To put it simply, in an attempt to avoid useless rambling; like many of Crichton's other books, 'Timeline' is an amazing story idea but, since Crichton is an overall bad* author, the book fails to remain interesting** beyond the summary.* because of his terrible paragraph structure, unbalanced and ineffective combination of history lessons and the story, repetitive use of adjectives, laughable attempt at drama, and angering use of those damnable 2-dot section breaks ESPECIALLY when no break is neccessary.** even with all those repetitive and unimaginative plot twists.