Prey

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Summary: PREY
Review: Michael Crichton's book, Prey, was quite odd, but that's what you expect from this talented author. The best part about Prey is the fact that the field of nano-biotechnology actually does exist. Therefore, facts are taken and added into the storyline.
While the story itself was quite predictable, the facts that are tied into it make it very intriguing. Not only that, but it's always fun to see your predictions come into play.
If you enjoy Michael Crichton novels, this is probably one worth reading. I don't think it's any match to Timeline, but it is definitely an interesting and enjoyable novel.

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Summary: Review from Author Joy Lee Rutter
Review: Crichton's explanation to the 'untechied' reader is detailed and instrumental in visualizing the composition of the Prey. Fast paced, with twists and turns; I stayed glued to the book the entire 2 days it took me to read. He is very detailed, offering the reader a clear mental image of the events as they unfold. I could almost see the nanorobots, feel them while they attacked their prey with calculated intent...always learning...and watching...

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Summary: Disappointed in Boston
Review: Definitely not his best work but kept me riveted for about 150 pages. The last half of the book was a big disappointment. I got the distinct sense I was rereading Sphere at times (although Sphere I thought was much better). As the book winds down his plot twists become comical and where definitely written for his next movie project.

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Summary: Preposterous failure of imagination
Review: The subject is fascinating and I believe Crichton is right in fearing the technology may go terribly wrong in the future. But I was ultimately unable to suspend disbelief in the last quarter of the book when Crichton totally left the realm of the possible and indulged, for wont of honest imagination, in utter fantasy.

His bot swarm development and activity make anything in "Jurassic Park" seem like the hardest of proven science by comparison, and it was far-fetched and belied a half-baked understanding of the biologically possible.

I was terminally disenthralled with this book and with Crichton as a serious writer. My respect for his work has been badly shaken by his indulgence in fantasy to make this novel work. It was JUST TOO MUCH!

Please, somebody, do this subject justice and produce a credible work of future fiction. Crichton has badly failed the subject.

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Summary: Garbage! Plain and simple---
Review: This is a great example of how celebrity writers milk the cash cow by producing endless pap that rides on the coattails of past successful undertakings. This book is so bad! The characters are not fleshed out (ha-ha, pun intended!) to any great extent, and the plot eventually borders on the laughably absurd. I almost chucked it into the trash about half-way through, but then decided to see if it could get worse. Yes, it could and it did! Pass this woofer by!

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Summary: Prey-ing for an end
Review: Sorry, I know I'm going to be in the minority here, but I found this book darn near impossible to plod through. Not because of the science (although any thriller whose chills depend on understanding geometric algorythems is, by nature, going to lose points with me), but because it felt so pointless. I found it difficult to be afraid of what amounted to genetically manipulated dust mites. Worse still, there were few chills (unless, unlike me, you find the idea of the aforementioned dustmites chasing you through the desert terrifying), and those few came late in the book (not to mention felt as if they were designed less for their chill-factor and more for the "won't this look cool on the big screen" effect). Oddly enough, the book is much more interesting during the opening chapters, when it sticks close to home and gives us a growing sense of dread about what might be happening to the wife and children. Ironically, once we abandon the homefront in favor of a trip to the desert, things cool down dramatically.

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Summary: The Eating Cloud: Prey by Michael Crichton
Review: A hallmark of Michael Crichton's work over the years has been the issue of technology with unintended consequences thanks to human error. We are not as smart as we think we are, in short. From his first book, "Andromeda Strain" (which later became a movie of the same name) his literary vision has been of forefront technology coupled with human error bringing about unintended and often disastrous results. In "Andromeda Strain," the spacecraft brings to earth space microbes that grow and kill. A concern that NASA took very seriously in the early days of the space program and now ignores as a virtual impossibility.

Of course, there was "Jurassic Park" where some dinosaurs were brought to life in the present, which did not work out that well. "Timeline" had its own technology issue where some of the characters didn't want to come back and were causing problems in the past. In his recent book, Michael Crichton picks bits and pieces of earlier novels as well as trendy topics such as being a stay at home Dad and corporate malfeasance to whip up a novel that reads almost like a B movie. To say this is a shallow book, at least in regards to characters, gives the concept of "shallow" a bad name.

Jack used to have it all. The super kids, the great cars, the nice house and a really cool job in Silicon Valley, California at MediaTronics. He was having a blast supervising the team and helping to create "distributed intelligence" programs. (Simplifying greatly, distributed intelligence programs as explained in the book are computer programs that mimic real world animal behavior to make computers work better and smarter. By acting like animals in a herd responding to stimuli, the computer program learns how to make the overall computer system work better.) However, Jack slowly became aware of a gigantic corporate fraud being perpetrated on the shareholders and employees. In doing the right thing, he got himself fired and black balled by his former employers at the age of forty. For the last six months, he has been a stay at home Dad while his wife Julia has been working more and more hours.

