Rating: 
Summary: Timeline
Review: This excellently written novel will keep you flipping pages as quickly as you can just to keep up with the action. I can't wait to read it again!
Rating: 
Summary: Come on Crighton - This is the same as Jurasic Park
Review: I do like most of Crighton's other work but found that this book's plot was so similar to Jurasic Park it was extremly annoying. I think this book was written with movie and computer game paychecks in mind.
Rating: 
Summary: Fun read, but a bit like fast food
Review: This book has so many elements that make it a compelling read, that I almost hate to mention things like shallow characterization and predictability of plot and just-too-convenient situations. So let me dwell on what I DID like: Crichton's typically well-reseached and imaginitive premise. A tasty combination of not-too-deep science and not-too-complicated SciFi, wrapped in a historically accurate and educational package. Action that moves at a rapid pace. Settings and situations that are just BEGGING to be made into a movie. (I just saw "Gladiator" this weekend, and I can imagine what the Hollywood special effects people could do to create the medieval world of this book!). So, the bottom line is READ IT, but don't expect anything more than a fun time that will leave you ever so slightly unsatisfied when you finish.
Rating: 
Summary: We expect better from Crichton
Review: I think of Crichton as a master of "science versimilitude" as well as a superior craftsman of the straight out thriller. Well, not this time. The science here is a weak and inconsistent hodge-podge to explain the time travel ( and Crichton himself says so in his Acknowledgements ). The characters here are the usual interchangeably forgettable group of every Crichton novel. Only the action scenes and cliffhangers are above average and , at that, will work better as a movie than a book. So, overall, this one rates an OK, but we have come to expect better from this seaoned writer.
Rating:
Summary: Narrow Escape-ist Literature
Review: As predictable as San Diego weather and sprouting more recipes than Julia Child, "Timeline" will appeal to every reader nostalgic for Frank and Joe Hardy. The characters here are their archaeological equivalent: to say they are one-dimensional begs for the possibility of less than one dimension to adequately describe them. This would require a quirk in the physical world, with which "Timeline" abounds. In fact, Crichton's articulation of how time travel might be possible is the book's only saving grace. From there (about midway through), it descends into a series of scenes that read like treatments for the movie it will inevitably become. How surPRISED we are that the good guys live and the bad ones die! How unUSUAL that the 'Timeline' clicks down to the FINAL SECOND before the dramatic rescue! How enlightening to find that knights had halitosis! Do crack the cover if you're so inclined. Just, please, wake me when it's over.
Rating:
Summary: Droit du Maestro
Review: Michael Chrichton is one of my favorite techno-authors. He has demonstrated his abilities with such novels from Andromeda Strain to Airframe to Jurassic Park, and has demonstrated his human and social insights in such as Rising Sun and Disclosure. He can do them all. So when I picked up Timeline in the hardcover, I expected a good read. And I wasn't disappointed. But it wasn't the read I expected. Timelline is Crichton's HISTORICAL obligato, and as a well established and talented author, his Droit du Maestro. He can write about anthing he wants at this point in his career. He's earned that right.As a story about knights and ladies, castles and kings, battles and sieges, byzantine intrigue and brutal violence. Crichton dispells some myths and misconceptions about the "dark" ages. What did fall short was the promise of technical detail. This was no Jurrasic Park, technonerds. I thought this was going to be about molecular hightech. But science, real or speculative, was only used as a rather thinly sketched vehicle for the time-ex machina, to get where he wanted to go: the past. This is mainly a novel about medieval times. And to that extent it was well drawn from an apprarently exhaustive research effort by the author. And to be fair it has an ending that pulls back to the technical side of time travel. That is, the story wouldn't have worked without the technology. But science and hightech this is not. Maybe he should just write a straight historical novel and forget the time travel?
Rating: 
Summary: A refreshing bit of sci-fi
Review: With "Timeline" Michael Crichton returns to the formula that made "The Andromeda Strain" and "Jurassic Park" so popular. By formula, however, I don't mean the story is predictable. Nor is it just like the previously mentioned novels. But if you're a fan of Crichton's works, you'll see the resemblance. This novel works well because is takes a far-fetched concept of science fiction and makes it almost believable with the use of complex technology. Meanwhile, such technology is explained so that the notion of time-travel doesn't just seem plausible, it's comprehensible. As usual, Crichton's extensive research of both the technology he employs and the time period the characters visit shines through. The book suffers from a few gratuitous thrills and simplistic plot lines, but it still delivers a decently intriguing story.
Rating:
Summary: Once you realize that technology is a character here....
Review: You'll be much better off. This is a fun novel, but I say that as a history buff/would-be scientist. The quantum mechanics stuff is fun, and the section at the beginning where he discusses scientists' beliefs and perceptions at the end of the last century is very compelling and enlightening. That said, there are problems in the book. If you read Jurassic Park, get ready: here it comes again, this time in chainmail. Everything down to Doniger's ultimate motive is reminiscient of JP. Further, the characters are like scenery. With one character named Chris, I had a hard time remembering whether that was a boy or a girl. And, you know what, it didn't matter. The other thing I found implausible (funny word to use about a book that includes "quantum foam take my home") is that the grad students are in pretty good shape for all of the combat and running around during their 37 hours in 1357. I was a grad student once and I got tired just reading what they were doing. You have to hand it to the author. The book is entertaining. It is scientifically plausible and, with the exception of Doniger's wacky discussion of time paradoxes, conceivable based on what we know. I enjoyed it.
Rating:
Summary: Engrossing
Review: "Timeline is going to be a box office smash" This is what I found myself thinking whilst reading Michael Crichton's latest novel. I'm absolutely certain that this book will be made into a movie. Right from the first couple of chapters I found myself in the casting couch, thinking which Actor/Actress was going to be in the film. Lets hope that this Screenplay about Quantum Physics will be a tadge better than the one about the talking Gorilla (nuff said)
Rating:
Summary: Nicely done!
Review: The book starts out when a couple finds a crazy old man in the middle of nowhere, New Mexico. The climax of the novel is in 14th century France. How? you wonder. So did I. The first 1/3 of the book keeps you turning the page in curiousity, the middle 1/3 keeps you turning the page out of "I want to see what happens, but there's some slack and boringness in the plot". The last 1/3 however, which begins in the action scene in the mill, keeps you turning the page due to fast paced adventure, and the book even has a twist in the end. All in all it's a worthy read for any Crichton reader, and it sure beats Lost World and Terminal Man in my opinion.
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