Prey

Rating:
Summary: Calling Commander La Forge . . .
Review: I really enjoyed this plot when I saw it on STAR TREK TNG a decade ago . . . This is a far cry from the originality he displayed in THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN. Futuristic stories that are based on humanity like in the novel CLONED LOVE is the road to originality in the sci-fi world. This novel fails to bridge that gap.

Rating:
Summary: Same Themes different Vehicle
Review: This book explores almost the exact same themes as Jurassic Park ... only not quite as masterfully. It has the same flow as the preceding book, Timeline: start with a hip premise, insert a some technical background, have the protaganists interact with the technology, but instead of expanding upon these themes, the books final 100 pages or so morph into a half-hearted adventure yarn.

I really wanted to like this book as it is ostensibly based on an area of interest to me: NEMS (nanotechnology). Actually the book covers a lot of themes: male/ female role reversal a la Disclosure, innate unpredictability of complex systems - Jurassic Park, bleeding edge technology with which scientists take shortcuts - JP and Timeline, as well as corporate conspiracy and coverups - basically all of MC's books. However the book spends most of its energy on evolution, emergent behavior, and AI. This really is not a book about nano.

All of this being said, the book is interesting and a page turner. I read it in one sitting. The problems of the book are most noticeable when compared with some of Crichton's best work like Jurassic Park or Sphere. Prey does not really explore the human element as it relates to the technologies on which the story is built. This is actually odd because it seems as though MC spends a good deal of the book providing a lot of background for both the protaganist and the technologies. Unfortunately, he drops them cold when in the the end, the book devolves quickly into a B movie horror replete with big explosions, chases, fights, more explosions, and an abrupt one page summary of all that has just transpired. Bummer.

In summary: an enjoyable enough read, that has a lot of potential but hastily squanders it in the end and for that reason falls way short of of MC's best books. If you have not yet done so, pick up Jurassic Park or a Case of Need instead.

Rating:
Summary: Another I got to hurry up and finish the book
Review: Lately, I have been reading many, many - medical thillers, (which everyone of them, I figured out what the heck was going happen 30-50 pages in, but kept on reading just to see if I was right) and I have read all of Michael Crichton books - in majority of them the plot twists and aha's, kept me engaged. I will say this, I was
very much involved with what was happening, I felt myself turning the pages as fast I as I could to see what would happen next, then - the situation with the Rabbit, and the "foreshadowing" question, of there was a reason he had to know why the rabbit had died. - I just knew what was going to happen, how it was all going to turn out, - very pat ending. I guess I wanted more, I wanted to be suprised. I don't know what I wanted to happen, just not a Hollywood Thriller ending. This book deserves more then that. -- Why 4 stars you may ask? - Because the writing is first rate, and the subject matter and how deftly he explains all the Nanotechnology is worth the read alone. - I guess this is one book, I cannot wait until the movie, so maybe they can make the ending better.

Rating:
Summary: Forget the hype...
Review: Disappointing page turner. Thin characters and totally improbable situations make this most recent Crichton scifi effort a waste of time. At least wait until the paperback comes out; save your money even with the generous Amazon.com promotion.

Rating:
Summary: A One-Night Stand
Review: Crichton does things differently here...He writes the entire story in first-person; he starts off with family life; he merely hints at the trouble to come. Having read almost all his fiction works, I found this story as engaging as ever.

We start off with Jack and Julia, a modern couple facing problems of family life. Jack is at home with the kids, while Julia deals with mounting work pressures and the possibilities for infidelity. Although both Jack and Julia have experience in groundbreaking technology, their story begins in a setting familiar to all, thus adding weight to the coming suspense.

Don't be mistaken, though; the suspense will come, and the usual technological ideas will reign. A highly-evolved swarm of nanoparticles has escaped from a secretive lab, and they are responding to predator-prey programming that Jack helped develop and Julia helped perfect. Along the way, Jack will be called in to help coordinate the counterattack against the swarm--if he and his team don't first become the prey.

This book starts off with more heart than usual for a Crichton book. I was fully involved by the time the true troubles came. The applications to society and technology are worthwhile to consider, and Crichton pulls out a few surprises by the end.

What he fails to do--to my chagrin--is sustain the sense of family and familiarity with which he starts the story. The concern we have for his kids soon falls away into a plot contrivance, and we find ourselves squarely in the middle of a regular Crichton story. A fun and fast-paced story it is, but it could've been even better if he continued with the human angle. Eventually, when the worst of the death toll hits, we find ourselves caring only on a superficial level. In fact, even Jack shows little emotional response.

Was I breathless at the climax? Yes. Did I actually care? Nah, not much. After all was said and done, it was a one-night stand of a book. I felt like rolling over, lighting a cigarette, and trying not to consider the horrible consequences of Crichton's technology run-amok.

Rating:
Summary: Crichton keeps ¿Preying¿ for better reviews
Review: Michael Crichton has been vastly successful financially but positive critical reviews of his works have been far and few. Unfortunately, his latest novel Prey will probably not usher in waves of praise. It is too bad because Crichton deals with issues that are pertinent to all people and his ideas are supported by relevant research.

