Rating: 
Summary: WORTHY ENTRY FOR CRICHTON'S WORKS
Review: I've read almost all of Crichton's novels and all have been excellent, Prey is another one of those novels. Prey unlike Airframe or Disclosure deals with alot of scientific facts concerning the new area of nano-technology (little mini-machines) It this novel our hero, Jack Foreman is a computer programmer turned house husband who is out of work do in part to the internet bubble burst. Jack is assigned a job to figure out why a large quantity of nano particles are unable to be controlled, what then happens is these nana-particles start to terrorize the lab and it's techs. It is a quick enjoyable read, but there are a few flaws in the story line that I had trouble with, like why would a programmer go out and risk his life to stop this swarm of nano particles? I also think the subject matter is pretty complicated for those who aren't too technical.
Yet, this is not O'Henry, there is no truth to be seen here, it is a fun fast read and very interesting at the same time. I thought the ending was very suspenseful and nicely done.
Just an aside, I can see how Michael Crichton's ugly divorce made it's way into this novel, by painting jack's wife as a heartless, power loving B!$@H, I think he was trying to send a message to her.
Rating: 
Summary: Four nanostars
Review: Four nanostars which means three normal stars, at the beginning the book will keep you interested, but as you are reading it gets slower and slower, and as all of Crichton's books the end is to long, it could be shorter and a little bit better, another thing is that all the book could be real, but the end is just a fantasy, he could think better on how to end this book. Nevertheless Crichton is a very good writer but is very difficult to write always very good books.
Rating:
Summary: Hard to put down
Review: One of the strength of Michael Crichton's is that he writes about such a broad range of subjects, and most of them well done. This is another example. That is truly amazing to me. How does he do it??I'm not sure exactly how likely the little creatures in the book would come to pass, but I couldn't help think back to the nanites in Star Trek. I do feel very sorry for Julia. But yes, this is another one that read like a movie script. For that matter, though, didn't a couple other of his books read that way too? But maybe he is one of the few authors I can forgive for that. Rising Sun, Jurassic Park, Disclosure all have turned out to be good movies and books. Prey has great movie potential too. But he definitely has my respect. Who else can write about Japanese companies, dinosaurs and virtual reality and space virus (Andromeda Strain), etc., with such aplomb?
Rating: 
Summary: Good clean fun
Review: It's a work of Crichton and I love it. It's fun reading and I love his work for that. I don't want to read novels that make me think about myself and feel bad or make me want to improve my inner character. There are self-help books out there designed for that. What I want is fun reading that's beleivable, not necessarily absolutely and without flaw beleivable. I'm a techie myself and I found his explanations close to the real thing, if not right on the dot. His introduction was a good way to set the mood. I don't know why the othe reviewers complained about the plot, or the language, or the this and that. It's a story and it was written with fun and excitement in mind. Go read it now!
Rating: 
Summary: Save your money
Review: This book reminded me why I don't read fiction very much. Although I am not a literature snob, I find much contemporary fiction to be kinda dime novelish, (I created a new word!) with the exception of Crichton, whose work I have enjoyed since the old Andromeda Strain days. This particular book reminded me of s Stephen King book - Crichton starts to tell a perfectly good story, then, not knowing how to end it, tacks a ridiculous ending on it. If you absolutely have to read this book, either check it out of the library, borrow it from a friend, or wait for the paperback to come out. As a side note, I was very disappointed with the quality of this volume in general - pages raggedly finished, with ink blots partially obscuring the text. Really lousy quality for a hardcover - I have seen few paperbacks printed so poorly.
Rating:
Summary: Pretty disappointing "Prey."
