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kfquarium's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
Graphic: Animal death, Death, Violence, Blood, Murder, War, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Confinement, Cursing, Misogyny, and Fire/Fire injury
Minor: Child death, Rape, Sexual content, and Excrement
omair's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.25
Normally this would all be appealing to me, but this time it misses. Unlike some of his other work, like Jurassic Park, the generic characters that are our protagonists never rise above their predictableness. Timeline ends up being an easy-enough read, but never feels to capture me and rise above. That's not to say it's a bad book, but it is one that won't linger in the mind. A sad sort of irony for a book about time travel to be one I would likely never revisit.
Graphic: Death, Gore, Misogyny, Sexism, Violence, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism
Moderate: Animal death, Body shaming, Bullying, Vomit, Kidnapping, Gaslighting, and Alcohol
Minor: Genocide, Gun violence, Excrement, and Cultural appropriation
angela42's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
3.5
Switching between the past and present, this story follows a group of students as they travel back to medieval times (or technically to a parallel universe) to rescue their professor. This book delightfully has a race against the clock. A lot happens in the short timespan this book takes place in. Occassionally, I would need to take a moment to remember that hours are passing, not days.
Even though this book takes place in medieval times, there is of course also the part that takes place in the present, where Crichton gives detailed descriptions of the technology that is being used to send the students to medieval France. I think this might not appeal to all readers, but for me it is one of the things I like a lot about Crichton's writing.
The story takes quite some time to get to the meat of the story, but I didn't mind.
Overall, a very enjoyable Crichton adventure.
A note on the narration: occassionally words would be pronounced in a way that seemed weird to me. Most notably, the narrator mispronounces the name of the author (???) at the start of the audiobook. I also thought trebuchet was pronounced weirdly, but when I looked it up, I learnt that the t at the end of the word being pronounced is actually a pronunciation recognised by the OED.
Graphic: Violence and Murder
shieldbearer's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
Some of my dissatisfaction is from this not being the book I would have written, but I really, really disliked Chris.
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child death, Infidelity, Misogyny, Violence, Blood, Murder, War, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Confinement, Sexism, Sexual assault, Torture, Vomit, Medical content, Religious bigotry, Acephobia/Arophobia, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Pregnancy
Minor: Rape
meganpbennett's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
Michael Crichton write a remarkably plausible story about time travel, where people have to travel back to the high middle ages to rescue someone who got accidentally stuck, and survive all of the issues of a castle in the middle of the Hundred Years War. Hey, at least there's no Plague, right?
I remember reading this book when I was in high school and ended reading all of the hard science sci-fi books by Crichton, and haven't read it since. I vaugely remembered a few sections, but not much of the bulk of the plot. It's still quite interesting, and the depictions of the high middle ages is one that take into account a more modern historical opinion of the time period, making allowances for the propaganda of the Renaissance.
Graphic: Body horror, Death, Gore, Xenophobia, Blood, Murder, War, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Vomit