Rating: 
Summary: Timeline is a great book period
Review: I have read timeline up near 5 times and everytime I read this masterpiece I find something else I didn't catch when I read it the first time. The characters are very well done and Michael Crichton fleshes them out nicely. Timeline contains mystery, action, and a little of everything else and suits just about any type of reader. The way Crichton writes is very detailed and paints a perfect picture of what exactly the characters are seeing, feeling, and experiancing. The excitment of the chases through the woods flows straight into the reader and makes it feel like they are the ones being chased. This is an excellent book that will find it's way into the hearts and bookshelves of anyone who reads it.
Rating: 
Summary: MC Writing Screenplays Now?
Review: I am an engineer and I love the deep detail that Crichton goes into in his techno-thrillers.Timeline is much simpler and straight-forward than the Crichton novels I have read (that being almost all of them). Having just read the reviews for Prey, it seems that MC is trying to make it much simpler to adapt his books for the silver screen. I read books to get the rich detail that you can't get from movies. This book lacks that detail. While Timeline is a good book that I enjoyed reading, it doesn't measure up to Crichton's other excellent novels.
Rating:
Summary: Time runs out for plot appeal in 'Timeline'
Review: Set at in the year 1999, Timeline tells the story of a group of young Archaeologists who make a startling discovery at a dig site in the midsts of the ruins of one of the most famous battles during the Hundred Year war between France and England. Not only do the Archaeologists revist the past on a daily basis, they get to visit the past and put themselves in a situation so dangerous, they might not even get back... Michael Chricton wowed readers and viewers alike with his novel 'Jurassic Park', he grossed his audience out with 'Eaters of the Dead' and with this novel he'll put his readers through a 'B'-rate novel tie-in of a tv movie of the week. 'Timeline' reads like a cliche'd second rate script, filled with sporratic snipets about real midevil life and practices and yet set them against a dumbed-down children's version of the Middle-Ages. It appears as if Chricton, learned in his legendary numerous hours of reasearch that Life in Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire was not pretty, and instead of setting that fact to a realistic tone he overwhelms us with making every bit of life to the extreme of grusome and harsh in attempt to emphasize to his readers a realistic view of the middle ages and overtrumph up the severity of his protagonist's sitauation. Chricton fills the novel with random bouts of time travel theology and then leaving the theories hanging as if one was speaking in the middle of a sentence then abruptly saying "so anyway onto something else." Readers will enjoy the fast pacing and, wonderful action sequences. But the novel itself is filled with such cardboard 2 dimensional characters, it's a wonder if we're reading and actual novel or watching a machine describing the actions sequences of a soap-opera. This novel gets 3 stars for it's wonderful pacing and partially good plot. It's definately a "You'll either love it, or hate it or won't be affected by it" novel and I was definately "wasn't affected by it."
Rating:
Summary: Great Idea Formula Fails On This One
Review:
Michael Crichton and Robin Cooke are my two favorite entertainers, so this is a fan being straight up. This one failed. The idea of writing about the technologies involved in teleportation (which is indeed a credible possibility, one Charles Platt did a great job discussing in a past issue of WIRED Magazine) is a good one, but then the author spent three-quarters of the book with "filler" material about people actually stuck back in time and wandering hither and yon. Airframe and Prey, both of which spend most of the time focusing on the minutia of the technology, are much superior.
Rating:
Summary: the best book i have ever read in my life
Review: this is the best book that i have ever read in my life, and believe me, i've read my share of awesome books. every page has a new surprise even more thrilling than the last. since i especially love history and science, this book was so incredibly fascinating!!!! i recommend that everyone read this book because it has something different for everyone. This is the type of book that you cannot put down. I was sooooo commited to this book and I want to read it again!!
Rating: 
Summary: Timeline/a thrilling piece making time machines real
Review: This book was about a group of scientists, both physicists and historians, trying to relive history. They are trying to rebuild the Medievil Times and with the right technology, go back to them. The company, ITC, used quantam energy to recreate genetics and DNA to transfer humans to the past. It doesn't always work, though, and people don't always come back the same, or at come back at all. A team of scientists are trying to bring back their professor who is lost in Medievil Time. They have 36 hours, but that time might not be enough. If they don't get back before that, they will be lost in time forever. They struggle through many endless, lifethreatening battles. The question is, can they survive? The thrill in this story was incredible. It was constantly changing from good to bad. I was always wondering what was going to happen to them. Just when things took a turn for the better, they took a sharper turn for the worse. If you like action and suspense, this is definately the book for you!
Rating:
Summary: The best!
Review: Clearly The best Michael Crichton book ever! The combination of science and suspence is thilling in this book. Everytime he come out with a new novel, it is just better than the last.
I am a long time fan of his work and was still deeply impressed by how he states his thesis of "Let laying things lie" so clearly in this novel.
In fact, I was so delighted with the book that I had recomended it to my mother, an avid fantasy reader. She read it and said herself that it was a great novel.
Rating:
Summary: What more can you ask for in a novel?Simply awesome!
Review: My very 1st Crichton novel--I picked it up as the cover looked appealing. After reading the storyline , I was intrigued by the whole medieval time travel theme so I started reading. Little did I know that I was about to be thrown into probably the best book I had ever read in the recent years. Most popular fiction books bore me & after a few chapters I just put them down & never finish it. But this book made it hard for me to turn the night light off(much to my husband's chagrin!)--I couldn't wait to find out what happens next. I skipped some pages towards the end as it got too lengthy & wordy with how he described the chase scenes & fight scenes. But I thought it ended with a great twist & left me a little breathless in the end. I won't reveal the ending but I thought that how it ended & what had happened to one of the characters (Marek)in the end had a cool "romantic" twist to it without being mushy & leaves you thinking about whatyou would have done if you were in their shoes.
He's my now my new favorite author & am on a quest to find all his books & start reading them. I just wonder if the new movie about to be released will be as good as the book. Well, have fun reading! Its definitely worth the every penny buying this book! You'll enjoy this book if you like action--adventure & suspense with some sci fi elements in it.
Rating:
Summary: Falls short
Review: Crichton must have gotten tired of writing this one and published it in draft form. It starts with a tremendous SF premise-- time travel back to the Middle Ages to track down a person who got "lost" back there-- but never fully delivers. Still worth reading (and still better than most stuff that gets published), but not Crichton at his best.
Rating:
Summary: A+ For Suspension of Disbelief
Review: On the technical points of science and parallel universes I am not an expert. But I know when I can't put a book down, it's pretty impressive. Crichton's ability to paint the perfect picture with mere words amazes me. Throughout the book, be it a murky & mossy forest or annoying yuppies, my mind filled with visuals that made me feel like I was right up on the action. Yes, at one point I actually jumped while I was reading. I wasn't prepared for someone to have their head lopped off without warning... Yes, it is violently graphic for a bit, but nobody ever said you have to keep reading it if you don't like it.
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