Prey

Rating:
Summary: A peak into our powerful and dangerous future
Review: As part of a broad public discussion, not a specifically scientific one, Michael Crichton reaches into the deep thick darkness of our future with his new book, "Prey," and viscerally pulls out some issues, some potential realities, with his poetry-prose, that are so central to our continued breathing and cognition that we are well advised to ignore the obvious scientific weaknesses of many parts of this book. The issues he brings up include the development of nano and bio technologies, artificial life, and swarm and emergent behavior.
The plot of "Prey" is formulaic in many respects, following closely in the footsteps of books such as "Frankenstein," which was the first real story about artifical intelligence, "2001: A Space Odyssey" and, of course, "Jurassic Park."
In ignoring these varied faults, as we read "Prey," we sit quietly on this beautiful dark night and get a glimpse of the deeper issues that glimmer, simmering, on our nearest horizon.

Rating:
Summary: Not Crichton's Best... but Compelling at Times...
Review: There IS an important message to the reader in PREY - to be aware, and BEware, of boundless technological progress. The enemy in PREY is not the nanotechnology that has gotten out of hand and started killing humans in the Nevada desert, but the humans who created it. Sound familar? Right - we already read JURASSIC PARK, and of course it's easier to fear dinosaurs than particles. Crichton has always given readers plenty of pure fact and science in his fiction novels, but in PREY, at times, Crichton blinds the reader at time with scientific information more appropriate in a PhD dissertation than an action/sci-fi novel. Usually when you finish a Crichton novel, you have learned a lot (and been entertained) without realizing how much you had learned. CONGO and RISING SUN are good examples - total page turners with plenty of suspense, but a lot of underlying FACT. When PREY gets rolling in the main story - panicked scientists trying to control swarms of nanoparticles that are evolving and becoming more intelligent with each passing hour - Crichton bombs the reader with pages of hardcore scientific fact and theory that, for many, may defy comprehension. So it is difficult to feel the urgency and suspense over the plot line when you can't quite interpret the underlying point. My favorite part of the book was the first half - before there was much science to it - when Crichton sets the table with the unemployed house-husband narrator observing his wife's strange behavior (suggestive of an affair) and his children's mysterious illnesses and broken appliances - all to be explained later. Crichton writes so well about relationships and misery in them (as featured in DISCLOSURE as a couple deals with infidelity) to the point that the reader really sympathizes with the narrator well BEFORE he gets caught up in the scientific hysteria. As for the action sequences, we follow the narrator and a team of scientists as they chase after, and are then chased by, these nanoswarms. Some of the confrontations seems almost like schlock-sci-fi (with one mechanism stolen right from THE GREEN MILE) and I cannot see this book becoming a movie. I enjoyed TIMELINE and AIRFRAME much more than this book, yet I know Crichton feels the message in PREY is much more important for all of us to grasp. If only he had packaged it in his usual manner, maybe more readers would be able to grasp it. Despite my mostly negative review, this IS a Crichton book, which, at its worst, is still heads above most fiction. Enjoy!

Rating:
Summary: Page-turning fun!!
Review: Michael Crichton has produced another high-tech page-turner that will hold your interest to the very end. You might call it Andromeda Strain meets Jurassic Park since the human-engineered malevolence is at the microscopic level in the form of nanoparticle-sized machines that have escaped from their laboratory and begun reproducing at an alarming rate.

The narrator of this adventure, Jack Forman is an expert in distributed programming. Only now his career has been interrupted by some Silicon Valley backstabbing and innuendo, shifting him into a Mr. Mom role that's no all to all unpleasant save for the suspicion that his newly workaholic wife might be having an affair. Her job involves a secret Defense project that is trying to create molecule-sized machines for intelligence gathering. The trouble is, something has gone wrong with the project and Jack's been enlisted to help fix it. That might sound simple but the tiny nano-machines have evolved into an independent form of life that seems ill-disposed to share space with mammals like rabbits, coyotes... and humans.

Crichton's appeal has always been his ability to build an exciting plot around a basic theme of technology exceeding the control of it's inventors. This is vintage Crichton, not one of his best, but far from his lesser efforts. He does a better job than usual though, in controlling his urge to educate the scientifically illiterate, limiting his dissertations on next-generation programming and molecular science to only a few paragraphs at a time, rather than going on for pages at a time. He has also developed more of a flair for characterization, creating a cast that with more emotional and relational range than in many of his previous books.