Review: What a tragic and awful novel given the earlier work of Michael Crieghton. Written in the first person -- often a small sign that the writer has lost his touch -- this book leads its readers to believe that it might be another wonder of new technology. It is like that at first, but Creighton gets almost desperate at the end to conclude the mish-mash that he has created. Surely his agents and the marketeers will love this book for a movie, and that is precisely what drives this sort of drivel. Creighton knows that and knows he wrote this book below his level. Go for the buck, Michael, and waste your talent. Don't waste your time on this book; you'll feel like you've been drug though a seemingly informative string of chapters only to find that it all led to a remarkably stupid and unbeleivable conclusion
Rating:
Summary: Review of Auidobook version
Review: STORY: As one editorial put so nicely: "Today the quest is to make machines that would be about 1,000 times smaller than the diameter of a human hair. Enter Jack Forman, a recently unemployed writer of predator/prey software, whose nearly absentee wife, Julia, is a bigwig at a tech firm called Xymos. When a car accident hospitalizes Julia, Xymos hires Jack to deal with problems at their desert nanotechnology plant. The techies at this plant have developed nanomachines, smaller than dust specks, which are programmed with Jack's predator/prey software. Not only is a swarm of those nanomachines loose and multiplying, but they appear to be carnivorous." MY FEEDBACK:
1) SETTING - Silicon Valley is where things originate. Believable and functional for this story. Nevada is another local and it too is necessary and logical. The setting is something most of us can envision and/or relate to. 2) CHARACTERS - Our main protagonist is the image of many men in America today = unemployed by the high-tech field, finding dead ends to job leads and trying to help out in the household between job searches. This character and the rest are easily believable and give us enough sympathy for thier plight that there is a connection. Actions are logical and in character. 3) PLOT - This is where the story lags in my opinion...The reason I don't read Tom Clancy is due to the pages and pages of technical explaination that go into his writing. This book suffers from the same plague of too much exposition. The "conflict"/antagonist isn't very easily explained like in the Jurassic Park books so more pages are needed in order to give the reader a surface understanding of what is going on with the out of control technology. Based on other reviews it appears this is the biggest turn-off for most readers, myself included.
The rest of the story is ok regardless of any formularic plotting involved. The level of suspense is not near that of T-Rex or Raptor for me even though the reality of nano-virus should be more fearsome. IT is almost analogous to give me a live terrorist or show me a facility that manufactures bio-weaponry. The "physical" threat seems more urgent in such cases in my opinion, regardless of how naive or misguided that might be. 4) AUDIOBOOK READING - the reader of the book does a fair job. Descent acting throughout. He does not make use of acting in different voices in order to dramatize the reading more, but it wasn't necessary. OVERALL - Go and read Timeline by Critchon...it is a much better book. You don't have to waste your time, but any true fan of this author will still probably want to read it just to say they've read everything by him. Good luck.
Rating: 
Summary: Captivating but poor language
Review: While I found some parts of the novel to be rather far-fetched, I found many good explanations of an emerging technology and its potential dangers. I would have liked to have read this book to my 11 year old son who would have been fascinated. Unfortunately, the book is filled with foul language which, in my opinion, does nothing to enhance the story or the message that it carries. I am disapponted that a writer of his caliber should find it necessary to do this and I find that it detracts greatly from the book.
Rating:
Summary: Gripping
Review: This book is wonderful. It keeps on the edge of your seat. You never want to put it down. It usually takes me a while to read a book, being as busy as I am. But not this one. You'll want to make all the time you can to read this one.
Rating:
Summary: Stay away from this book
Review: By buying this book, you encouraging a decent author with some very enjoyable previous books to churn out more of this ... 1. Kids do not talk like this. Adults do not talk like this to kids. 2. There are plot holes a Tryanasourus Rex from Jurassic Park could walk through. 3. The use of first person here fails miserably. Tech/action does not lend itself to the use of first person. 4. His novels have always walked the edge of "beleivable" scienctific future - this one falls off the edge and the book starts when it is about halfway down the cliff. I like Crichton - almost everything he is written. This one is a complete waste. Oh yes, the reader on the audiobook version should be ostracized from society. He somehow made the children's dialogue even worse.
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