She is a corporate big shot for Xymos Technology. The company is at the forefront of Nanotechnology by using a different approach than normal. They are combining genetics with some elements of nanotechnolgy and distributed intelligence programs to create a different form of nanotechnolgy. The problem is that the company is desperate for Venture Capitalists and their financing and time is running out.

The strain at work is clearly taking a toll on Julia. The strain of Jack being out of work after six months in the Silicon Valley, which is a virtual death sentence in the world of cutting edge computers, is taking a tremendous toll on both of them. With resentment on these issues as well as a host of others, Jack suddenly concludes Julia is having an affair. Not only is she dressing differently and subtly more beautiful despite the long hours she puts in at the office, her whole physical appearance seems to be changing. The way her body looks from head to toe seems to be subtly different and an improvement on her. Her personality seems to be shifting as well.

But, his marital problems seem to slide onto the back burner when his old employers want him back temporarily on a consulting basis. It seems that Xymos Technology bought a computer program he designed called PRED/PREY and are having problems with their use of it. Not only did Julia never mention that they had bought it despite being in a position to know, Jack can't figure out what use they would have for it or why it won't work. The program is designed as a model of predator and prey behavior reactions in the wild and while fairly accessible does not really work for what Xymos is working on. But, he needs a job even if it is for a few days and with so many of his former team working for Xymos and acting strange, he takes the job.

He is flown out to the fabrication lab for Xymos out in the Nevada desert. Once there, he finds out things are far different than he was led to believe. There has been a massive release of nanoparticles from the laboratory. The initial swarm of nanoparticles has apparently given birth to succeeding generational swarms of nanoparticles. Each generation is slowly becoming more complex and sophisticated as they evolve and using the PRED/PREY program, the swarms are learning. So far, the resulting swarms have proved unstoppable to this point and are deadly to animal and human alike. With each new generation of swarms, the fate of mankind becomes increasingly dim and soon they will be totally unstoppable.

While the basic story is entertaining, it is a typical end of the world disaster type book. The typical-- we made something, it got released into the environment, we screwed up, and guess what, we are really screwed because it will kill us all. The characters are very shallow even in the case of the main character Jack. He seems two dimensional even in the places where he is supposed to be complicated and interesting and the initial marital setup section before the action gets going is way too long. The other characters who shift continuously in importance also seem to have a lack of depth and substance especially the computer programmers and others of his team.

They read like the often-wrong Hollywood versions of techies in that these characters are extreme in personality, dress, and behavior. Some reviewers have criticized the author in that these characters frequently curse and therefore are offensive to the reader. While the cursing fits the characters as portrayed and did not really bother me, what I found offensive was the stereotypical portrayals of the characters as a whole. Cut from cookie cutter molds, they seem to have as much substance as sugar cookies.

Mixed into this morass are frequent long lecture sections on genetics and computer programs that were quite often completely over my head. For those so inclined, there is a multi page section at the back of the book involving a detailed reading list on the source material covering the topics fictionalized in the book. Michael Crichton is well known for doing his research and this clearly was no exception.

While the novel managed to hold my interest and was a fast read, too often it felt like I was reading a shallow novel interspersed with a college textbook. The work as a whole reads like the novelization of the latest Hollywood disaster epic as well without the really neat special effects. Considering the character complexity of many of his other books, "Prey" in that regard was a disappointment. But, I am sure Hollywood will love it.

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Summary: Has Michael Crichton been corrupted by Hollywood?
Review: For the first two thirds of Prey, I was enthralled. Michael Crichton is one of my favorite authors, and Prey was up to my expectations.

Then in the last third, I thought the book fell to its knees. The plot devices were no longer credible, even given the suspension of disbelief inherent to this type of book.

My hypothesis is that Crichton was thinking of the big screen when he wrote this book. He put in things that will make great scenes with modern special effects, but that just don't work in print.

Rating:
Summary: Typical Crichton - good story line, no character development
Review: I liked the story, but like many of Crichtons other novels, it ends quickly. I felt like I was watching ER. The story builds, with no character development, and then ends quickly...I do admit, I will read his next book and love his ideas....

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Summary: Preys On Your Baser Instincts
Review: Standard boiler plate Crichton. Again we've got some new interesting technology that escapes our protagonists control and wrecks havoc, teaching us all that there are some things we shouldn't meddle with.

Frankly we've read this all before. From Crichotn and countless other suspense stories. After reading the first 30 pages or so I got that awful feeling that I could tell exactly where the story was going, and dag gone it if I wasn't right. Crichton's writing is competant but it felt like his heart wasn't in the project. There are two suspenseful moments in the story but they could have been more suspensful if we actually cared for the characters involved. All in all it looks quite obvious that Crichton writes Hollywood screenplays more than a novels these days.

Crichton's biggest mistake is relating much of the ending right at the beginning. By having the main character tell the story to us as if it all happend a few months ago we're alerted to the fact that he's surrvived. In a paragraph before the novel proper starts, we're even givin a brief glimpse of how the story winds up. These techniques strip much of the suspense and intrigue from the story.

Prey is a very quick and easy read. A McDonlad's hamburger when I expected a more nutrious meal from this gifted writer.