Rating: 
Summary: Believe the hype
Review: A little slow getting started, like a roller coaster, then hang on. Get in line for your movie tickets. A fast, educational thrill ride.
Rating: 
Summary: The new Michael Crichton....?
Review: Well I am really at a loss for words with this book. He appears to be writing a new form of science fiction in this book, with the science being more of the story then the actuall human characters in the story. It's a long novel, slow and tedious, and makes you want to throw it away after the first 96 pages. It's too dark actually and Crichton seems to be going in a new direction in his writing that in many ways is totally inconsistent with his early work....
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent book, so-so ending
Review: Like some of his previous works, the author builds up suspense, but the ending seems a little hurried. A good read, nonetheless.
Rating: 
Summary: AS BAD AS IT GETS
Review: This book reads like it was written for 10 yr olds. Silly plot and most of all the writing is BORING and PEDANTICAirframe was his last decent book
Rating:
Summary: Crichton finally back in his prime
Review: Crichton is finally back in his prime, covering what he does best: fact- and science-based fiction. This time around, he's got the good sense to not let the book degenerate into a direct-to-video scripted action sequence halfway through the book (read Timeline if that's what you're looking for). Having read all of Crichton's books (including Travels), I can say that Prey is one of the better ones, combining the how-cool-is-that aspect of technology (Jurassic Park) with the confusion and paranoia of being attacked by a force that's not well understood (Sphere). What puts the icing on the cake is that Crichton has again written a great character that's fleshed out a lot more than his usual protagonists. Long-time readers might even be distraught at the amount of character development that exist within Prey. All in all, a satisfying read, although not the most intellectually challenging.
Rating:
Summary: It was ok
Review: It was ok. The plot falls short - which is disapointing because I enjoy the fact that his books are typically plot driven. Like I said it was ok - it almost seems like there were two stories going on - but you only get to hear one story. I guess that's how life usually is most of the time - so if his intent was to be realisic in that sense then he did a good job. I didn't mind his science lectures - often times they were as interesting as the story itself. It's not his best but still it's still a lot of fun.
Rating:
Summary: Another technology thriller!
Review: I could not put this book down. In all, I finished it in just under five hours. Gripping is hardly the word for it.
Crichton has again brought us a high-tech novel that studies the recent advances in science and technology.
In this book, a company 'accidently' releases a group of nano-particles in to the air. They have some intelligence, communication and power skills, and are equipped with a PREDPREY programming that allows them to learn from mistakes. In the wild, they begin to evolve, gaining a group intelligence and create their own reproduction lab. Now, they're trying to get back into the lab that they started in. And they're hungry. They kill several people and animals, using their bodies for materials.
What happens is unexpected and exciting as the programmers inside struggle to find out what's going wrong. I found somethings difficult in the book. First, the main character takes a long time figuring things out. What the particles can do, the difficulty with his wife and what's going on with some other programmers. It fits his character, but is painful to read at times.
His kids are nothing short of annoying. The same thing popped up in Jurassic Park: Annoying kids. At least this time they didn't play much of a role, although we do see them here and there. Crichton follows a predictable pattern with his novels. Like Timeline and Jurassic Park, the book is about the hubris of scientists, and how their actions are doomed to fail.
There are some strong parallels with Jurassic Park in this book. Genetic Engineering is a large portion, except that it is nano-manufacturing. For a majority of the book, the characters are cooped up inside their labratory, like in JP, and there is also a scene where the characters go the the breeding grounds of the particles, like in JP. The pattern is danger, hiding/studing/arguing, then boldness and the solution of the problem. There's nothing wrong with this, but it is predictable. Like in Timeline, Crichton also gave us a slew of scientific information about the sciences in the book and that are being worked on now. I've enjoyed reading this, and it makes the book worth reading, if only to get the current happenings in a science world. Its all very interesting. The result is an excellent, well paced read, that is painstakingly studied and has all the elements of a great book. Action, explaination, and a very interesting science problem.
Rating:
Summary: Calling Commander La Forge . . .
Review: I really enjoyed this plot when I saw it on STAR TREK TNG a decade ago . . . This is a far cry from the originality he displayed in THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN. Futuristic stories that are based on humanity like in the novel CLONED LOVE is the road to originality in the sci-fi world. This novel fails to bridge that gap.
Rating:
Summary: Same Themes different Vehicle
Review: This book explores almost the exact same themes as Jurassic Park ... only not quite as masterfully. It has the same flow as the preceding book, Timeline: start with a hip premise, insert a some technical background, have the protaganists interact with the technology, but instead of expanding upon these themes, the books final 100 pages or so morph into a half-hearted adventure yarn. I really wanted to like this book as it is ostensibly based on an area of interest to me: NEMS (nanotechnology). Actually the book covers a lot of themes: male/ female role reversal a la Disclosure, innate unpredictability of complex systems - Jurassic Park, bleeding edge technology with which scientists take shortcuts - JP and Timeline, as well as corporate conspiracy and coverups - basically all of MC's books. However the book spends most of its energy on evolution, emergent behavior, and AI. This really is not a book about nano. All of this being said, the book is interesting and a page turner. I read it in one sitting. The problems of the book are most noticeable when compared with some of Crichton's best work like Jurassic Park or Sphere. Prey does not really explore the human element as it relates to the technologies on which the story is built. This is actually odd because it seems as though MC spends a good deal of the book providing a lot of background for both the protaganist and the technologies. Unfortunately, he drops them cold when in the the end, the book devolves quickly into a B movie horror replete with big explosions, chases, fights, more explosions, and an abrupt one page summary of all that has just transpired. Bummer. In summary: an enjoyable enough read, that has a lot of potential but hastily squanders it in the end and for that reason falls way short of of MC's best books. If you have not yet done so, pick up Jurassic Park or a Case of Need instead.
Rating:
Summary: Another I got to hurry up and finish the book
Review: Lately, I have been reading many, many - medical thillers, (which everyone of them, I figured out what the heck was going happen 30-50 pages in, but kept on reading just to see if I was right) and I have read all of Michael Crichton books - in majority of them the plot twists and aha's, kept me engaged. I will say this, I was
very much involved with what was happening, I felt myself turning the pages as fast I as I could to see what would happen next, then - the situation with the Rabbit, and the "foreshadowing" question, of there was a reason he had to know why the rabbit had died. - I just knew what was going to happen, how it was all going to turn out, - very pat ending. I guess I wanted more, I wanted to be suprised. I don't know what I wanted to happen, just not a Hollywood Thriller ending. This book deserves more then that. -- Why 4 stars you may ask? - Because the writing is first rate, and the subject matter and how deftly he explains all the Nanotechnology is worth the read alone. - I guess this is one book, I cannot wait until the movie, so maybe they can make the ending better.
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