stumbling and bumbling idiot. If there is one thing that bothered me slightly about Timeline is that it sometimes felt to me as though Crichton was writing a movie script. As we all know, every single book of his gets the movie treatment. It will be interesting to see how Hollywood treats this novel (the movie is slated for a November 2003 release). Hopefully it will be better than "Sphere", that's all I will say on that.
Rating:
Summary: amazing book
Review: this book is one of his best works and i would recommend it to anyone who wants a book that keep them thinking on what will happen next this is the one. The action is great and the characters are awesome the choice he made for each one and how they act was perfect it just proves he knows what is doing when it comes to writting a great book I feel this is one of his best works to date
Rating:
Summary: Great Crichton Books
Review: Michael Crichton is a terrific writer! I consider this one of his best books, and I should know, since I've read most of them. It has alot of Quantum mechanics in it, which many reviewers complained about, but it is not necessary to understand it to understand the plot. It is one of Crichton's best work in my opinion! A must read for Crichton Fans!
Rating:
Summary: English Class w 132!!! TimeLine by Miles
Review: Timeline by Michael Crichton is a book about the medieval era and time travel. The book starts out slow, and keeps the slow pace thoughout the first ten chapters of the book. This however does not effect the book's story, the technical information presented within the first ten chapters of the book is imprortant for understanding the story and enjoying it.
The first chapters seem to focus more on the technical aspect of time travel, and a mystery around the company that deals with time teavel. The story is enjoyable and the technical parts are interesting. Once past the technical aspect of the story the action starts. A team of Medieval reserchers are sent back into the past in order too rescue a fellow researcher. The action keeps uo to the end of the book, and the ending does not leave you wondering what happens next.
The books was well written and is one of the best Crichton books out there since Jurassic Park. For some Crichton may be a bit boring and his books may be a bit tedious to read. If it was not for his focus on the little details of the story, it would not have been as believable as it was while I was reading it. I would recommend this books to anyone that likes to read fiction.
Rating:
Summary: One of my favorite books
Review: The book has an overpowering way of contorlling your life, so that you just sit and read all day! The suspence is emmence, and The situations believable. A must read for Crichton fans.
Rating: 
Summary: Great premise, weak execution
Review: Time travel, knights, castles and an evil villain - this should have been a slam dunk page turner. Sorry, but this book was more miss than hit for me. The idea of time travel is very appealing (at least to me) and when the writer does his homework (always a Crichton trademark) about the facts and history, the story can be spellbinding. But I found Timeline to be weak on plot, weak on dialogue, and even weaker on characters. I didn't feel good about any of the main players and the cartoon character of the villain made me yawn. If you want to read a better time travel classic, read Time and Again by Jack Finney. It's probably the best novel on the subject and it makes Timeline look like an amateur's first draft.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent book, a bit overdone
Review: This was a great book, make no mistake about it. It was a fantastic idea, backed by good scientific explanation (for the layman), and had nice character development and plot distribution. It was, however, about 170 pages too long. About three quarters of the way through the book, Crichton gets away from the plot progression and spends way too long just letting his characters run around and fight soldiers, hide, and struggle to stay alive. This could have been done in 20 pages easily, but the plot just churns on mindless action and stagnates. Finally, after what seems like an eternity, the plot picks back up and the novels concludes. Great book, however, despite the pothole. A must read!
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