Rating: 
Summary: Not well written.
Review: I believe Crichton suffers from his own success. This book reads like it was put to print when it became "good enough". The foreshadowing is blatant, the plot mechanisms are cliche. He even makes a huge obvious mistake - the characters are using earpieces to communicate, which also translate language into common-era English on the fly; the thing is, for a good portion of the second half of the book, the characters have turned off all their earpieces, but can STILL understand what the locals are saying, when just 12 hours ago, they could understand nothing without the earpieces! There are other smaller time inconsistancies. This is just sloppy, and I think a lot of popular authors let their quality drop like this when they're pumping out a book or more a year.
Despite all of this, the book was still enjoyable, and that's what saved its rating. Crichton at least understands reader attention span and interest.
Rating: 
Summary: A great adventure.
Review: This book is fantastic! Great plotting.
Rating:
Summary: Timeline
Review: Timeline is an exciting Technothriller in which a team of archeologists go back to the 14th century to rescue their professer, Edward Johnston, while trying to avoid being killed by the British and French during the Hundred-year-war. Crichton skillfully captures the anxiety and fear of the team, and adds a suprise ending. I recommend this book to all who A: Are a fan of Michael Crichton, B: Are interested in knights and archers, etc, and C: Just want a very good book.
Rating: 
Summary: Timeline - Michael Crichton
Review: Teenager had to read for extra credit for history - gave a good feel for that time era both teacher & student thought.
Rating:
Summary: Good book, bad science
Review: As an adventure, "Timeline" is fast moving and entertaining and well worth the price of the paperback. Having said that, if you like the science in science fiction to be self-consistent and believable, as I do, there are a number of serious problems with the "scientific" infrastructure of this book. The first, and biggest inconsistency is that of time travel. Is this a book about time travel or is it not? The character, Gordon, says "time travel is impossible," and then describes the multiverse and the infinite number of other universes that exist, including the one that "exactly" duplicates our earth of 600 years ago. The universe to which Professor Johnston has been sent using wormhole connections in quantum foam. So how did the professor's glasses and "help me" message get from that universe to our universe, aged 600 years? Crichton described the multiverse and then wrote an "impossible" time travel story. Then there are the transport machines that send people to the different universe (or different time, depending on which plot device Crichton is using at the moment.) The machines are described as vaporizing the people within using high intensity lasers in the enclosing rods as the final recording of the person is made that will be transmitted to the "past." (I don't have a problem with his stealing the concept from Star Trek.) However, the machines themselves are also sent back with their occupants. Do the lasers vaporize themselves? How can observers see a "data stream" as an object that grows smaller before their eyes? Wouldn't it have made more sense to transmit a recording of the machine as a "header record" in front of the transmission of the person since Crichton is invoking "quantum magic" to re-materialize the machine and occupant, anyway. (Does anyone besides me believe that the courts would call vaporizing people murder?) Once in the past the machines drift away into other nearby universes until recalled. This is said to be a good thing since the inhabitants of this universe might destroy the machines. Why wouldn't the inhabitants of the universe that they drift to destroy the machines? Finally, (though there are more) there is the motivation of the evil scientist in using this technology: he wants to build historically accurate theme parks about the past to make billions of dollars from jaded tourists. Yes, I know that is what makes the story, but in an infinite number of universes wouldn't there be an infinite number of universes that would be the equivalent of our future with inventions and medicines worth much more than a few theme parks. That's if you believe that a theoretical physicist could be interested in making money in theme parks in the first place.
Rating: 
Summary: entertaining, but only fair
Review: You don't have to believe in or understand the science in a good science fiction novel for the book to work: it just needs to be credible enough to permit a willing suspension of disbelief, and interesting enough to add to the story. In Timeline, the science does neither, which makes it an obstacle. The book is very entertaining, but only as a conventional page-turner. The attempts at explaining the science do not induce a suspension of disbelief: the logic of the explanations and arguments used by the scientists in the book would not persuade a reasonably bright 10th grader. Does Chriton think that graduate students at Yale are really that dumb? Equally disappointing is Chriton's failure to make the most of the possibilities posed by a time-travel plot. The "mad scientist's" motivations for developing time travel are surprisingly mundane, and the plot fails to explore the intriguing implications of time travel (other than to offer an utterly unconvincing explanation of why temporal paradoxes are impossible). Timeline is an entertaining read, but not much more.
Rating:
Summary: This book rocks!
Review: This book is awsome! It starts out with some information on quantum theory, which is pretty interesting, to me at least. After that is the setup for the story, and that is pretty good, you keep learning and it keeps you wondering. Once you get to the story part, though, you can not put it down. I have no regrets about reading this book and recommend it to everyone. The ending was great, and I think this would make a great movie; no sequels though, sequels are usually terrible. Read this book! you will not be sorry.
Rating:
Summary: Multi-world good escapes
Review: My perspective on this work comes somewhat as a sci-fi writer also wanting sci-fi realism in similar action adventure stories. Impressive realism in this work, at a level other authors only hope and strive for. I could see where it might be difficult for readers to care deeply for the characters in this story, which aids in the action/suspense, as Timeline seems somewhat more event driven than character based. Opinions vary on which is more important in such stories. It was very impressive to have credible time travel physics mixed with a credible, relatively mid-evil based setting, (castles and knights are mid-evil periods to me though the story explains otherwise) all in good detail. I didn't per-say believe the multi-verse concept completely, but it was still good, well thought out, and actually created a "time travel" concept that eliminated that constant paradox obsession I have, or I should say I once had. Crichton could have gone on and explained in better detail how the paradox theories are wiped in this story. It was enough to me as is. With the worst problems perhaps being character depth in some cases, it was enjoyable. My suggestion for those considering reading, where I was surprised by this read, you will likely be more engaged by the world of 600 years ago than the sci-fi world that creates the story setting. This was not at all a bad thing, just a little surprising. Enjoy!
Rating:
Summary: Doomsday Book ripoff
Review: One wouldn't think that there would be a limit to where one could go in the imagination when it comes to travel. However, Michael Crichton seems to have completely copied the ideas of Connie Willis in her far better rendition of this story, Doomsday Book. I highly recommend her version (the paperback came out in 1993) over Crichton's.
Rating:
Summary: Timeline
Review: Timeline is about a group of historians who get a little bit to interest in their work. It all started when everyone was working on their project or the exploration of a new structure. Two members apart of the excavation found some interesting documents in the cave. They found a pair of recently made glasses but it had a very old bacterium on it. They took the documents and glasses back to the lab and found out that they were the professor’s glasses and that one of the documents read HELP ME. (...) I thought Timeline was a really good book and I like the ending the most because Crichton shows us that if you have your mind set on something never give up because it could always happen. Even though this was a little far fetched it still could happen. I would recommend this book to everyone because it was a really great book, all the characters had a big role and all the piece came together like a big puzzle. I am really glad I read this book and hope to read a lot more of Michael Crichton books. The only thing that bothered me about this book was that it took a long time to get into action but it was worth it. The Plot of the book was strange because it had good vs. evil and also a romantic plot. (...)
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