Rating: 
Summary: A well-done thriller with solid audio presentation
Review: I listened to this one on four cassettes, over the last week to and fro from work. It was quite a solid story, with the quick caveat that there's an introduction read by the author.
You know that saying, "That guy has a face for radio?" Well, Michael Crichton has a voice for print. I could barely maintain listening and concentration to his part, and heaved a sigh of relief when he finally shut up.
Then the story started - and it was good. Read by Robert Sean Leonard, he gave it a good go (though often his voice seemed younger than the forty-something hero of the tale). Jack is a "did the right thing and got fired" tech fellow, who specializes in writing code that mimics natural biological behaviour. His wife is working with a company doing something with nanotech. Things start to go wrong, and what escapes is nano-sized, pred/prey programmed, and self-replicating. Cue the cacophanous "Oh no!" music that ends each side of each tape (acually, it's a horrendous screech that has no place on an audiobook, and should <I>not</I> have been chosen), and the slowly rising tension that I'm used to Crichton providing.
If I have any qualms, it's with the not-always explained abilities of the escaped nanotech, and a somewhat obvious "this is what I think is inevitable, so smarten up, humanity!" overtone that Crichten might have toned down just a little.
'Nathan
Rating:
Summary: One of 2 Best Nano Thrillers!
Review: Pretty damned good novel from a damned good writer. Would have given it five stars had I not just read NANO by John Robert Marlow. For whatever reason--perhaps he was trying to follow the Jurassic Park formula of a small group trapped in a remote location--Crichton doesn't explore the Big Picture, so to speak. (Marlow's NANO, on the other hand, sets the technology loose on the world--which it threatens to destroy in a matter of hours.)PREY is definitely a worthy read--though the nanotech community is clearly siding with NANO as the better book. (See one nanotech-publication editor's review on the amazon NANO page.)
Rating:
Summary: A movie waiting to happen.
Review: The future of technology? A good question. Reading this book you will ask yourself, how far will we go to design machines that we cannot control. Though a very quick read, it is not as good as Andromeda Strain. But still will have you wanting to turn the page to see what happens. Our hero in this book is an out of work computer programmer who specializes in animal swarm behavoir. He is now a stay at home dad. And his wife is working on a new start up company desiging nanotechnology devices. He starts to expect his wife is having an affair and accepts a consulting job at the facility where she has been spending most of her time. He finds a lot more going on than he every dreamed. A swarm of nano-sized devices that that have gotten out of control. This time Crichton has nanotechnology go wild. He does a good job of explaining the difficult subject matter so that it makes the book more beliveable to those not familiar with the technology. So if you have liked his other books. Pick it up, and take the thrill ride.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting outlook on the future
Review: This was truly a quick read. If you want pure action and simple plot structure, this novel is for you. Crichton provides amazing details on nanotechnology and makes interesting predictions as to where we [society] might be headed with regards to it.
I enjoyed reading this novel and became more interested in nanotechnology as a result. I suggest this book to anyway who likes a somewhat futuristic story with lots of action.
Rating: 
Summary: The people are lifeless drawings...
Review: This sounded like a script for a badly written comic book, and indeed while it is a novel, the so-called human characters talk and act like lifeless drawings. Maybe the SCI-FI channel will make this as a cheap made for cable movie, it has all the written ingredinants for it. NEXT.
Rating:
Summary: Both frightening and realistic
Review: Researchers at a remote facility in the Nevada desert have been working on defense and medical applications using nanotechnology - microscopic robots used to perform various functions. Jack Forman, a recently unemployed computer programmer specializing in using predator/prey relationships to optimize computer applications, has been asked to help debug some problems. The opportunity is good for Jack because his wife works for the company on the same project, although her behavior has been very strange lately. He suspects she is having an affair with a coworker. What he discovers, however, is that the experiment has gotten loose and created a self-sustaining, self-replicating swarm of nano-bots that attack and kill in seconds. In my opinion, this is one of Michael Crichton's best novels - on a level with Jurassic Park or Andromeda Strain. What makes it especially frightening is the introduction (do NOT skip the intro) where he explains that the scenario is real and possible - a confluence of computer technology, bioengineering, and nanotechnology - and experts have begun to warn of potential disasters in the next 50 to 100 years. Then a short half-page narrative right before chapter one, obviously from a time later in the story, helps to set a tone that makes it difficult to put the book down. In all honesty, my ONLY complaint was the liberal use of the "F" word. Although the technology is very complicated, Mr. Crichton does a good job of explaining it - not that I understood it well, but enough to follow the plot. In all a very enjoyable and scary story that I wanted to keep reading to the conclusion.
Rating: 
Summary: This books was so riveting!
Review: This book was really good! At first I thought that Julia was having an affair, but boy was I wrong! I'm not going to say anymore because I don't want to give it away but this book was so good! It was a mixture of a mystery and had a lot of sci-fi as well. Michael Crichton at his best!
Rating:
Summary: Timely, annoying and recommended
Review: A very good story, one of Crichton's best and very thought-provoking. A potent threat -- an "evolving" cloud of nano-particles which act as an organism -- is actually made believable as the book rolls on. On the bad side, the first quarter to a third of the book goes VERY slowly and the protagonist is a whining, somewhat sanctimonious "Mr. Mom" -- basically, a loser. Things change when he gets into the action theatre and changes to a proactive, resourceful person. The ending is a bit far-fetched even with the good foundation in the middle of the book. But, it ought to make a terrific movie (duh!!)
Rating:
Summary: A fascinating read
Review: Something that I have always admired about Crichton's work is how easily he can make readers understand technical things. Albeit this novel is science fiction, Crichton nevertheless used real sources for backing in his scientific technicalities, and he explained it to readers in a way that they could understand, especially to readers who have no idea what nanotechnology is. Yet, it seems that Crichton used everyday family life to connect to his readers, because the main character is a stay at home dad, something some of us can actually relate to. Crichton continued to enthrall the reader by making the novel very exciting, and I found that I was extremely interested in this novel from start to finish. I recommend this book for any sci-fi fan.
Rating:
Summary: Prey
Review: This is my favorite book of all time! Chriton is at the top of his game in this book. Prey is definetly one of the weirder, more predictable books I've read, but the sub-plots are what keep you intrested, and those are the things you can't figure out. Written much like Jurrasic Park, Prey captures the dangerousity (is that a word?) of modern technology while at the same time creating an amazing thriller. Two thumbs up!
|
