Rating: 
Summary: Puh-Leeeeaaasseeee....
Review: Honestly, Crichton must think that the great mass of people are incredibly naive. Hmmm... lets see... I don't want to come up with an REAL orginal plot, so I'll just write another book about a mad genius making a theme park. I already wrote 2, but no one will notice a 3rd I guess...Jurassic Park was an interesting conecpt, The Lost World was terrible, and Timeline is yet another where the author is obviously more interested in movie deals than a well-written, well-rounded book with an ACTUAL ORIGINAL PLOT! Please Mr. Crichton, retire this tired, "I-must-corner-the-world-vacation-market" storyline. What's next, "I will create a historically accurate amusement park, with dinosaurs, on the moon?"... You could call it "The Historically Accurate, Jurassic Moon Park". The follow up (for movie purposes only of course) could be "The Lost Moon Park"... Puh-leeeaaasse.....
Rating: 
Summary: A Mishap Adventure in Time
Review: Here we go with Mr. Crichton Lording it over us how intelligent he is. This novel is good , but this is a case of less is more. I really enjoy the medieval period and the storyline involving a professor and several graduate students going back in time to the 14th century was done very well. The problem comes with getting bogged down in the tiresome banalities of quantum physics. Once you get past that it is a good read.
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Summary: Timetravel has become reality...
Review: Until now, I was quite pleased with literary work done by Michael Crichton. I haven't read all of his books, but the few I know ("The Andromeda Strain", "Disclosure" and "Sphere") were either excellent or very good. Now let me tell you my thoughts concerning the quality of his latest work, "Timeline". The plot is strongly divided in two parts, although Crichton obviously intended to tell the story in four parts. The stage of the first part is the present (nothing unusual, is it?). An old confused physisist is found walking around in the desert of Arizona, a map of a medieval monastery in his pocket. The man dies, but his unusual injuries let arise suspicions among the doctors in the hospital where he was treated. Then the reader is catapulted to Black Rock, New Mexico, where the dead physisist worked for a high-tech company called ITC. We find out more about this strange company and its boss, Robert Doniger. He is an eccentric genius who founded ITC to explore a complete new kind of technology based on the laws of the quantum theory. The third location where the story takes place is the shore of a river in France. There a group of archeologists is trying to uncover the ruins of medieval castles, and ITC obviously sponsors the historians! The scientists realize quite quickly the contradiction that seems to exist between the past and the modern technology. As a result, Professor Johnston, the head of the expedition, visits the company in the USA to find out what secrets the mysterious Doniger hides. Two days later, three younger historians follow their teacher to America because the latter seems to be in great trouble. They find out that ITC has invented a method to send people to other universes that present different times of our own universe, and Johnston seems to be trapped in one of those realities. So the historians travel back in time to rescue their professor. That's the end of part one. Part two is an adventurous story about historians from the 20th century who desperately try to find their teacher among knights, squires, pages and monks and to bring him back home. I don't want to tell what developments our heroes live trough exactly, but I assure you they are fascinating for somebody who doesn't want too much philosophy but a healthy portion of action and suspense. Part one is written for people who aren't satisfied only with shooting and killing but who want to know more of how our world is constructed. Crichton presents us interesting facts concerning high-tech companies, modern technology and science. Furthermore we are shown the ways of how people from the 20th century appreciate history or don't appreciate it, for that part. I would like to comment on the characters around whom the plot is centered. First of all, there is Doniger. Crichton provides us with a detailed description of his life so that the reader can always say who the boss of ITC is. Then there are Professor Johnston whose personality wasn't really defined, Andre Marek, one of Johnston's former students, a so-called "experimental" historian, Chris, the physically weak lover and, last but not least, Kate, the "spiderwoman" whose personality is somewhere out there but in the book because Crichton forgot to characterize her apart from giving her a name and a country of origin. A real pity! I expected more of her! As I indicated before, the second part consists of hard action only. To be clear, I have nothing against it. What I hate, though, are books in which the author creates too many difficulties and problems for his characters so that the books loses its realictic touch and plausibility. Using this criteria alone, I'd have to admit I hated this book. Fortunately for "Timeline", there are other criteria as well. Apart from those unnecessary turning points, there is a number of big logical mistakes. (I don't want to list them down, but I assure you that they are on the pages of the novel.) Another point I disliked were the descriptions of medieval time and its people. Crichton tried to give them their own language but couldn't really accomplish it. As a result, Lord Oliver and Co. sounded like normal people from our own century and not like "medievals". They even behaved the way we are used to from our streets. Since this book belongs to entertainment literature, I didn't expect to find more valuable information about the 14th century. Unfortunately there were no major positive surprises in this point. The text above doesn't contain everything I wanted to express on the subject of "Timeline", but I am going to finish this review nevertheless. The book as a whole isn't bad; it's a solid work you expect from an author like Crichton. It's quite enjoyable, and you will remember it for a long time. And aren't those two criteria the most important of all?
Rating: 
Summary: I wanted to like this book
Review: But I didn't. I couldn't get into the time-travel thing, maybe because it wasn't written well enough for believability. And Mr. C wanted us to visit this medievil world of jousts and castles, but the reader just thinks it's fantasy. Sorry. Try again.
Rating: 
Summary: Typical Crichton
Review: Crichton at his usual best. I became interested in Crichton during the release of Jurassic Park. His attention to detail is great! Hope to see more.
