Timeline (Michael Crichton)

I've read all of Michael Crichton's books, but this one is my favorite. It's full of fun and adventure, as well as the technological aspects that his latest books have had. I'm not sure I can buy the "faxing" of people, but this is fiction after all and a lot of just plain fun to read. It keeps your interest all the way through, and never disappoints.

This is really just a fun fluff novel. Is it a literary masterpiece? No. Is the plot predictable? Yes. Are the characters rather transparent? Yeah, that too. However, if you looking for a book that will just take you for a ride, then this is a good one. It's interesting enough to hold your attention. It's a quick book to read, so you could probably finish it off on a long flight or trip to the beach. And it's fairly well researched. It's not the most historically accurate book though. The book talks about the main characters having to be briefed in Old English before they go, which wouldn't have done them an ounce of good because in the latter half of the 14th century they would be speaking middle English, and probably early modern English in places. That's just one thing that irked me slightly.

Though the book had a slower start (in my opinion), it was constantly building up and getting better, layer after layer of the story. Crichton did his research about the 1400s and it is very informative and well-written. As an action lover and one who appreciates history, I give this book a solid four out of five.

This is a good page-turner, great for airport or beach reading. The novel brings medieval history, time travel and quantum physics to life. I had fun reading it but there is not much more that I'll remember for the long haul. It would make a good movie. (Maybe a movie has already been made of it). P.S. I meant to rate this a '3' but somehow I must have pressed '5' and I am unable to undo the mistake.

Entertaining novel with a good sounding scientific premise (whether it could actually be done or not is definitely up for debate.) Like most Crichton books, his material is extremely well research and presented in a manner that you don't question where he got his facts from and if you did, he provides a lengthy bibliography. This is not one of his better novels, but is still a good read. The basic gist of the story is that some scientists create a sort of time travel but one of their scientists gets left in the past and a group of his graduate students are selected to go back and rescue him from medieval times. It is a well paced book and fun to read. I had some issues with the timeline (ha ha) of the storyline itself. Once again (see my review of Dan Brown's Angels and Demons) the characters in the story accomplish things and travel great distances in impossibly short amounts of time. Even if it physically could be done, the author is not taking into account the weariness that t... Read more

I'm really surprised to find Timeline so low on this list. Even though the science is more of a stretch than usual, I thought that it was a really good book.

This is just ignorant schlock that Crichton probably wrote while waiting for his lunch order to come. And no, to comment on an earlier review, I'm not a Christie fan. A long way from it.

You must be a fool not to give this book five stars. Either that or a real Agatha Christie fan not wanting to give Mr. Crichton any credit. This book is almost as good as Jurassic Park, probably Crichtons second or third best. I really think this one deserves five. Crichton throw out detail at you in this one like he never has before......well like he always does actually. If you have'nt read it yet go out and buy it or rent it. Its worth a good couple of hours of page-turning.

This story is pretty out-there, but I found it very intriquing how Crichton tied together super advanced science and medieval history.