Rating: 
Summary: Not worth it
Review: I have read other books by Michael Crichton and enjoyed them for what they are... easy on the brain, plot driven, page-turners. I don't expect Dickens, I just need something to keep my interest during my long commute.
Unfortunately, this book wasn't much of page-turner at all. First, the characters were almost cartoonishly two dimensional. I never cared about the fate of any of them. The plot was basically a Jurassic Park formula in a nanotech setting... science project goes badly wrong, brilliant protagonist figures it out and tries to stop it, scientists try to stop him. Unfortunately, there were about twenty times in the story where the "brilliant" protagonist does the most incredibly stupid things, like in those teenage scary movies where the kids always "split up" to go search for a killer. I just got to the point where the stupid-move factor got too high to bear, even for a piece of fiction. As for suspensful, I knew where the book would end up soon after starting the book.
What bothers me most about the book is that Mr. Crichton seems so certain that his stature as a bestselling author will assure sales of the book, that he doesn't bother to fill in the glaring "plot-holes" with plausible explanations or to make his characters remotely believable. If that doesn't matter to you, then buy the book. But, if you aren't a Crichton fan and are looking for a moderately well written, suspensful, page-turner... look elsewhere.
Rating:
Summary: De ja vu all over again
Review: I used to really like Michael Crichton, he was cutting edge and new. The problem with Prey is that in truth it owes an awful lot to a book that came out two years previous to his called Decipher by Stel Pavlou. Nanoparticles that can mimic humans, eat flesh and become a formidable foe. Sure that book is far more complex and the nano tech is just one part of that book, but it's so obvious to me having read Prey that Crichton read that book and borrowed the bits he liked that Prey has made me lose a tremendous amount of respect for him. Prey on its own is okay for the first half, strange things are happening and the hero doesn't know why, but many of the questions are left unanswered, and perhaps the most annoying thing of all was the lame last minute attempt to wrap everything up with a two page excuse near the end. It made the book very unsatisfying. Disappointed.
Rating: 
Summary: Two Thumbs Up!!!!!!
Review: Let me tell you, I was so hooked the first 50 or so pages, I couldn't stop reading.
I thought this whole "nanotechnology" business was fascinating...I couldn't get enough of it. As you're reading, you yourself will imagine dozens of horrific ways this sort of stuff can go awry. Thinking back to "Jurassic Park", he does something similar: a cutting-edge, just-in-the future technology that has one obvious but still quite interesting focus (dino-DNA cloning), and then takes you on a rollercoaster that springboards from that initial conceit.
This book has that locomotive start. You learn more and more about these swarms and computing technologies that seem ominous and powerful and mysterious.
Then, and fairly suddenly, the plot devolves into a sub-standard B-movie scenario.
You know, a group of people, isolated, with "something out there."
Ooh...run outside! Quick! Get back inside!
I dunno...I just expected so much more from the way this novel opened...something more disturbing, I guess. It seems that the misuse of what Crichton describes could go so way beyond what is conjured here, this seems slight.
Halfway through you'll think this might make a cool movie. Then you think, well, maybe a TV mini-series or something.
Now I think (hope) this is merely a prequel to something far more sinister and suspenseful.
Rating: 
Summary: Crichton is Starting to Slip; Prey Just Another Book
Review: Okay. If I compare Prey to the other novels that Crichton has written, it is not going to stand up too well. Everything --from the science to the characters to the plot-- stands in poor contrast to, say, an "Andromeda Strain" or a "Jurrasic Park." The formula that had served Crichton so well in the past (neat technology + characters a reader can sympathize with + mind boggling disaster = great novel) has become transparent and worn out in Prey. The main character was just too perfect: supportive father and husband, so in the right, so nauseatingly good. He was a caricature of a protagonist. The bad guys were as inhuman: out of control monsters or a faceless, malignant corporation. Heroes and villians straight from the cookie-cutter seemed like to me. And the science lacked originality or challenge. Instead of 2003, the story could very well have been written in 1993, technologically speaking. The language is fine throughout the novel; easy to see that the author has an excellent grasp of it. Too bad he didn't use his skills to push the science fiction genre's envelope. He used to.
Rating:
Summary: Good Idea for a Short Story
Review: This would have been a nice idea for a short story but there wasn't enough rising action for a 500-page paperback novel. The first 140 pages had good intrigue with the mysterious behavior of the protagonist's wife toward him and their family, but the middle part of the story was stretched way too thin. It became a formula man-versus-monster sci-fi tale with the nano-particles playing the part of the monster created by the evil government defense contractor. The story picks up speed again in the last 100 pages as if Crichton realized that he had enough filler for the 500 pages needed by the publisher and he could get on with completing the story. Crichton is good with biological and medical details and he's done his homework on cutting edge computer technology, but some of his technical explanations in the fields of electricity, magnetism and physics fall flat for the reader who truly understands these sciences. The literary quality of this novel is standard for modern fiction: one-dimensional characters who get angry and curse each other a lot in the most common type of profanity; this is how the author shows drama. Good drama and intrigue require more complicated character development. If only Michael had used that 360 pages in the middle for something more constructive. Michael Crichton has paid his dues as a sci-fi writer. He's written many novels, none of them very good except "Jurassic Park" which made him a star. He can now rest on his laurels knowing that anything he grinds out will be a hit and will probably be turned into a screenplay. If you like shallow sci-fi thrillers that you can speed-read any time and anywhere, you will be well-served by this book.
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