Prey

Rating:
Summary: Prey
Review: Prey, by Michael Crichton has the same great thriller formula to be a great success as Jurassic Park.

Crichton does an amazing job in capturing every detail of every single character. His knowledge of science and technology has proved much successful in this book. Crichton abilities to keep the reader on the edge of his seat until the final pages of the book are astonishing. He never loses his charisma to always surprise you when u least expect it. He does this greatly, when jack finally realizes that his wife is not what she seems to be. And that she has been taken over by the swarm. Like every other novel Crichton has written, he has lessons that can always be applied to real life. Jurassic Park showed that humanity does not have the right to play God. As for this book, Michael does a phenomenal job protesting the fact that humans depend on machines to a very dangerous degree. And as this book shows, that technology can be the end of humanity. This fact unfortunately remains true. If humans depend on machines for everything eventually machines will replace most of us. As we can see in our lives today, the works of machines have replaced factory workers, industry workers, and many other forms of labor. On a lighter note, this book I would have to say is honestly the best work Michael Crichton has ever done. I would recommend it to anyone who is in interested in the harmful effects of technology on our lives or anyone looking for great thriller. This book I am sure will leave u breath less long after u have put it done.

Rating:
Summary: Good job with difficult subject matter
Review: I read Crichton because I believe he excels in writing mystery-thrillers whose plots, to a greater or lesser degree, involve clever and intricate explorations of science and technology. (I have never been tempted to read Disclosure; and have not gotten around to Eaters of the Dead and Congo) If you find science and technology dull and uninteresting, or difficult, you probably won't enjoy this book (Hint: you could enjoy season after season of ER without ever knowing what "CBC" stands for, even though it's in just about every episode; but details of human blood chemistry are essential to Andromeda Strain (and are dutifully explained).

If you have not read Crichton before, I would not start with this work; I recommend Andromeda Strain (early work) or Jurassic Park (more recent). And if you've seen the movie versions, you'll find the books really rather different: much richer in detail and substance and sometimes even very different in plot (Andromeda Strain is the only movie version that does real justice to the substance of its book). If you like those books, you'll like this one.

For those who have read Crichton, I agree with the other reviewers who find much to enjoy here, but find this book not as successful as the two it most closely resembles: Andromeda Strain and Jurassic Park, which I also believe are Crichton's best fiction works. The difficulty here is that the underlying science is rather more complex and abstract, which I believe accounts for the more lengthy explanatory "footnotes" that interrupt the narrative flow. I was also a little disappointed in the resolution (but to say exactly why would give too much away). On the other hand, as much as I enjoyed Timeline, I find the action here much more relevant to plot development and less gratuitously cinematic than Timeline.

A few comments about some of the criticisms in other reviews:

Character development. There is certainly more in his later books than his early ones. Give the guy a break. You want fascinating and original in-depth psychological profiles or brilliant dialogue, read Faulkner or Albee. All we really need is what is essential to the advancement of the plot.

Likable characters. Reviewers refer to "the bad guys" and complain of bitchy wives and whiny kids and not caring what happens because they don't like the characters. Sorry to say, but these folks have completely missed the point. There are no "bad guys" in this book; good and evil are not at issue. It is not "about" characters, likable or otherwise.

Movie script elements. Compared to Timeline, there just isn't that much in here. Besides, having seen what happens to his books when they get made into movies, who could blame Crichton for sticking in a few movie scenes to start with; he knows much of the plot will get trashed (apparently also true even for Timeline). At least there's no Matricesque kung fu.

Originality. There is very little left in the world of art that can be truly original: much time and effort was spent in the 20th century in pursuit of the truly original, but produced little of interest or lasting value. Thus, "arrogant humanity is almost destroyed by monster of its own creation" was already explored by Shelley in Frankenstein and by Crichton in Andromeda Strain and Jurassic Park. But the theme is a rich and powerful one that is worthy of many different explorations. And a successful formula is always worth repeating; the challenge and interest is in the details. I believe the Crichton formula is a great success and the details of this manifestation sufficiently interesting to justify reading 500 pages. And yes, I look forward to the inevitable movie, even though I know most of the book won't be in it.

Rating:
Summary: Good concept but a boring, sloppy novel
Review: Unfortunately, this book fails on almost every level. I have enjoyed other Crichton books and the concept behind this one was compelling, so I eagerly sat down to read it. But I was very disappointed. Here are its pitfalls, without giving anything specific away:

1. The first 120 pages consist of the main character changing diapers and taking care of his kids. If Crichton had used those pages for strong character development, that would be fine. But his writing is mediocre, and the diaper-changing drags on too long.

