Rating: 
Summary: Made of hollywood, unrealistic but can kill time.
Review: This is a real cliche hollywood style novel. Infact, when they turn it into a movie, unlike other novels they wont have to change a thing, cause it's mafe for Tv or rather the theater. I had a great problem to keep my face straight when crichton describes our heroes shrinking into atoms. It felt really stupid...Not a bad read. And why use an archaic thing like cage in which you get shrunk. There has to be something more hightech than that.
Rating: 
Summary: I couldn't stop reading it!
Review: I was recomended this book by my cousin, and I did read it. Let me warn you, if you absolutely hate science, or you just plan dont get it, dont read this book. This books has about 40 pages just on how the multiverse theory works. This book took me and pulled me in. It was by far the best book i've read. I loved this book's action, suspense, and adventure. I strongly suggest any book reader to read this book...ASAP! It was sooo good.
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Summary: If you were entranced by Dan Brown read it, if not, back off
Review: This book was amazing. Michael Crichton has the style of Dan brown where everything happens so fast. You'll find you're reading the fastest you've ever read because you can't wait to know the ending. You'll wonder how the characters do the things they do and you'll wonder how they could ever make it to the end and you'll wonder how the ending could ever be happy. These are the days of Science Fiction and Fantacy. These are the days for authors like Tolkein, Pullman, Brown, and Crichton. Become part of the time. Read this book.
Rating:
Summary: Surprisingly Good
Review: My mother, knowing my bizarre fascination with both historical fiction and quantum mechanics, bought this book for me. I was honestly surprised that it was as good as it was. The most wonderful quality: realism. Crichton did a superb job of detailing the grisly world of the middle ages in Europe. My main gripe with historical fiction is "time period" romanticism some authors tend to use much too liberally. I thought this book was a believable, clear cut, stark contrast to our modern American world. I also thought the quantum bit was a delightfully unusual and creative twist for the genre.
Rating:
Summary: A Great Novel
Review: Timeline is an absolutely incredible book that kept me turning the pages constantly. I would recommend people who like swashbucklers and action/fiction novels to read this book. It is a face-paced, action-packed book.Timeline is about a group of scientists/archeologist that have been research a medieval campsite in France. The main professor leaves on a business trip, and does not return when he said he was going to. While searching around in an old ruin, they make an astonishing discovery and are called to come to New Mexico and visit a technological company that pretty much dropped out of the media. Now they are given the chance to visit the past through advances in quantum physics. As they enter the past they find they will have to fight for their lives to come back alive. I found this an overall amazing, fun, and exciting book to read. It contains some graphic pictures (for those who find that offensive). There are a lot of quantum physics references, but if you read them closely and go over them once or twice, you will be able to grasp the concept. Michael Crichton delivers again in this great book.
Rating: 
Summary: He contradicts himself in the afterword, among other crimes
Review: Many people have already pointed out the multitudinous errors that bugged me, so just allow me to add one more. In the afterword, Crichton writes that the medieval times were in fact, not more violent than our own, and perhaps were even less so. He rather piously criticizes those "pompous academics" who would continue to promote this misconception. Well, that's an interesting claim following 500 pages describing characters being relentlessly beheaded, burned, imprisoned, shot with arrows, tortured, jousted, stomped with horses, chased, raped, raped anally with hot pokers, disemboweled, splashed with hot pitch, dropped to their death from great heights, slashed, hung...did I miss anything else?
