By: Michael Crichton Publisher: Avon Average Rating: Binding: Mass Market Paperback Label: Avon Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 544 Publication Date: November 01, 2003 Release Date: November 11, 2003
In the Nevada desert, an experiment has gone horribly wrong. A cloud of nanoparticles -- micro-robots -- has escaped from the laboratory. This cloud is self-sustaining and self-reproducing. It is intelligent and learns from experience. For all practical purposes, it is alive.
It has been programmed as a predator. It is evolving swiftly, becoming more deadly with each passing hour.
Every attempt to destroy it has failed.
And we are the prey.
Amazon.com: In Prey, bestselling author Michael Crichton introduces bad guys that are too small to be seen with the naked eye but no less deadly or intriguing than the runaway dinosaurs that made 1990's Jurassic Park such a blockbuster success.
High-tech whistle-blower Jack Forman used to specialize in programming computers to solve problems by mimicking the behavior of efficient wild animals--swarming bees or hunting hyena packs, for example. Now he's unemployed and is finally starting to enjoy his new role as stay-at-home dad. All would be domestic bliss if it were not for Jack's suspicions that his wife, who's been behaving strangely and working long hours at the top-secret research labs of Xymos Technology, is having an affair. When he's called in to help with her hush-hush project, it seems like the perfect opportunity to see what his wife's been doing, but Jack quickly finds there's a lot more going on in the lab than an illicit affair. Within hours of his arrival at the remote testing center, Jack discovers his wife's firm has created self-replicating nanotechnology--a literal swarm of microscopic machines. Originally meant to serve as a military eye in the sky, the swarm has now escaped into the environment and is seemingly intent on killing the scientists trapped in the facility. The reader realizes early, however, that Jack, his wife, and fellow scientists have more to fear from the hidden dangers within the lab than from the predators without.
The monsters may be smaller in this book, but Crichton's skill for suspense has grown, making Prey a scary read that's hard to set aside, though not without its minor flaws. The science in this novel requires more explanation than did the cloning of dinosaurs, leading to lengthy and sometimes dry academic lessons. And while the coincidence of Xymos's new technology running on the same program Jack created at his previous job keeps the plot moving, it may be more than some readers can swallow. But, thanks in part to a sobering foreword in which Crichton warns of the real dangers of technology that continues to evolve more quickly than common sense, Prey succeeds in gripping readers with a tense and frightening tale of scientific suspense. --Benjamin Reese
A bit of smartly done, high-tech adventure Michael Crichton is re-visiting some old stomping grounds in this one. The 1970s sci-fi movie classic Westworld was written and directed by Crichton and it features technology run amok and set loose on a killing spree. Jurassic Park features the dangers of tampering with the gene pool with an ensuing killing spree.
Prey, in many ways, is a combination of the two - the dangers of nanotechnology, specifically the dangers of using bacteria in combination with tiny, tiny bits of technology to create something new. The problem is, of course, the same problem that he pointed out in "Westworld" and "Jurassic Park": Things never turn out the way you think they will.
Is this a Pulitzer Prize winner? Hardly. But, it is a creepy thriller with some good points about science, the dangers of unintended consequences and some good thrills and chills. I enjoyed this one thoroughly.
Must have been enduring a divorce when he wrote this one! While the science and the 'this could happen' ethos is a lot of fun, the book's start is astoundingly mysogynystic. His protagonist goes on AT LENGTH describing the normal day hundreds of millions of mothers world wide endure as if it's something novel. His male character whines about taking care of kids, how his wife doesn't call home when she's late, how it's hard to run into former pals who still make a paycheck. Honestly, no female author could ever have gotten such tripe published, but because our protagonist is a male, this is fodder for narrative. My husband and I howled at the beginning, and simply skipped entire chapters to get to the part he's good at: telling a scary story using potentially real science. But the guy sure was ticked off at some woman when he wrote this thing.
Will the real Michael Crichton stand up? For the third straight book from Michael Crichton that I've been disappointed. He really needs to re-read his earlier novels to capture that magic again.
This book was predictable and the characters were so flaw that it was hard to root for them instead you rooted against them. It reminded me a lot of a book I just finished, Mount Dragon, but that one was a lot better. I've been a fan of Crichton for a long time and hopes he get his act together.
To sum it up, this was plain awful and if you need a good Crichton fix, read Congo, Jurassic Park, or Sphere. Maybe next time, the real Michael Crichton will stand up.
Writing For Intelligent Readers Michael Crichton does it again with another brilliant book covering fictional scientific story elements. I am a huge fan of Michael Crichton work and he continues to satisfy his intelligent base of fans with another page turning book. I read this entire piece over the holiday weekend and I was consumed from the first chapter. Michael has a rare gift in developing stories that move and characters that evolve; creating a wonderful mix of science, fiction, and entertainment.
Fairly Good Techno Thriller Prey is set mainly in the Nevada desert. At a research lab, an experiment with limited intelligence, nano technology, has gone wrong. Some of the nano particles have escaped into the atmosphere, and are starting to learn, adapt and multiply outside of the laboratory environment. As they become more intelligent, they start to become a threat to the scientists inside their facility.
I found this book slow moving at first. We are introduced to the main character, Jack Forman, an unemployed IT expert, and his family. His wife works at the research lab, in the desert, but the first part of the book deals mainly with Jack, and the increasingly strange behaviour of his wife. I suppose this is good from the character building point of view.
Once, he visits the research lab, however, the book starts to get going, and the suspense starts to build, as they realise the enormity of the problem that they have on their hands, and the novel becomes a race against time, to destroy the nano particles. Overall, a fairly good read, with a few twists, reasonably good characterisation, but, also, very 'technical' in places.
Anything Goes Trivia
Megaton Man
Tony's Online Tips
Trevor