Maybe he does telescope the ending just a bit, but by the time you've confirmed your suspicions as to where the story is heading, you've still had a thoroughly enjoyable ride.

Rating:
Summary: Crichton takes on new ground in Prey
Review: When I first started reading Prey, I noticed something that I'd never seen in any of the other Crichton novels I've read. He immediately plunges into the character of Jack Forman, an unemployed computer programmer and current "house-dad" who is beginning to suspect that his wife was having an affair, writing in the first person. By using the first-person perspective, he makes the character more real by directly stimulating a reader with the thoughts and emotions of a single character, something he hasn't tried in any of his other books that I've read. A reader sees the growth and development of Jack as he has to further deal with the new micro-camera swarms that are being developed at his wife's start-up company Xymos when he is called in to review some of the computer code at the company's Nevada fabrication plant.
In terms of the science topics discussed in Prey, Crichton does a marvelous job of introducing and tying together genetics, nanotechnology, and computer science into the race against the rapid swarm evolution within the text. As always, he takes many pauses to inform a reader to the meaning and importance of many scientific terms involved in the book. For those less ignorant to the material than others, the reviews can get a little cumbersome.
Overall, I thought Prey was a strong read. Here's to an amazing writer who always does his homework. (if nothing else, his three page biliography at the end of the book clearly shows Crichton's dedication to his work)

Rating:
Summary: Good but ending feels rushed
Review: ...Mr. Crichton needs to write books, not screenplays. "Prey" begins with a lot of promise (compared to his last 2 dismal outings). Good and interesting characters, background information that helps the story instead to halting the flow and a very interesting mystery. Then, about halfway into the book, it suddenly becomes yet another standard Hollywood screenplay. The characters become flat and lifeless; every 5 minutes there is a new desperate chase scene (they didn't work in Jurassic Park II, they didn't work in Timeline, but whoever bought the movie rights wants it, so Michael writes it). The final battle and resolution is very empty and hollow and the motivations of the bad guys (see spoilers below) is completely lacking (but with plenty of room for a sequel Hollywood!). The science and characters are interesting the action and plot is pure tinsel town.

Mr. Crichton certainly has enough personal wealth these days that he should be able to stand up to his editors and publishers and write the book he wants to write instead of what will sell in Hollywood. The first half is a good as anything he has ever done, the second half is exactly the same anything he has done in the last 5 years.

I can't help but feel that he was pressured to publish this book before he had really worked out the details of the ending (see spoilers) and the weak ending undermines the great work done leading up to it.

...

Rating:
Summary: Typical Crichton, but nonetheless a good read
Review: Crichton's basic theme throughout most of his fiction is that of runaway technology and how easily it could happen. When we're talking Jurassic Park, Timeline, or even Sphere, we can give this lip service and go on about our business of enjoying the tale and hoping for a movie, not taking the ultimate possibility of this stuff actually happening very seriously. With these caveats Prey is a nice, solid, fast read, not as detailed as Clancy, and not as inspid as the Cat Who mystery series. I agree that the plot is somewhat simple. If you don't understand what is about to happen within a few pages I would submit you're not paying a bit of attention. The 'surprise' ending isn't; and really that's OK.

The real issue here is that it would be a shame if people take this book seriously enough to stifle nanotechnology research. Just to put some scope to this, the US spent $116 million on nano research in 1997. In 2003 that figure is $710 million. Worldwide 2001 was $1.5 billion. There already exist the usual suspects who don't want anything technological done at all, for fear it might change something. As a result we have the ironic situation of the governments of starving African nations refusing food because it has been ever-so-slightly genetically altered. The odd thing is we've genetically altered plants and animals for the last 20,000 years. We've just used the engine of nature to do it. My cocker spaniel is a descendent of wolves. (Yes I know nano is not genetics, but it's the same idea.)

Nano has the potential to great things and be a help to us in our lives, in health, the environment, and in energy consumption. Yes, let's be careful, but also admit we are not going to stop technology. The key thing is to guide it with discipline to help us, and also guide our over-active imaginations with the same discipline to act reasonably as we pursue nanotechnology to bring about beneficial results.

