Prey

Rating:
Summary: Fun reading but not his best
Review: Prey is an entertaining read but fails to live up to a thriller such as Timeline. I think one of the reasons is that Timeline had so many subplots and different settings that it was impossible not to be enthralled. Prey is interesting in the fact that Chriton's display of his scientific knowledge about nanotech is exciting but I felt the book was a little one dimensional where Timeline (I think his best) forced sweaty palms on the reader. I just didn't get as much of a thrill from Prey

Rating:
Summary: Just another "Body Snatchers"
Review: Once again, Michael Crichton demonstrates his talent for squeezing the most amount of words into the least amount of sense. This really is little more than another "Body Snatchers" tale, interspersed with Luddite warnings of the imminent dangers of technology, which are in turn brought to life with the kind of plodding descriptions that show you that the only thing he actually understood properly was the use of copy and paste in his word processor. Kind of embarrassing at times, even. He's got scenes about from inside an ER that show such astonishing ignorance of a field he really was never in. A painful read in those places, particularly. But then, a lot of his stuff is. If you know anything at all about the subjects of his books, you almost always seem to understand them better than he does.

Rating:
Summary: A good Crichton thriller and very interesting
Review: "Prey" is a very interesting thriller in usual complicated Crichton format. It takes more than one read to really get into the story. Often, his books grow on the reader and society and years later his works are accepted by the general public. Sure, in "Prey" Crichton is experimental, but he's always been that way--taking risks and exploring the unusual; and this is exactly what makes good storytelling and great authors. I think PREY is a great read. I also very much recommended the very interesting powerful thriller by Alec Donzi: THE CONSULTANT.

Rating:
Summary: Reads like a movie - a really bad one
Review: Given several hot new techs to play with, Crichton mangles his ambitious introduction to the promise and perils of each. Long-winded, particularly at the beginning (easily half the book is consumed by character development that eventually goes nowhere), even still somehow the setup is left half-baked by the time an attempt to patch plot-holes appears at the end. Scenes stolen from "Fantastic Voyage" and "Aliens" appear without the benefit of Racquel Welch or Sigourney Weaver. I agree with another reviewer - this book reads more like Koontz than Crichton (that claim not intended to impugn the former!). What a disappointment - would be rated a three, but docked a point since it comes from a master.

Rating:
Summary: Too predictable! Too Chrichton-Formulaic.
Review: Crichton's always been one of my favorite authors; I knew I could count on a well-written techno thriller that I couldn't put down. Unfortunately, this one doesn't deliver. It's just too darn predictable!

Perhaps starting the book at the end of the story is too much of a giveaway (the novel starts on "Day 7" and then recounts the events of the prior 6 days). Based on the events in the first few pages, you know exactly where the story is going to end when something is revealed halfway through the book. Being told in the first person doesn't help either. You know our protagonist is going to survive any of his numerous near-death encounters, as well as many of the other characters who are present in the first few pages. This of course removes much of the suspense.

This is probably the most predictable novel I've ever read. Scene after scene, as the road curved ahead, I knew exactly what was around the next bend. Utterly disappointing in that regard.

Chrichton certainly has a stock formula for most of his "science-gone-amuck" novels. Well-intentioned scientists create something that's going to be fantastic, taking shortcuts and dangerous innovations, the technology goes rogue, people die, the technology is destroyed (or is it?). This one's ture to that previously successful formula, but again, it disappoints. The only Chrichton novel (or movie) that disappointed more was "Congo."

That said, it's still worth the read. I did enjoy it, and it's an interesting technology, with some interesting explanations of the problems, both technical and moral that are presented.

The hardcover price is outrageous, but most hardcover prices are outrageous in today's economy. I'd wait for the paperback, or even the movie, which is sure to be made.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting look into the future
Review: This book caught me by surprise, I didn't expect to like it but Mr. Crichton captured my attention from the start. I usually shy away from a story that gets to technical but he kept the tech material interesting. I also was plesantly surprised that he wrote in the first person, which in this story, made the context real and more believable. I highly reccomend this book.

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant Babes and Micro Machines
Review: The unique appeal of Michael Chriton's fiction has always lain in the immediate relevance of its science. Chrichton gives us an exciting, cautionary mini-lesson in theory while propelling us nose-first into tantalizing, blockbuster adventure. His latest novel, Prey, is no exception. We have attractive young geniuses (when is a Chrichton heroine ever plain and dull?) battling a science project gone horribly awry, and as the story evolves we better understand just why Xytech Labs' product is so dangerous. The microscopic villians arise from, as Chriton puts it, "the meeting point of nanotechnology, biotechnology, and computer technology." All three have the ability to release self-replicating entities into the environment, he reminds us, and it shall be left at that.

