Rating: 
Summary: A Medieval Encounter
Review: Michael Crichton's novel is like most novels and it starts with a steady build up. Character outlines, hints, clues are all given at the beginning. These just help build up the suspence about to come. After a long and a bit boring briefing, the group take a journey through time. They land in a world filled with knights, clergy and lowly peasants. Crichton describes the setting in a very detailed manner. The description of some living conditions in the 1300's is very disturbing. Also, the scarest part of the book, the Black Plague. The vial description of the early stages of the Black Plague can turn your stomach. Crichton's array of round characters helps you get into the novel and make you care about what happens. He describes physical and mental traits about the characters that help you figure out what each character is like. This helps you see the progressive change of certain characters. Now here is the science part, quantum physics. Now if your worried that it takes up the whole book, don't. This is used to describe how the time machine is made. A quick background on why quantum physics was used an your back to the story. If your in the mood for a good time travel book with a lot of action check out Timeline.
Rating: 
Summary: Jurrasic Park for history Majors
Review: It was an easy read. However, I put the book down several times during the first 20 pages. I found the setup awkward and insulting. Crichton weaves his narrative with the subtlety of a circus clown. But once I got into the story, I enjoyed the ride. In a word, Timeline is the Jurassic Park for history majors. The story centers around a group of graduate students who are studying the excavation of a monastery in Southern France. They each have their own personalities and expertise, but to be honest, their names don't really matter. One guy is the muscles-- a cultural historian who practices things like authentic jousting and sword fighting to understand the lives of 14th century knights. Another guy is a historical technologist. The girl and half-assed love interest knows architecture and likes climbing. The last guy is a pure scientist. Surprisingly enough all of this extraneous information comes into play later in the novel. Things get interesting when their fatherly professor returns to the States to discuss funding problems with the mysterious XYZ company. The company really does have a name in the book, but I'm too lazy to look it up. Again, it doesn't really matter. The CEO is this Bill Gates rip-off who happens to study quantum mechanics. Anyways, the students loose contact with their professor and they begin to get worried. Then all of sudden while excavating a new anti-chamber, they discover a surprising message. It is a cry for help in the handwriting of their professor! What's going on? How can this be? This is just crazy talk. Well it turns out that XYZ company is mastering the art of quantum physics. With the aid of quantum-state super computers, they have shifted the professor into another time in another universe of 14th century Southern France. Now they need the historical experts to get him back. So the grad students swallow their fears and go back in time. Unfortunately right out of the box, their Stephen Segal-like ex-navy seal special ops escorts all get mutilated and beheaded and stuff. As part of the same freakish violent accident, the time machines break and they are stranded. To make matters worse ,we eventually learn that there's an evil guy from the future acting as the monkey in the wrench. Finally, they just happened to set the way-back machine's landing to coincide with a siege / surprise attack / war. I never studied history at the graduate level, but I'm thinking this would be the type of thing that I'd know about and try to avoid in time travel situations. So with all this crap going on, guess what? We have to politic, joust, sword fight, climb, and Mac Guiver our way through the story to save the day. While definitely not "brilliantly imagined", I will agree that this was "compulsive reading". Wading through all this action and intrigue was not entirely unlike the feeling you get when riding a roller-coaster. You know that the journey is safe and you know that there will be a lack of new or challenging experiences. You are even pretty sure that you are going to end up at the same damn place you started without anything to show for it. Yet despite all this certainty you wait on line anyway. Why? The answer is simple. You endure the lines for the thrill of the wind in you hair. This is the only reason to read Timeline. It is brain candy or pulp fiction at its best. Timeline is a blockbuster movie waiting to happen. It is a star vehicle for Keith Ledger or that Keanu Reeves-looking kid from American Pie. It can be marketed with a hit soundtrack from a 3rd generation alternative band that makes Bush sound talented. I can see the posters already. This will be okay because despite the crappy techno-bable, bad physics, and cardboard cut-out characters, the premise is good and the story delivers with enough action and violence for any teenage male in the 14-18 year old demographic. If you are bored, read this book. It is not though-provoking. It is not good science-fiction. It treatment of quantum theory is an insult to Feynman worshiping physics families everywhere. In fact, Crichton crudely sidesteps the whole time travel paradox thing entirely by emphatically insisting that one person cannot make a difference...But you know what? Timeline is without a doubt better than Jerry Springer... even that episode about racist lesbian crank addicted midgets who cheat on their spouses. So go ahead and read it. We can't be smart and funny all the time. This review should be living proof of that.
Rating: 
Summary: A journey woth the time
Review: This book provided me with a lot of knowledge. It is rich of scientific information that is very complicated but yet presented in a simple manner. The characters were very rich and persuasive. The suspense make it almost impossible to put this book down. Each page is filled with another adventure, another obstacle to over come, another battle to win. The author seems to have spent a lot of time researching and as a result the book seems to be an everflowing source of information. The intriguing settings keep the reader attached to the book. The storylines keep you guessing what is going to happen next and to whom. You can't resist but to put yourself in the position of the characters. All in all I feel as if i had walked away knowing a lot more than I did when i first started reading this book. I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys adventure and likes asking themselves "what if?"
Rating:
Summary: Great book; Lanham rocks (<--bonus!)
Review: Timeline is a book I highly recommend to read for people interested in physics. I
am sure, though, many people without a scientific background will still enjoy
reading the book just as much as I did.
The story is based on a group of historians going back in time through a
"quantum foam wormhole". Michael Crichton does a great job explaining the
physics at the beginning of the book and even my physics teacher said it was
the best explanation he ever read. Crichton soon distances the story from the
physics, though, and concentrates on the plot.