Several odd aspects of the beginning did pique my curiosity, but Crichton doesn't explain those initial oddities until the last 4 pages, after all the events are over! It's tacked on at the very end. .. "you remember that sorta weird thing that happened when he was changing the diapers? Well, here's the explanation. The end." Ho hum. By that point, I just didn't care anymore. The ending was so absurd that more explanations didn't matter.

2. Crichton did come up with a good, high-concept idea for the book: a swarm of nanoparticles, developed for the military for surveillance purposes, gets out of control and evolves into a predatory being that can chase you into any room... a bee-like swarm of microscopic robots slipping through the cracks. Pretty cool idea. It could have been a scary page-turner as the characters try to escape the unstoppable swarm. But this book only shows a glimmer of its promise. Simply put, Crichton didn't try very hard to make it suspenseful. He phoned this one in.

3. It's obvious from the "scientific explanations" that Crichton doesn't really understand the technologies he writes about. Particularly at the end -- the explanations don't even remotely make sense. Some of the swarm behavior is plausible, but the ending is laughable and silly.

4. The whole book seemed hastily written. An editor should have read it for plot glitches. (I won't say anything specific, lest you read the book anyway.) In addition, Crichton keeps awkwardly interrupting the dialogue to explain various theories. You're reading along and then -- woah, let's stop the talking for a second -- here we go with another science lesson! Two pages later the dialogue starts again, exactly where it left off.

6. The most annoying thing is that Crichton gives you a condescending lecture at the beginning of the book about the arrogance of science. He did this at the beginning of Jurrasic Park, too. It would be one thing if Crichton were an expert on his subject matter and had the legitimacy to warn you, the poor uninformed reader, of the evils going on in labs around the country. But his lack of credibility is embarassing. Crichton comes off as someone who has read a bunch of books and then tries to regurgitate it back to you, but without a true, confident grasp of the material. He has no business lecturing people. He gets too many facts wrong. He should stick to fiction. Good fiction.

In sum, I hope another writer creates a good "nanoparticle out-of-control" story... because I still want to read one.

Rating:
Summary: Amazing book. Really.
Review: This is one of the coolest books I've read. It is suspenseful, descriptive, entertaining, and "action-packed". It also has descriptions of scientific information/ theories. Those get boring after a while, but that doesn't make it a bad book. It still involves all the disturbing deaths of those meaningless, annoying characters. A lot of it seems a little strange at first, but once you've finished it and found out more about the microbots, you'll understand. I must admit, though, the end was kind of sad, but I shall say no more. You need to buy it right now and read it for yourself. Anyone who liked Jurassic Park will probably enjoy this just as much.

Rating:
Summary: Not Crichton's Best - But Still OK
Review: I read 'Prey' in about 48 hours, and had been waiting for the paperback for some time. The story is about nano-technology gone wrong, and it presents itself as a cautionary tale with themes similar to 'Jurassic Park' (though the two books have almost nothing else in common and 'Jurassic Park' is an infinitely superior story).

The story is about a research company seeking to perfect nano-technology (molecule sized machines), with a variety of applications. It is commonly understood that those who develop such technology will make a discover of similar proportion to discovering that the world isn't flat.

Several of the themes in this story are, to Crichton's fans, very familiar. Science has been used to create something that has unforseen consequences, and a group of scientists are put together to solve the dilemma. In typical Crichton form, the main characters are isolated and in significant danger right from the start. Things go from bad to worse, with an equal number of deaths and surprises being uncovered along the way. This formula has worked very well in past books. Most notably, Congo, Sphere, Timeline and Jurassic Park. However, in Prey, the story just doesn't take hold like it should.

In reading this story, I was impressed with several things that just didn't live up to Dr. Crichton's legacy.

1. The character development in his past books just wasn't there. Everyone was very wooden, very stereotypical, and not much attempt at even developing the characters was ever made. In fact, though I only finished the book a few days ago, I can't remember the name of one character from the book. To me, this is the book's weakest point. In the past, I have been willing to forgive weaker plots because the stories contained characters I knew and cared about.
2. The problem presented in this story just wasn't very...scary. In his other books, you had things like exploding volcanoes, murderous simians, rampaging dinosaurs, or swarms of undersea creatures bent on destruction. In this, the bad guys were described as swarms of gnats (at least that's how I saw them when reading the story). True, later on they did begin to change (won't give that part away), and that did improve things. But until that point, I was just unimpressed.
3. The book is fairly long (500 pages) and in that amount of space, you'd think there would be room for more story. But, unfortunately, there isn't. The entire story takes place in just over 2 days (once things get going, anyway), and though I realize that's part of the plot, you never get the real feelings of isolation or despair that the characters in his other books felt. They were always in touch by cell phone, and they always knew the helicopter was on its way within a few hours. So there was never any "Oh crap, we're stuck here and if we don't do something we're going to die" in this story.
4. The main character's background was just very annoying to me. He is an out-of-work house husband raising 3 whining and annoying kids. He's got a sister that's not needed in the plot at all, and a sub plot about his marital problems that just don't add much to the story. I honestly had to start skimming when the book went into such lengthy descriptions about the types of diapers he would buy, etc. And, in my opinion, the single most annoying element in the story was when we would finally get interested in the problem of the nano-technology, and the cell phone would suddenly ring and it would be the main character's kids whining and asking him to settle a fight between them. To me, it was almost enough to make me put the book down.