The prose works best when it follows the narrator's mind through all the little revelations that crop up. My favorite of these isn't even relevant to the story. Dropping the children off at school one morning, out-of-work computer programmer Jack Forman notices their burdensome loads and thinks to himself, "Some of the kids had their packs on rollers, hauling them like luggage at the aiport...The world was becoming digital; everything was smaller and lighter. But kids at school lugged more weight than ever." Don't get me wrong, this book is about predator-prey chases, explosions, and the dangers of tainted science. Jack usually has far too much excitement on his hands to afford reflection, and it may be just as well since action and suspense are what keep the pages burning off this volume like kindling.

Unfortunately, Chrichton's intelligent thrill machine grows stiff in the joints toward the end. The players sometimes react in a surprisingly jaded manner, like when certain minor characters meet their untimely demise. Still, there's nothing worse than making a literary fuss over something that should be enjoyed as pure entertainment--even when laced with contemporary caution.

Rating:
Summary: u need 100% entertainment?
Review: Why dont most people like sci-Fi novels? especially Greg Bear and Arthur.C.Clarke, because they concentrate more on science rather than entertainment. Michael Crichton is the only author who is not handicapped by this habit. One thing that is really good about crichton's novels is that you will never keep the book down in the middle. This time too, MC has not let us down. The book guarantees 100% entertainment. For those who fel that reading novels is a waste of time. I would advice you to read any MCs books as you will learn a lot about the subject than by reading a couple of scientific journals. "Prey" concentrates on AI, genetics and Nanotechnology. After 1/3rd of the novel, the pace picks up a speed that you would never have imagined. This is definitely not one of MC's best novels, but definitely he gives you more than you would have expected from the book. My advice is, get the hard back and have a nice time.

Rating:
Summary: A cautionary tale of technology going awry
Review: Let me start by trying to explain to my long-suffering editor why I started reading PREY, Michael Crichton's new novel, when I had a groaning table full of books assigned to be reviewed before that one. As I write this, I can see her nodding bemusedly on the other side of the e-mail ether as she reads my explanation which, although true, sounds lame-o, even to me.

All I did was pick up PREY and started skimming Crichton's introduction to get a glimmer of what it was about. The title of the introduction --- Artificial Evolution in the Twenty-first Century --- hooked me. So I read the introduction, which begat the Prologue. And the Prologue begat Chapter One. And behold, before I knew it, I was at page 20 plus 100. The temple virgins had extinguished the vessels and night had fallen. And I kept reading.

Just try to stop. Crichton does with PREY what he does so well, which is to take what's happening right now and extrapolate it to take a peek at what might happen tomorrow. Or this afternoon. Or maybe five minutes ago.

PREY concerns something called nanotechnology --- and we're not talking about devices to help your Italian mother. Nanotechnology, or molecular manufacturing, is something else. I'm going to really oversimplify it here, because I'm no good at all at explaining anything more complex than a soup sandwich, but here goes: We can't physically manufacture microchips any smaller than we currently do now, so we're going to grow them and make them self-replicating. The practical applications are enormous, mind-boggling and, as Arthur C. Clarke said about the Universe, more than we are able to imagine.

The problem is whether or not we are going to be able to control these chips. As they come into contact with more and more elements in the biosphere, the greater the opportunity they will have to interact, adapt and evolve. And what happens if they become deliberately and consciously opportunistic? Well, Crichton provides one possible scenario to this and one possible answer. And believe me, you won't be more than a third of the way into PREY before you consider that your wacky Luddite niece may be worth listening to.

PREY is told through the voice of Jack Forman, a systems guy who is a victim of Silicon Valley intrigue. As he unwillingly slips gradually into the role of a stay-at-home husband, his wife, a dynamic woman who is vice-president of a technology firm, becomes more involved in a secret project and exponentially more distant. He initially suspects that she might be having an affair; by the time he discovers the truth, he'll wish it was that simple. In fact, his wife has been working on a method of growing molecules. But the blessing of its creators and in the interest of science, this project has spun out of control. One reading of PREY and you'll never look at a summer swarm of insects at sunset the same way again.

PREY is a cautionary tale, in the same vein as THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN and RISING SUN. One reading and you'll find that the big, bulky eight pound laptop you're lugging around is quite small enough. Anything smaller might not be worth the cost.

--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub

Rating:
Summary: YOU WON'T BE ABLE TO PUT IT DOWN
Review: Excellent book. Not Crichton's best, however. Read Sphere if you want to read Crichton at his best.