Rating:
Summary: Pure piffle
Review: 1* Pure piffle A recipe: mix "ana" ( = each in equal quantity) in a blender or processor the eternal American fetish for Ancient Europe (Rome, Middle Ages, etc.), for French and English nobility, knights-in-armour, tournaments, jousting, damsels in distress, blood-thirsty warlords, etc.; dilute in gore (plenty of it) and in a pompous, stilted, clumsy, awkward dialogue that wants to pass itself for an archaic language and way of speaking. Operate the blender for the desired length of time (in this case, the one needed to read almost 500 pages). Oven-bake the resulting poultice in a crust of inflated notions about quantum physics; sprinkle liberally with 32 billion microprocessors contained in an extra-super-duper computer system to give a flavour of modern age technology and science. Add, as a final garnish, 4 ½ pages of bibliography to give it a veneer of serious, scholarly research - and there you have "Timeline". One addition (and so much for the "research") to the several inconsistencies noticed by others: in the year (1357) the book's action takes place, there were no indoors toilets (the first "water-closet" was installed at Queen Bess' palace in Richmond, by Sir John Harington, courtier and writer, in 1596, i.e. 239 years later). My esteemed colleague (as a medical graduate) Michael Crichton's best work still remains "The Andromeda Strain" (his first production, of 33 years ago). One wonders if the real purpose of writing a book these days is to come out with a good one, or just to grind out something with an eye to Hollywood film rights, thus securing not only the copyrights, but also to be one of the movie's script-writers for, of course, an additional fee (my copy bears on its front cover "Now a Major Film"). Nice going, Doctor Crichton. But this reader dropped this book of yours less than halfway through it.
Rating:
Summary: Terribly entertaining but terribly flawed
Review: 3 ¼ stars Several of the reviewers of The Jester recommended Timeline as a much more sophisticated medieval historical/action/fantasy novel and they were right, but to the extent that Crichton was more thorough than Patterson with his historical background, he is guilty of an equivalent degree of logical inconsistencies. This is an entertaining read because of the terrifically interesting theme of going back in time to the middle ages(although I think someone else with the initials MT came up with this idea around 120 years ago). If you keep your expectations moderate, and can appreciate the book's strengths without becoming too disgusted with Crichton's many, many inconsistencies, you should enjoy it. Pros: - Crichton really does portray 14th century French-English feudalism with a lot of detail. For instance, he spends a fair amount of time describing the mill, both its structure and fortifications, and the industry going on inside of it, both milling grains and using water power to operate the bellows in a small steel foundry. I appreciated Crichton's thorough bibliography of historical sources. - The illustrations were nice - why is having some drawings and illustrations in a book considered suitable only for children? - The plot is fast paced and there is plenty of action. HOWEVER......... the Cons: - After going through a number of pages of genuinely scientific-seeming explanation (including diagrams) for how the technology works, likening it in some ways to a fax machine, Crichton drops the ball on the logic. When asked why a person can become reconstituted at the end of the process in another world/another time without having any device on the receiving end to put the person back together (like receiving a fax without a fax machine on the receiving end), he just uses a pretty ridiculous explanation - namely, that some other much more sophisticated civilization in one of the infinite alternate universes must have figured out how to do it, so those advanced folks are being thoughtful enough to make the space/time traveler reappear at the designated place and time in this alternate universe out of the kindness of their hearts - "we don't know why, we just know it works." - Crichton is emphatic on having his characters state that "this is not actually time travel - it's travel between different universes occurring at different times in the past." That doesn't square with the professor leaving the clues for the crew in the monastery - if it is a different universe rather than the same one, then how could the note and the bifocal lens end up in the real universe? Wouldn't the professor have had to travel back in time in our universe to have left those items? - How did the professor just "sneak off" into the 14th century world by himself, given that the process requires a lot of coordination between scientists and equipment back in our time? - What was the deal with the original scientist found lost in the desert? Why did he end up there, rather than anywhere else? This was a significantly loose-ended subplot. - Would the ITC folks, who have been so incredibly precise and secretive about their work, have really been so careless as to let slip all of their knowledge about the 14th century? - Isn't it a bit hokey and too-coincidental that one of the main characters just happens to be an expert in all forms of medieval martial arts? Similarly, isn't it a bit coincidental that another character happens to be a rock climbing enthusiast when the only way to escape a dozen or so situations is to use those climbers' skills? In fact, all of their dozens of miraculous escapes go so far overboard that they make a James Bond flick look realistic. - Why would the experienced ex-Marine security team be caught so thoroughly in the headlights by