Now that I've said the negative things, let me say the positives about this book.

1. Like all of Crichton's books, the narrative and dialogue move very quickly and it's not at all hard to read through it. The page breaks occur just about every page, and you find it's very easy to get through each one.
2. Toward the end of the book, the plot does take a more interesting turn. This occurs just about the time that he goes out in the desert to find the home of the nanobots. From that point on, the story got much more interesting for me (though the characters were still annoying).
3. My single favorite scene occurred when he was standing in the room where the giant pulse magnet was, and he was talking with his wife. It comes at the very end of the story, just before the climax, and to me that was where the old Michael Crichton suddenly came out of hiding. If only the whole book could have been like that part. The character interactions were great, the suspense was high, and I really didn't want to put the book down at that point.

Ultimately, though, the explanation of the story leaves more questions than it solves, and leaves way too many holes for my taste. If you read the story, I'm sure you'll come away with the same questions.

Finally, let me say that Michael Crichton is one of my favorite authors (right up there with Preston and Child). And even a bad Michael Crichton book is better than great books by most other writers. So I recommend this book (even if it's only 3 stars). I just wish Dr. Crichton had taken more time, fleshed out the story, given us some characters we could care about, and eliminated all of the extra sub plot material that took away from the main storyline.

I don't know what he's working on next, but hopefully it'll be back up to his old standards again. I know I'm already looking forward to it.

Rating:
Summary: Frankenstein's Monster for the New Age
Review: First off, let me say that while I am not a horror fan, this book could easily be fitted into that genre. Add a star if you like your horror plausible.

As far as the negative reviews, maybe they should go back and re-read the book. The main character is indeed a programmer who is now too old to write code. That doesn't mean he isn't a programmer any more. As far as the rabit scene, which seems to be a major stumbling block, well rabbits are small creatures, humans are larger. Get over it.

As far as the explanations, all I can say is, if you read any Tom Clancy you are used to long explanations. If you read the explanations you understand why, maybe not immediately, but further on in the book. This is called setting up a plot device. Those people who didn't understand why the main character was called out to the site didn't read the explanations, they only skimmed them.

If you want to have a no-brainer read, go elsewhere.

If you want to wonder about what is being cooked up in labs behind closed doors, and how it can affect the human race, this is the book for you.

Go ahead, skip the latte at the coffee shop and spend the cash on this book instead, you won't be sorry.

Rating:
Summary: Great Writing Style but Poor Plot and Poor Characters
Review: Creighton is an excellent writer in that he can spin suspensful prose and can write in a manner where you can't put the book down. He wrote a very good premise and develops his characters nicely at the beginning. That's why I picked up the book and read it to the end. However, it was just filled with plot problems that make you just sit there and roll your eyes:

- The number one flaw in this book is that he makes his characters act so stupid. They pick at each other with childish barbs and act like 5 year olds when they know they are exposed to death and destruction which can only be solved through teamwork. I just don't know why Creighton fills several of his books with this trait -- this book had the disease worse than I've ever seen in a Creighton book. Creighton ought to go spend some time in the military so see how humans really act when in critical situations.

- Why was the main character called out to the site? It never answers the question. Nobody wants his skills and yet this call is fundamental to the whole plot.

- Why can the swarm kill a rabbit quickly, yet some characters can be attacked big time and yet are fully recovered in a few hours? I'm not being picky -- this is the basic issue that the plot revolves around.

- Why does every single person keep the production facility going even though chaos and destruction are reigning from the previously produced particles?

- Why are the characters smart enough to have created the particles, but so stupid they won't even try to see slightly into the future as to where the thing is heading. This just ruined the believability that had been set up by good writing style.

Bottom line, Creighton has good style but you can drive trucks through his plot line holes that occur time and again within this book. Those holes then leave me uninvolved as I read on.