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Summary: Jurrasic Park with armored people instead of armored lizards
Review: I am a dinosaur fan and I liked this book more than Jurrasic Park. That's the good news. However, this book follows the same formula as Jurrasic Park -- it starts the same way (some character who only appears in chapter 1 finds a person who dies but gives a clue that something weird is going on), it has a air of mystery before they get to where the action is, and after that the main characters run around like hell dodging sharp pointy things. I give this a better rating than Jurassic Park because there were a few clever things in the second half of the book that were kind of fun, and the ending was neater.
Rating:
Summary: Take it for what it is
Review: I basically enjoyed this book. I tend to be a pretty big Michael Crichton fan, and although I don't disagree with other reviewers who point out some of the author's shortcomings in this book, well, heck, I was entertained, and that's what I paid for. The problem of whether they are actually in our universe's past or just a very, very, very similar past in an alternate universe is a real issue, but readers should be aware that in the author's note at the end of the book, Crichton specifically disavows any pretense to being scientifically "on the ball" in this book. People are probably offended that Michael Crichton, of all people, would have truck with such shoddy science, but the fact is that this is primarily a work of historical fiction, ultimately intended for the big screen. Although Crichton is one of our ablest practitioners of the art of science fiction in many respects, the fact remains that he is at heart an entertainer, and in this case he just threw together a quasi-scientific rationale that let him send people to the 14th century. Unlike, say, in "the Andromeda Strain", the science here is just a means to an end, not the end in and of itself. That said, although this is basically not a terribly complex work, Crichton does try to bring a few historical issues to the readers attention that many readers might not have contemplated. Lady Claire is a very strong female figure, using sex and all her wiles to politic and intrigue her way through the dangerous courts of crazed warlords, trying to hold onto her inheritance... The architectural stuff is pretty engrossing -- not a lot of historical fiction deals in such depth with these matters... There are a few cool little extra elements thrown in -- the game of proto-tennis being played in the monastery; the sketchy-but-interesting overview of some of the technological precursors to gunpowder; the general view of knights not as "knights-in-shining-armor", but as incredibly dangerous, frequently insane, always HEAVILY armed killers, constantly on edge and on the prowl in an uncertain, deadly, lawless environment... I think the Plague should have been accorded a more prominent role -- although the action in this book takes place 7 years after the worst years of the plague, the fact is that it was still a major source of terror, having only recently killed half of Europe, and it kept cropping up repeatedly throughout the 14th century, and for long after. It is hardly even mentioned in this book, except in passing, and in a sort of twist at the end... Another thing -- the native american doctor and the young cop in the early chapters of the book strike me as being left over from an early draft of this story, one which was mostly set aside. Mark my words -- if ("when", I should say), this is turned into a screenplay, the director will somehow incorporate their lines, their roles, into the roles of the real main characters, Marek, Kate and Chris. All in all, it has its flaws, but it's still entertaining, and realistically speaking, it will be the only book a lot of people ever read that goes into this much detail about that period of history.
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Summary: Science BS, Adrenaline-Pumped Story
Review: The closest Crichton book I can compare this with is Jurassic Park/Lost World. Again with Timeline we have Crichton attempting to astound us 100 pages of astrophysics, quantum physics, and whatnot. By no means am I an expert in these fields, but if this book was actually a piece of science fiction as I had originally thought it to be, then there shouldn't have been 100 pages dedicated to persuading us readers that this is actually possible. Nonetheless, the story was decent, and personally I felt that the excerpt from the history on the Hundred Years' War was used well by Crichton in sculpting his story. It is an exciting ride through fictional history, but it is also just another one of those "Crichton books."
Rating: 
Summary: Best Book I ever read
Review: This is the greatest book ever written!!!! It is interesting and I really got into it! I couldn't put it down!!!!! It is definitely the greatest book I've ever read! My favorite parts were when it was in present time and they were all worried about the people in the past. I really really liked the end but i can't say what I liked about it or I would give away the whole book. All I can say is read it. I'm sure you'll like it!
Rating:
Summary: Great New Research, Same Old Format
Review: It has been a very long time since I really enjoyed a Michael Crichton novel. His last three "Airframe", "Lost World" and "Disclosure" made me think that Crichton had lost a step or two in the creative process. He does come back with "Timeline", which is a very well researched and compelling story. "Timeline" moves quickly and is has a lot of action for any reader, but readers of Crichton will see one glaring aspect that costs the novel in the ending. "Timeline" is about a group of historians who get send back in time to find there mentor. Through the use of quantum physics a "microsoft" type company is trying to exploit the past for profit. This is until things start to go wrong. There head historian goes back to the 1340s and never returns. The young historians all agree to go find him. Of course the Hundred Years War is going on, and the story plunges through the days of knights, seiges and trickery. The young historians find themselves right in the heat of the battle. The constant "will they get back to the present day" is the major antagonist throughout the book. Once again Michael Crichton proves that he is one of the best at researching for a novel. "Timeline" makes great efforts to truly show what the 1340s were like. In addition Crichton explainations of quantum physics are easily understood and do not take up the entire book. The one thing that bothered me was the fact that the story runs the sameline as "Sphere". If you have read "Sphere" you know how it is going to end, and who gets killed. Very rarely was I fooled by an outcome. Time to get a new timeline Michael.
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