The novel is interesting from the beginning on and I even found it way
better than Jurassic Park. The critics agree and Crichton uses the first three
pages of his book, quoting nearly every big newspaper in America with praises
for Timeline.
The scientists travel back to middle age France in search for their
professor who was sent back earlier on. Several incidents hinder the group from
coming back and force them to a struggle to survive.
The novel contains everything including high-technology physics with
"world-"traveling and even historical broadsword fights and a roustabout
tournament.
No matter how fast you read you are going to be mad at yourself that it
can not be twice as fast and the temptation to peak forward some pages is big.
Overall I can highly recommend this book, to everybody.
Rating:
Summary: An Eye to Cinema. Thesis: The Entertainment Age
Review: Dr. Crichton can't help but write with the cinema in mind. Although these characters weren't as full as some of his others (or am I confusing Goldblum with Malcolm again?), his thesis comes through loud and clear: We're done, generally, with struggling to survive and now what do we do with our time? We stimulate ourselves. I enjoyed the trip back into the so-called "dark ages" also. Apparently well researched, as the good Dr. is wont to do.
Rating: 
Summary: Good story, great action
Review: ...I have come across many books where the story immediately turned me off in the first few pages. After reading Timeline, I think I may have come across a very good non-classic. As with most of his stories, Crichton starts off at a small pace but by then end it is hard to not keep turning page after page. Starts off by an unexplainable death, moves to college people in France at an archeological dig then moves to a scene where the characters find themselves in an all-too familiar scene. Traveling to the Middle Ages and back, Crichton's taste for detail gives the reader a very clear sense of the enviroment of the 1400's. The science involved is so-so, but who cares? This isn't my physics textbook, it is a very well written story with gripping adventure. A must read for all.
Rating:
Summary: A movie script in book form
Review: I'm not quite sure about this book - how to rate it, I mean. In the beginning it has all the elements of a good sci-fi thriller with a slow build-up gradually revealing the truth. Then after a while, the main characters take off on their time journey and it becomes all medieval action. And we are talking action in its purest form - Indiana Jones style. The people does not get five minutes without at least one of them being in some sort of mortal peril. It is entertaining to read, but the pace is allmost too high for a novel this size. But for a movie-script it will be ideal, and I suspect that the author may have had that in mind when he wrote it. As always Michael Crichton has done his homework as far as the research in the medieval times goes. He draws a picture so masterly detailed that you can almost sense how it would have been back in those times. Another thing that demonstrates that he is in fact a high class author rather than just a script writer is the way he manages to make his characters 3-dimensional. We really care about, what happens to those people. The plot is focussed at the action, thus the main characters meet only important people like lords, knights, ladys and bishops. The ordinary peasants and workers are present, but not interacted with - they are only extras. The sci-fi part of the book is the bad part. The research (as far as you can research something like time travel) is poor and the scientific image is close to ridiculous. This is a sharp contrast to Jurassic Park, where you were left with a feeling like "Hey, this could be done.." after reading the book. Books about time travel sooner or later has to face some paradoxical questions, and here Crichton skates through everything like an elephant in a glass house. His solutions are easily some of the most stupid ones I have ever encountered in a time travel novel. H.G. Wells did it better than this... This book gets zero for its sci-fi part and five for its medieval swashbuckling part. I cant wait to see the movie, but I will check out my brain at the door.
Rating:
Summary: What happens if you find medievl knight DNA in amber?
Review: I have thought about it and I have considered it and have decided that "Timeline" is not Michael Crichton's time travel book about the Middle Ages, it is his book about the Middle Ages that involves time travel. This is not simply because the list of bibliographic references for the history of the Middle Ages is ten times longer than the list of scientific references, although that is certainly another compelling little bit of evidence. The main thing is that if you are going to tell a time travel story, why pick the Middle Ages? Is this simply some sort of homage to Mark Twain's "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" or could it be that Crichton is simply interested in the Middle Ages? Well, it could be both, but I am leaning towards the latter. Certainly I learned more about Medieval times from reading "Timeline" and checking out some related reference books on my own, that I ever did from history class. Of course, that was back in those enlightened times when we called this period the "Dark Ages." The plot is basically standard action serial, with lots of cliffhangers, twists and turns. It is a fun read without pretensions towards much else despite the mini-lectures on quantum mechanics. As I said, the fun here is in learning about life way back when and if you are not interested in arcane forms of warfare, then "Timeline" is probably not for you. (Yes, I agree with Crichton's argument that in these post-modern times, people are trying to abandon their sense of history.) The science of this book is, of course, way over my head, and if does not make as much sense as getting dinosaur DNA from mosquitoes trapped in amber, I am willing to go along for the ride. After all, I have sat through "Somewhere in Time" more than once and that is time travel based on Professor Harold Hill's "think" method. Besides, readers will see lots of similarities in terms of the arrogant rich guys behind Jurassic Park and ITC. You might come for the techno-adventure, but you will stay for the history lesson.
Rating: 
Summary: Yawner!
Review: This is not a good story. It seems to be a self-absorbed attempt at self-administered therapy for Crichton. It seems that he is simply trying to generate cash to pay for his notes that his therapist assigned him to keep.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing for Crichton
Review: Having read many of Crichton's books, Timeline was a complete disappointment. The characters were unbelieveable, and failed to properly develop during the story. I had a difficult time in developing any sympathy for any of them - good or bad. In fact, when a character or two was killed, I knew so little about them that it was difficult to care at all. They were more "props" than characters. The time travel technology portion was interesting and presented well, but within the context of midieval Europe, their continual "running from the bad guys" wore very, very thin. The plot overall was rather transparent, with no surprises, either beginning, middle or end. Sphere, Jurassic Park, and The Adromeda Strain were much better books, more entertaining, and easier to get through. This book was definitely nowhere near his best.
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