Fun book, great narrator but audio quality is poor

As with most Crichton novels, it's just a fun story with a great premise, no need for deep analysis. I will say however that this recording is of very bad quality. There are sections that sound like they were recorded on different equipment or in a different room and there was no effort whatsoever at normalization. There are long gaps (10 to 15 seconds) sometimes between parts as well. I wonder of Audible has a Q&A dept and editors to process books. If so, this one clearly fell into a crack.

4 people found this helpful

Great romp of a read! #Audible1

I enjoyed this audiobook enormously. First of all, the reader did a great job! He perfectly captured Crichton's bent for the sarcastic, and even did distinct voices for each character! LOL My only complaint was that he mispronounced certain words. But apart from that, he was an excellent listen!

As for the book itself, it's an immensely gripping read! OK, hearing them get chased around the same castle gets a bit tedious occasionally, but Crichton saves it nicely with a combination of humour and plot and character development. And he's clearly done his historical homework, too, which is enormously appreciated! He's done an excellent job portraying the period accurately. And in fact, the book was quite informative! I learned a number of things about the 14th century while listening to it that I hadn't known before. And pleasantly, although he certainly doesn't sanitize the period, Crichton mercifully refrains from some of the gross-out of, say, Micro, for which my stomach was profoundly grateful!

My one regret with the book is that the love-story between Andre and Lady Claire was a way sub-plot. I wish Crichton had given that element far more emphasis! But then, he's many things, but a romantic isn't one of them from everything of his I've read thus far. Overall, though, it was a great read, and definitely one I'll listen to again!

#Audible1

2 people found this helpful

Enjoyed it

I admit to watching the movie years ago before I listened to this book more recently. However, knowing what was going to happen did not detract from the story. I love history, specifically medieval history, and I found those part of the story were intriguing. Crichton does come back to present day to discuss what is happening there, and I admit I skipped some of those sections as I found them a bit boring. But those parts of the story were never long, so I didn't miss much. #Audible1

1 person found this helpful

not the best but overall enjoyable enough

my 4th audiobook by Michael Crichton and honestly my least favourite, got a little lost with the characters and not a truly exciting sequence of events for me but still overall enjoyed it

Amazing

Loved the movie, love the book more. The performance was spectacular. Two enthusiastic thumbs up!

Timeline by Michael Crichton

Great story, just as you expect from this author. The narration was very good. My only complaint would be with the editing because there were a few long gaps that made me think there was something wrong with my device.

quality is not very good.

Great story. But there are spots were words are missing. Takes away of the flow.

Sound issues

I don’t know why, but the narrator decided to literally whisper for several major characters (which speaking at regular volume for other characters), which means there is no way to get a standard volume where you can hear everything. It is incredibly annoying and makes it really difficult to follow along, especially while driving. I either had to constantly turn up the volume whenever those characters were speaking or everyone else was yelling if I kept it at a volume where I could hear the whispers. It was very distracting and had it not been an interesting book I would have given up. I recommend the book based on the story, but the narrator came very close to ruining it. I don’t understand why these things are checked and calibrated so you can have one volume for the whole book.

great story

Its a very good novel and a great story. Some times there are gaps of silence that can last for seconds, you would think that something had happened and that Audible just randomly stopped, but nope it didn't. Audio quality is fine, but you can tell when a new reading session had begun for the recording, not quite seamless. Otherwise, good story will read again some time.

Fantastic!

I read this book when it first came out and loved it. I decided to listen to it this time around. The narrator was excellent and brought the characters to life.