Rating:
Summary: What kind of legend in his on mind plagurizes HIMSELF?!?
Review: I can't add too much but I am not buying any more crichton books
1) written as a screenplay, stupid poorly developed characters
2) lack of continuity throughout. I bet nobody proofread this.
one minute the progonist is too old to write code, and the
next minute he calls himself a programmer. He managed the
developers of this fiasco, and he is the only one who can
fix it. Why? Why do they want to fix it? They don't! Why
do they bring him in??? Because he is the only one who can
kill them all??? Why are their only 5 people in a huge
manufacturing complex. Why does a complex with super high
level clean rooms have no airtight suits, but plenty of
thermite. Why could the infant swarm suffocate the rabbit
but forgot how to suffocate the hero after it had evolved
into the super-swarm. If the wife was infected, why did she
shower to get off the assemblers. Why were the people who
added memory, solar batteries and intelligence to the heros
stupid program that didn't work not the ones called to
fix it. Ohhhhh!!!

This is a bad book. I admit finishing it, but I feel used. Crichton needs to stop thinking dollar signs and find a few
new gimmicks. At least the babbling Jeff Goldblum character
who won't shut up is missing, but Crichton takes up the slack by
making the first person narration be the harbinger of doom.

Bad Bad Bad!!!

Rating:
Summary: Standard Crichton
Review: In Michael Crichton's latest novel, Prey, the author revisits one of his oldest themes, in particular the dangers and unintended consequences of developing new technologies. In this case, the technological development is nanotechnology and, as typical with Crichton, the effort is a mixed success.

The story in this case involves a company that has developed miniature robots for medical diagnostics. Necessary to their success is a program that allows them to act as a swarm (since any individual robot is too small to perform complex tasks); this swarm eventually gets loose from the supposedly secure facility and starts multiplying and preying on the local animals. The narrator is called in to try and rein in the nanobots, but they are evolving faster than he can come up with ways to stop them.

Crichton is an idea guy, and this story - like many of his novels - is dominated by the idea at the cost of other considerations such as plot or character. In fact, most of the characters are little more than talking heads designed to represent various viewpoints (the voice of reason, the amoral entrepreneur, etc.) in the discussion of the dangers of this nanotechnology. Despite a string of best-selling novels, the number of memorable Crichton characters can be counted easily on one hand, even if you lost a couple fingers in an accident.

This story is not completely original, revisiting elements from such books as Jurassic Park, The Andromeda Strain and Sphere. In the end, however, this is standard Crichton: fast reading and thought provoking without really being good writing.

Rating:
Summary: No Jurassic Park
Review: Crichton's 'Prey' preys on our fears of crossing nano-technology, genetic engineering, bacteria and swarm-like predatory instinct to create a tautly focused techno thriller in the Nevada desert.
The story concerns Jack Forman, an out of work but brilliant AI developer who is undergoing somewhat of a transitory period in his life as he adjusts to being a house husband whilst his wife, Julia, who works for Xymos Technology, is growing increasingly estranged from him. As he struggles to maintain a normal family lifestyle whilst trying to see if her behavioural patterns fit those of a drug-induced problem or if she is having an affair (or both), he finds that the highly secretive work she is carrying out begins to intrude on their lives as their baby, Amanda is taken ill with an undiagnosable condition, but then recovers immediately.
After Julia has a car crash, Jack finds himself being rehired by the company that previously sacked him and he flies out as a consultant to the Xymos facility where he finds the nano-engineering has escaped into the desert and is beginning to exhibit an alarming rate of evolution and developing distinctive predatory swarm-like tendencies. All bit like a twenty-first century artificial version of the classic 'Swarm' scenarios.
Throughout there is the reluctant corporate secrets and refusal to accept accountability, portrayed by the charming Ricky, and a small team of brilliant technologists who inevitably start dying one by one from anaphylactic shock.
Tie this in with a highly evolved techno-species that is both parasitic and symbiotic and you get a bigger mystery facing Jack Forman. By the end, Jack has saved the unknowing world, but a great personal cost and Crichton leave us with a chilling message in not thinking through the consequences of our technological advances.
The composition of this techno-thriller is not overly original, the small team, the isolated circumstances they cannot escape, an evolving predator, characters who are representative of bigger motives - all intended to create a claustrophobic effect. Unfortunately, it does make it a little predictable so by the time the real reasons behind the mysteries are given, you've already figured it out. Nonetheless, it does it in a way that is unputdownable. As with all Crichton novels this could easily be converted to the small screen and whilst it is no Jurassic Park, would prove sufficiently entertaining.