Rating:
Summary: A peak into our powerful and dangerous future
Review: As part of a broad public discussion, not a specifically scientific one, Michael Crichton reaches into the deep thick darkness of our future with his new book, "Prey," and viscerally pulls out some issues, some potential realities, with his poetry-prose, that are so central to our continued breathing and cognition that we are well advised to ignore the obvious scientific weaknesses of many parts of this book. The issues he brings up include the development of nano and bio technologies, artificial life, and swarm and emergent behavior.
The plot of "Prey" is formulaic in many respects, following closely in the footsteps of books such as "Frankenstein," which was the first real story about artifical intelligence, "2001: A Space Odyssey" and, of course, "Jurassic Park."
In ignoring these varied faults, as we read "Prey," we sit quietly on this beautiful dark night and get a glimpse of the deeper issues that glimmer, simmering, on our nearest horizon.

Rating:
Summary: My First Michael Crichton Book
Review: Prey is the first Michael Crichton book that I have ever read and it certainly brought my attention to his work. I can be absolutely sure that this won't be the last of his books that I will read.

In this book, Michael Crichton masterfully blended science with futuristic technology to create a suspenseful thriller full of twists and turns that kept me on the edge of my seat. I simply could not put the book down. Prey showed the potential of humans to advance very quickly in technology, but it also showed the dangers of it. Even with today's advanced technology, some inventions can still have faults. With this in mind, the story Prey shows that these faults can be deadly when applied to "intelligent" machines.

Prey is about a swarm of nanoparticles that were originally built to be used for medical research and military reconnaissance. They were very easy to control, except for the fact that high winds could disrupt the structure of the networking nanoparticles. Because of this fault, funding for the project ceased. The leftover particles rampaged out of control as they continued to evolve. They could reproduce, learn from experiences, and kill. It had been programmed as a predator and it was fulfilling its goals as a predator. The story follows the main character, Jack Forman, on his mission to find the origins of the renegade swarms and destroy them.

This book was very entertaining, but I was disappointed by the ending. Although it had a terrific climax, the conclusion left me sitting with a dull feeling. Nevertheless, this book is a great work and I highly recommend it to everyone that likes sci-fi/ thriller books. However, I must say that it should be geared toward adults, due to the vulgar language.

Rating:
Summary: Great Tecno-thriller
Review: Crichton is the master of showing us the dire consequences of man playing God. This book is a thrilling ride, and superbly gives us a glimpse of some of the possible dangers of both nano-technology, and computers that can think and learn for themselves. This book is fast-paced, exciting, and seems ready-made for conversion to the silver screen. I wouldn't be surprised at all to see this one become a movie, or at least a cheasy television mini-series.

Rating:
Summary: Prototypical Crichton Novel
Review: First off this novel contains several elements similar to most Crichton novels. They are as follows: 1.) One or two main characters with several subsidiary characters 2.) Tragedy meeting a couple of the subsidiary characters which we don't feel strong attachment to 3.) Elements of science and technology even though you don't have to be an expert in the technology to grasp the story 4.) Disastrous consequences when humans either underestimate the technology being dealt with or catastrophic results from something just not going as originally planned.
Having summed up those elements familiar to most of his novels this book is fairly decent. It deals with a father named Jack who is a Mr. Mom type recently out of work at a computer company. He has a wife who is now the worker in the family for a company named Xymos. This Xymos company is basically trying to create cameras using nanotechnology. In other words, amazingly small particles not discernible to the human eye which can be used to do all sorts of things from looking into the human body (as in the case of small cameras) to being little factory builders for other uses. This is supposed to be the new coming thing. Nanotechnology. Anyway, Jack's wife and some other factory workers somehow release some of these nanoparticle swarms they are working with into the desert. There are a bunch of other factors involved such as environment, sunlight, temperature and all that but these particles basically learn how to evolve. Through evolution they threaten to keep getting somewhat smarter collectively and to put the whole human race on the brink of collapse if not stopped. Jack, being the hero that he is, realizes what may happen and manages through certain circumstances to be in the right place at the right time (the fab plant at Xymos) and with the right amount of brains to stop this impending disaster. I won't give the story away and there are several twists and turns throughout the book. The thing I feel Crichton did the best was to make the novel suspenseful and mysterious. There was enough mystery to keep you reading ahead to see if you could figure out what was going to happen next...Which made for a fairly enjoyable reading experience. This book isn't a masterpiece but if you are looking for a suspenseful mystery with elements of science and technology pick it up and give it a try.