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Summary: He's back in form!
Review: After the last few disappointing novels, I was worried that this might be another hack-made-for-movie book. But, it is much more than that. My eyes are blurry, since I read this in one sitting. I couldn't put it down and it scared me to death. I had heard something about nanotechnology, but really didn't understand its potential implications. Jack Forman the leading character has depth. There are the usual Crichton precocious kids, but he doesn't use them to explain the science...thank goodness. A few of the other leading characters are cardboard, but it is with reason.
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Summary: Predictable pattern but interesting thriller
Review: Michael Cricton's story telling pattern is pretty predictable. His story line is rooted in modern research, (how many other fictional thriller novel's do you know that end with an appendix of cited sources), where the outcome is carried to a plausible fictional extreme and wrapped up in a tightly told tale of adventure and mystery. Not that this is bad thing, this pattern offers plenty of room to write original story lines, and in the end Crichton knows how to spin a great yarn. This book brings together nano-technology, computer software and gnome technology. I didn't find this book as good as TimeLine, which was a great book, quite similar to DoomsDay in many regards, but much tighter to read. Nonetheless I enjoyed this book as a quick read, a brief past-time pause, like a cool lemonade on a hot day, refreshing even though it doesn't last that long.[...]
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Summary: Perhaps Crichton's most Chilling...
Review: From the strong and chilling introduction from Michael Crichton to the last word of the story, "Prey" is a book that dares you to put it down. The suspense created by the book is unbelievable, and it has the rare gift of being a book that simultaneously leaves pieces for the reader to figure things out and still manages to keep secrets from the reader as well. The plot hangs the entire enterprise together very well, with enough watered-down science to make things understandable to those of us who would have otherwise never heard of "Agent based systems" or "nanoparticles." Having the book be narrated by a single character adds to the suspense masterfully as well. Overall, a surprisingly excellent outing from Crichton, and a book that is definitley worth picking up, if for no other reason then it will allow you to say "The book was better" when the eventual $100million plus summer blockbuster "Prey" gets released in the future (and it will, this book is just begging to be put to the silver screen). A great read.
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Summary: He Never Fails To Amaze Me
Review: First of all, I don't understand why people are calling this book Crichton's worst, and why one of the other reviewers thought Timeline was horrible. Let me say this. This is book is wonderful, I was hooked immediately, and finished it in a day and a half. Some people just must not have the power to appreciate good literature. Crichton, you never fail to amaze me.
Rating: 
Summary: frustrating rehash...
Review: a shame. i had great hopes for this book, the possibilities for the story were endless...and all he did was make "prey" a nano-tech version of his "jurassic park" he wrote more than 10 years ago (replacing the "smart" raptors for the "smart" nanobots), or even worse, the cheesy "tremors." and, as a few reviewers noted, even "star trek-tng" did this exact same storyline, sans the wife's-maybe-cheating subplot, thankfully. really frustrating to see one of my favorite authors crash and burn like this. but i can't give "prey" 1 star - his pacing and his dialogue is still many levels above other "action" authors who continue to dump out a book each year. that alone is worth 3 stars. i just wished it was more...
Rating:
Summary: Well, the first part was really good
Review: Literature can both reflect societal moods and create them. This book may be an example of this cliche, as it is a jump start on a particular area of technology that is the subject of intense research at the present time: nanotechnology. There is talk about the possibility of self-replicating nanoscale robots, and with also the possibility that these entities could be intelligent, many individuals, scientists and non-scientists alike, feel apprehensive about this technology. The technology is not yet here, but developments in the 21st century are accelerating at an unprecedented rate. The book starts off well, at least after the introduction, which the author has felt the need to insert. The presence of the introduction is a distraction from the story line, at least for me personally, for I want to start the story without any biases or prejudices. The author's opinions in the introduction are somewhat negative about the future and character of humankind. A reader disagreeing with the author's opinions may be tempted to read the book with a hostile frame of mind. The author therefore should have kept his opinions to himself, and have spoken them through the characters in the book. He is clearly very worried about the developments in nanotechnology, and does not trust the scientific community to deal with it responsibly. The author though is bound by the constraint of making the story interesting, and that is hard to do without interjecting a large degree of malevolence in the technologies he is using in his story. Friendly, helpful nanobots are not going to hold anyone's attention for long. The first 150 pages or so of the book were very exhilirating: the tension building in the mind of Jack, the main character, and his doubts regarding his wife's behavior kept my attention. The author does a fine job of capturing his introspection, and in the meantime the reader gets a kind of crash introduction to terminology of evolutionary algorithms and artificial intelligence. Indeed, the reader gets exposed to talk of distributed parallel processing, or "agent-based programs", artificial life, ant routing, genetic algorithms, and protein folding, to name a few. As soon as Jack enters the desert though, the story gets less credible. Since this book has only been released for a few weeks, I could only say why I believe this by revealing the plot, which I don't want to do for the sake of new readers. I was surprised actually that the author took the move he did, as I was expecting the behavior of the nanobots to be much more subtle, as well as their detection. Instead though their behavior was very extreme, and this led me to think of how easy they would be to combat. The behavior of the nanobots would be much more believable if they would have acted in more mischevious ways, and such behavior would follow I think more naturally from the first part of the book. As the story nears its end, the events become more and more unbelievable. In addition, the characters seem to be almost juvenile in their behavior, and the author has the annoying habit of having them constantly using the "F-word". This is supposed to (I guess) make them more realistic, but instead they come across like they are playing nothing more than a difficult video game. In addition, obvious countermeasures to the nano-swarms make the story less believable. One could for example program a collection of swarms to engage in battle with the malevolent ones. Hence in general this is a disappointing book, which again is too bad considering the first part, which was written very well. I did not walk away with a feeling of foreboding that I did when reading the author's "Andromeda Strain" way back when. And if the book was meant to frighten the reader about the perils of nanotechnology, it missed its mark, considerably. But even if it did succeed in instilling fear about the possibility of nanotechnology, the research in this area will continue, and hopefully will be realized very soon.
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Summary: best ever
Review: Michael Chrichton is the best author ever, hands down, flat out.
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Summary: Best Technical Narrative Yet
Review: I have read all of Michael Crichton's books due, mainly, to his focus on the technical background to back up his far reaching fantasy plots. This book has, by far, the most tecnical yet understandable descriptions yet. His references to principles of both biology and advanced computer science give this book a credibility not often found in science fiction novels. Specifically his descriptions of the use of bacteria as the basis of the nano-mechanism villians of the novel was extremely detailed, yet easy to understand. This book outpaces some of his earlier work in its ability to keep the story exciting and moving along at a pace that keeps the reader from being able to put it down. As a fan of his novels, I believe this book is vintage Crichton and a must read for any science fiction fan.
Rating: 
Summary: Shows Crichton's limitations
Review: My major complaint with this novel is that it's pretty obvious that Crichton never once actually ran this past someone who is experienced with the electronics side of nanotechnology. From about page 70 I started nearly screaming -- "so when are you [guys] going to construct an EMP generator"? The idea of disrupting the silicon parts of the nanotechnological beasties is something that never occurs to any of the supposedly technologically savvy types in the book. The fact that the "final" solution was totally biological in nature just shows the author's lack of training or knowledge in this area...
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Summary: Better when it was called Jurrasic Park
Review: In Prey Michael Crichton rehashes the story of Jurassic Park, except this time instead of dinosaurs you have a swarm of killer nano-bots and instead of an island it takes place in the desert. The book reads like the screenplay he is sure to develop from it and quite frankly he should have just skipped the whole writing a book and gone straight to Hollywood. It's a fast read and an ok story, but wait for the paperback.
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