the knights upon their first arrival? - How exactly does Donniger think he will profit from historic tourism if the visitors to past times in the alternate universes can't interact with those universes and must essentially remain invisible? If we can't trust our little crew of expert historians and archeologists to refrain from meddling in those universes, how exactly is it that we expect joe-tourist to refrain from interfering with the past? - How is it that Deckard/De Kore happens to be wearing his little earpiece/communicator (and it still works, too?) on, a full year or more after he left our world? - How is it that the communicator/translator device incorporates an accurate vocalization of Occitan, a dead medieval French language that no one has spoken for hundreds of years, especially since ITC's visitors have no interactions with 14th century people?. - Why is there such a focus on the secret passageway into La Roche? If it's so secret, how does anyone know about it? Furthermore, how does the French army follow the protagonists into the castle, given that the secret passage is very long, the only way is down a presumably deep underground river and the protagonists took the only boats? - The scene near the end with the giant knight at the GREEN CHAPEL OF DEATH??? Come on! Crichton stole that scene straight from Monty Python. - The lady (forgot her name) who ends up with Andre - sure she's a savvy, ultra-practical opportunist, but even so, her conniving tryst with the knight she more-or-less publicly denounces doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Does she just sleep with every man who has any degree of power in the hopes that she can escape her situation? - The character Chris - could there be a less realistic, dopey-geeky-nerd-academic caricature/walking (stumbling) stereotype? - How is it that the professor knew how to make Greek fire or an equivalent? The recipe has been lost for many hundreds of years and even modern scientists cannot duplicate it. If you are not too put-off by all of the above, you should enjoy Timeline.
Rating:
Summary: "Timeline" an adventure not to be missed
Review: Crichton's "Timeline", in my opinion one of the best out of his long line of bestsellers, brings us to the end of the twentieth century where scientific discoveries of indescribable proportions abound in the world, a world where the impossible becomes a reality.
The field of Quantum Mechanics comes into play with devastating effect when ITC/CTC Technology co. creates what is known as a 'quantum computer - a device capable of doing billions of calculations in a matter of seconds and, effectively, is a time machine in itself. A group of students are sent, using the time machine, seven hundred years into Medieval France to look for their missing professor. It is 1357 - the height of a bloody conflict.
Flawlessly written, Timeline boasts a narrative to rival that of "Jurassic Park", with action scenes generously shared between the twentieth century and the medieval scenarios. Everything from exploding computers to crumbling castles avail, along with an equal amount of "calm" non-action parts.
The themes represented in the book are astoundingly brought to vivid life by the characters. Chivalry is resurrected to go hand-in-hand with valor, honor and sacrifice - as well as survival and some good old-fashiond ass-kicking. (I had to say that.) As for those who know next to nothing about quantum mechanics and/or medieval background, Crichton provides in-depth explanation that not only blends in beautifully with the context, but doesn't bore those who already know about it.
All in all, "Timeline" is an adventure not to be missed, whether or not the thought of quantum mechanics rubbing elbows with French feudalism appeals to you. Just make sure this Crichton bestseller is on your booklist this year.
Rating: 
Summary: Timeline
Review: Mr. Crichton used the brilliant idea of traveling to a parallel universe using quantum technology intrigued me while reading this book. Just reading the first chapters roused my interest to reading the rest of the book. The first chapters captured my interest with the action that was written in it. I thought that this book was totally worth the time that I took to read it. The way that Mr. Crichton describes in so much detail, the technology that allows the characters in the story to travel into another universe is truly remarkable.
Everything that is said about the technology was not easily understood. This is because Mr. Crichton only uses scientific explanations to try to show how all the technology works, and not everyone can understand that without difficulty. Although there were a few unclear places of understanding in the book, the fest of it was straightforward. There was a point in the book where it seemed to be a little long because he repeats a few things, and the action is predictable. Other than that, the book had a great plot and story line. The idea of using quantum technology to pass into another universe, similar to ours is extremely attention grabbing. The characters in the book were well written as well as the plot. The characters in the story seemed very realistic with their emotions and actions. They were not the typical heroes of a fiction story where the heroes were perfect and always won everything easily. I did not want to put the book down when I was reading it. This book was extremely well written, and that I believe Mr. Crichton lived up to his reputation. TIMELINE had an unpredictable plot, and realistic heroes that had flaws in them. I would recommend this book to anyone that has a taste for action, history, excitement, and imagination.
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