Prey reads like an expanded movie script where action scenes have been fleshed out with perfunctory swiftness. This book is disappointingly a second-rate effort when compared to his similarly themed, yet vastly superior Jurassic Park. In that masterpiece, Crichton successfully evoked descriptive terror while entertaining the reader. But in that work, people were able to rely on mental pictures of dinosaurs from childhood memories and such so Crichton didn't need to work as hard to deliver the frightening images. Here, the menacing entities are nanoparticles - particles that are significantly smaller than the width of a human hair. While these nanoparticles wreak havoc through predatory behavior, they still lack a cogent character. While a future technology appears to be far more dangerous than say an extinct animal, the effort in making nanoparticles terrifying comes up short. This may not be entirely Crichton's fault as nanotechnology is not as commonplace to people as genetic technologies and thus does not deliver the suspense that Crichton has so successfully conjured in novels past.

Jack Forman, the protagonist, is a stay-at-home father of three who was fired from his last job for blowing the whistle on his boss. Fortunately for him, his wife Julia just happens to Vice President for Xymos Technologies, a secretive firm that is conducting hush-hush experiments in the Nevada desert when Jack is hastily hired to firefight some serious programming problems. Meanwhile his wife inexplicably begins to exhibit indignant and strange behavior and upsetting the home-life balance that Jack has persevered to achieve. Can there be some connection with her job or is this Crichton exploring the gender role reversal a la Disclosure?

The first third of the book sluggishly takes place mostly at Jack's home and here Crichton seems to be unable to find any pace in writing about domestic living. For such a large chunk of text, the characters' dialogue is poorly written (especially the children's). Crichton shines best when he exercises his wonderful gift of explaining abstract scientific concepts in layman's terms. The passages about the nanotechnology, emergent behavior and biological terms make for interesting reading in sharp contrast to his domestic diatribe.

Prey is recommended for its ruminations on science but only if you can tolerate the prosaic passages about some of the characters' home life and mundane action scenes. The bibliography at the end does provide an outstanding springboard learning about the scientific principles presented in the book.

Rating:
Summary: Typical of Crichton's slow decline
Review: As with all of Crichton's work, this one is extremely well researched, and makes some complicated and rather futuristic science accessible to a broader range of the public. It also conveys the reader along its suspenseful plot with eager turns of the page (you'll be able to turn through this one during a typical flight). However, it's also characteristic of Crichton's recent novels - pedantic, almost as if it's written for imbeciles, leaving no suspense except to find out what's going to _happen_ next - rather than what the characters (and readers) are going to _learn_ next. I don't think the first person narrative helps with this problem.

For people who have done absolutely no reading about emergent systems, biological models for technology, or nanotechnology, this book may be a good primer. (Though I believe it needed a stronger editor, I prefer Neal Stephenson's _The Diamond Age_ as a more prophetic vision of the dangers of nanotechnology.) Crichton's _Prey_ treats its readers as if they're not smart enough to put together some pretty obvious connections, and then strays off its solid science to a rather frivolous - and painfully, incessantly telegraphed - fright for an ending.

As with his dinosaur books, Crichton appears to be writing a screenplay rather than a novel. And, frankly, _West World_ and the terrifically underrated _Looker_ and _Runaway_ were much better examples of his skill in that arena. For readers interested in well written and solidly plotted science thrillers, I'd recommend Crichton's earlier work, such as _The Andromeda Strain_ and _The Terminal Man_, or Neal Stephenson's _Cryptonomicon_.

Rating:
Summary: Gripping, but utterly misguided
Review: As a long time Crichton fan, I have waited for Prey with bated breath. Prey is a page turner, from the very first page. It's as exciting as it is fast moving. However, it is also an utter disappointment.

Nanotechnology as a subject has so much potential in the hands of a master of the technology thriller such as Crichton, but he completely fails to take advantage of it, so we end up with a book that reads more like a modern "Night of the Living Dead" rewrite than a Crichton technothriller.

Plot holes abound, particularly near the conclusion. Instead of the technothriller everyone was waiting for, we get a half way decent action movie script (and it's already been sold!). It's formulaic, and anyone with half a brain could already see the entire plot from the first chapter, leaving the work devoid of suspense.

All in all, a good read, but wait for the paper back.

Rating:
Summary: based on the thing
Review: Although the book is interesting and well written, Prey has the same problems as Airframe and Timeline, it reads as a first draft. The impression left is as if this is a summary for the real book that would arrive later.
The other problem with this book is that its premise has been used before. If you have seen John Carpenter's "The Thing" or if you read John Campbell's original short story then you already know the complete plot for the book, just change the site and change who is responsible for the virus, the destruction sequence is the same as in the movie.
But even knowing all this the book is a good read and entertaining, just wait for the paperback

Rating:
Summary: If you've enjoyed past Crichton titles...
Review: You'll love this one. This novel is vintage Michael Crichton. Plenty of suspense, and you learn a little about an emerging technology. I might be a little biased because I like the subject of nanotechnology, but you don't have to know anything about the subject in order to enjoy the book.
I gave five stars in terms of Crichton books, and books in the same genre.