Rating: 
Summary: A good book
Review: This was my first Crichton and I was totally impressed. I was really exciting and it kept me on the edge of my seat. I loved how Crichton included the quantum theory of traveling through the multiverse in this book and how a group of historians could go to another universe to rescue a fellow historian from another time. This is an excellent book!
Rating:
Summary: A Powerful Blend of Fact and Fiction
Review: I'll admit--I was skeptical before I read this book. I had heard of Michael Crichton's writing prowess but movies like Jurassic Park and the Lost World dissuaded me from EVER reading those two. However, a friend insisted that I read Timeline, and I'm glad I did. The book is a work of genius, a masterpiece. Crichton artfully blends fact seen in the theories behind quantam physics and the actual historical events of the Middle Ages with a compelling fiction of parallel universes and the possibility to believe in time travel. Added is a little spice of romance, all that is necessary to entirely tie the book together. The characters are not meant to be entirely deep, emotional people, but their internal turmoil and courage under fire characterizes them more deeply than long-winded paragraphs of emotion. I don't know how anyone thinks of combining Medieval history with quantam physics, but somehow Crichton did, and the story seems all the more real with the knowledge that it's entirely original.This book will be enjoyed in some aspect by anyone who has dreamed to go beyond the constraints of time and really experience the past, anyone that believes in chivalry, anyone to whom quantam physics is not a theory but a reality, and anyone who loves a good story.
Rating:
Summary: This is the best writer of our time.
Review: Michale Crichton on any book means that you are in good hands when you purchase any book by him. He is truly a great author. Timeline is a great book. I really liked it a lot! I could see this going to to be a movie!
Rating: 
Summary: It was so good I burned it on my barbeque grill.
Review: It was a waste of perfectly good trees. Flat, unlikeable characters that one really couldn't emotionally sympathize with, an ending that was blantantly obvious once the basic premise of the novel was revealed, blah blah blah bhah. This is the only book I hated so much I burned it in my backyard. On my barbeque grill to be exact. It burned really well, and that's all that was good about it.
Rating:
Summary: AWESOME
Review: This book is a real page turner.When I finished the book, I opened it right back up and read it again. There are just so many details and and ideas that make you wonder... The theme park ending was a corn-ball way to end the book, but Doniger's demise was imaginative. Why are you reading this-get the BOOK!
Rating: 
Summary: One of his better books.
Review: I seriously got into Michael Crichton's work after reading JURASSIC PARK and loving it. Nothing that I've read of his since then has come anywhere close to being as good. I had the feeling as I began to read this book that it had the potential to be just as good. Unfortunately, it began to lose its initial momentum and ended up being another par for the course for Mr. Crichton. Crichton seems to be at his best when he's focusing on cutting edge technology or theory, as evidenced by the strong themes of genetics, cloning, and chaos theory in JURASSIC PARK. TIMELINE had a strong theme of quantum theory driving the story and there was even a small amount of time spent discussing archaology, but not nearly enough on the latter, IMHO. The problem is, at least half of the book gets away from the quantum theory once it's been used to launch the adventure story and we only get bits and pieces of it after that. The adventure story makes up the meat of the book. We have three historians running around the medieval French countryside in the Late Middle Ages during the Hundred Years War. Say so long to the technology focus. Now, it seems that Mr. Crichton has done his research as far as how people lived during this time period, so the setting and surrounding characters seem authentic. However, the storytelling seems to degrade from here. It consists of mainly "the protagonists get split up, find each other again, get captured, escape, get split up, and find each other again" in a neverending cycle. It got pretty tedious. A hundred pages probably could have been cut out of this book without any significant loss to the story. Crichton does throw in an interesting twist in the form of a mystery as to who exactly is causing them no end of trouble, but, unfortunately, it wasn't done very elegantly. Don't think I'm bashing the book, because it was quite enjoyable. I just think it got bogged down as far as pacing goes about three fourths of the way through. The characters were interesting, but their actions got tiresome at times. You would think that, since they were way out of their element, that they would have stuck closer together and been a little smarter. Anyway, if you liked Crichton's other work, then you will most likely enjoy this. Just don't expect another JURASSIC PARK caliber performance.
Rating:
Summary: Implausible but fun
Review: This book was truly a page turner. The gimmick of the clock and the relentless pursuit of the intrepid grad students by black knights and other thugs made this a thrilling read. Any fan of time travel stories and and medieval history will love this book. I have Two big beefs with the plot, however. First, the story didn't fit the conception of time travel. If, as Gordon explains, time travelers are really jumping into parallel universes, why do their messages and other impacts show up in THIS universe. Second, I didn't really get it until the very end what the point of ITC's investment was: to make money developing historically accurate theme parks and adjacent hotels. You've got to be kidding. I could think of a dozen better and less risky making money with a machine that could "fax" stuff (including explosives!) and people than using it to make a theme park historically accurate. You could put Fed Ex, Northrop and United Airlines out of business just like that! I get it with the dinosaur theme park, but here it really makes no sense. Oh well, its still a lot of fun.
Rating:
Summary: One of Crichton's best
Review: Michael Crichton is one of my favorite authors, and Timeline only strengthens my opinion of him. Although it has a slow start, one the team actually goes back in time the pace is absolutely nonstop. The action scenes are some of his most gripping ever, and his trademark cross cutting is used to its full potential. A winner!
Rating: 
Summary: Great story; flat characters
Review: This book was very typical of Michael Chrichton books. His stories are very exciting, written as if designed for the screen. This story is no different with a very exciting ending that he even managed have timed to keep up the excitement. However, he only seems to be able to write two emotions for his characters: anger and fear. This works well in his science fiction novels like this one, but one can only imagine how great they could be if they contained characters with more depth.
Rating:
Summary: Historical Thriller
Review: I really enjoyed reading Timeline. I think that Timeline is a well-written book. I like the book because it has an exciting plot, the quantum theory of relating to how they travel in the "multiverse" grabbed my attention early and Michael Crichton's word choices also gives you the sense that you are actually in fourteenth-century France or in the desert of Corazon, Arizona. I think that Crichton's style of telling the story was excellent because there was a lot of action throughout the book. One thing that I would change is the way that the characters would be introduced in the story because it did not grab my attention. I think that I would recommend this book to others if they liked Jurassic Park, because it moved at the same pace and had a good plot.
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