Rating: 
Summary: Hitchcockian thriller
Review: The best science fiction has always been somewhat preachy. In the fifties we were warned on atomic dangers ("The Day the Earth Stood Still") and in the seventies, environmental terror was a frequent theme.Now Crichton warns us against the intersection of technology, computer science and biology in a masterful work reminiscent of Hitchcock's The Birds. Swarms of microscopic molecular computers which are programmed to mimic predators in the wild, rapidly evolve into shaft shifting artificial organisms which threaten the survival of their human creators. Jack Forman, recently unemployed software engineer, finds life as a fulltime stay at home dad frustrating especially since his wife's career in nanotechnology is spectacularly successful. Unknown to Jack his program which mimics predator/prey behavior has been incorporated in his wife's product. After something goes terribly wrong Jack is dispatched to reign in the mutating artificial creatures. It is a trip fraught with danger and clever plot twists. Alfred Hitchcock would have made a hell of a movie out of this one!
Rating: 
Summary: Ouch!
Review: Started out good, but fell apart at the end, where it turned into an Ed Wood movie.
Rating: 
Summary: Prey opens new genre
Review: If nothing else, Crichton has opened up the world of nanotech to the mass audience, science and science fiction on the level of space travel since it has so many uses, from cellular repair in Cryonics patients,to manufacture of microscopic computer chips. The story is fast moving, and aside from the rather thin character development,offers terrific and fresh new reading.
Rating:
Summary: It's an OK read, but not the best Chrichton out there.
Review: My biggest complaint about the book was the incredibly obvious foreshadowing. Every single thing that ends up being used as a plot device is trotted out 3 or 4 times as examples before it's actually used by the characters.
It made reading the book an exercise in guessing when the characters will get to using "plot device X"
An example: (not based on the book, but in the same style and heavy handedness)
(early in the book) "Gee Joe, ya'd better not touch that switch without first REMOVING ALL THE METAL FROM YOUR BODY."
(several time in the book) Joe went to switch on the electromagnetic-doohicky. In his haste, he had left on his stainless steel watch. Biff jumped in and stopped Joe just in time.
"HOW MANY TIMES DO WE HAVE TO TELL YOU do not touch that switch without first REMOVING ALL THE METAL FROM YOUR BODY"
(Climax of the book) Joe's nemesis entered the main electromagnetic-doohickey chamber holding the TITANIUM PENCIL SHAPENER he had just used to kill everyone else in the plant. Joe threw his plastic (cuz he'd finally remembered to remove his metal objects after the 800th reminder) wristwatch at the ON switch. The electromagnetic-doohickey instantly generated a powerful electromagnetic (duh) field that ripped the TITANIUM PENCIL SHARPENER into a zillion pieces. Oh, the pieces ripped his nemesis into a zillion pieces as well. You get the point. This happens in the book in a dozen places. Some real book examples, pounded into our thick skulls over and over before they are used as a plot device: Don't clog that filter, or everthing will blow up!
Don't turn off the coolant to that doohickey!
That contaminant destroys the microthingies (I wonder if anyone will use it to destroy the microthingies?) There's more, but I'll leave it at that. It was a fun book and an enjoyable read, but it wasn't the new Andromeda Strain.
Rating: 
Summary: Wasn¿t this movie called ¿Tremors?¿
Review: First off, I accidentally read two sentences in the front sleeve, and then I read the excerpt before page 1, and I immediately knew what the problem was, and how the problem would be solved. Unfortunately, Crichton decided to spend half the book building a mystery that is answered on the front sleeve of the book. The mystery falls flat, as the main character thinks his wife is cheating. Of course, that is not true, but it takes Crichton a heck of lot of time to get to the point. His "insights" into Silicon Valley are pretty much an extrapolation of stereotypes. About 140 pages into it, he finally starts the darn book as the main character gets to Nevada. It's a finally action packed, fluid, and fun, despite the fact that it feels like a blatant [take] of the movie Tremors. But hey, it was a good movie. Just replace worms with nano-particles, and you've got the same thing. Then, in the ending, it gets truly surreal with the typical hack ending. The last twenty pages are pretty much a yawner. His classic fluidity, and the 100 pages of action are what makes this book somewhat enjoyable.
Without a doubt, one of his worst books. Timeline and now this. It seems like Crichton's career is just about winding down. Maybe he and Tom Clancy can move in with other Al Gore, MC Hammer, Michael Jordan, and other has beens.
Rating:
Summary: Nanoscare
Review: Red Herring magazine predicted a nanotech backlash as a top ten trend for 2003. Allusions were made to Jurassic Park, and its associated scare. Why not visit Foresight Institute's website, and their guidelines for safe development of nanotech/nanoscale science? David Forrest wrote some guidelines back in 1988 and is associated with IMM. Why throw away the upside? Work to limit the downside and maximize the upside. Enjoy the book, inform yourself with Foresight's mission, and try and limit Red Herring's prediction. Have fun, because its going to be a rather long haul to robust commercializtion.
Rating:
Summary: Nanotechnology by Ratner and Ratner
Review: Prentice Hall's Nanotechnology: A Gentle Introduction to the Next Big Idea is a perfect read in conjunction with Prey by
Michael Crichton. It expands readers' knowledge of Nano - its benefits and why its going to be one of the biggest breakthroughs of the 21st century. The ISBN of the Nanotechnology book is 0131014005.
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic Techno-Thriller
Review: This is yet another Crichton book one can gulp down in a few hours. In Prey he takes many themes dealt with over past books and mixes them all to give the reader a superb thriller. Prey is a little Andromeda Strain a little Jurassic Park and a little something new. In the end Prey is more than the sum of its parts and most of all its a superbly entertaining read. Once again Crichton latches onto a topic many people think little of then he brings up the nightmare scenario we should all work to avoid. Excellent.
Rating:
Summary: Great concept but fell apart later
Review: I loved his earlier work, but this one even though a great concept really fells apart in later part of the book, you can actually out run airborne nano particles, an okay book, not a great one.
Rating:
Summary: nano-nano
Review: Better than his previous couple of books (Timeline was just awful), this novel tackles nanotechnology, evolution and genetic optimization. Those are heavy-duty subjects but Crichton makes them seem easy and fascinating. As a teacher, he did a good job. What the book is really about is how small and simple elements that obey very few rules can evolve into a very complex organism. This same subject has been thoroughly explored recently by Stephen Wolfram in his encyclopedic treaty, A New Kind of Science, (definitely not a novel!) about using extremely simple computer programs to solve extremely complex problems. (Am I the only one to pick up on this, or have others seen it also?) As a novelist, however, Crichton is painfully inadequate. His character development is pathetic. I don't understand it: an obviously extremely bright guy who has even produced/directed some good movies who just can't write about people? Maybe he's just bored with that aspect of novels. On keeping the plot going, though, he did a good job. It's definitely a page-turner.
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