Rating: 
Summary: (same)n
Review: OH whoopee doo...Crichton has managed to churn out yet another formulary novel. Crichton has managed to suck me in again, but I swear this is the last time. This time it's about nanotechnology. But it is rather consistent with all of his novels, whether they be about time travel, space aliens, diamonds in Africa, dinosaurs, or, uh, dinosaurs again. They all start out the same way. First he briefs us 'lay people' to the technology (which is usually pretty cool), and then heads down the 'ol assembly line: his novels ALWAYS involve (1) a crackerjack team of specialists in (2) a nearly impossible situation where they have to rely on (3) the most esoteric areas of their specialties that they manage to (4) recall and implement with the easiest of effort, who are (5) cut off from the rest of the world in one way or another, and there is always the (6) skittish one of the group that manages to die because he freaks out, with an (7) unwilling, but genius expert leading the team, battling a (8) sinister member amongst them that is all too obvious, (9) while running around in relatively implausible action sequences (that seem to drag on forever), and (10) manages to make us average humans look more stupid than ever. I managed to figure out the ending of this book from the first couple of chapters not because I am smart, or that I am incredibly insightful, but because the book is so painfully predictable. I often wonder if Crichton has a format in Word that he punches up and just fills in the lines. I usually enjoy Crichton's up-to-date analysis of today's technology, but when you are going to make a novel out of it, at least make it different than your past novels!
Rating: 
Summary: A Worthwhile and Compelling Read But Far From His Best Book
Review: Ever since I read THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN shortly after its publication in 1969, I have been a Michael Crichton fan and have always eagerly awaited his next book. And PREY IS QUINTESSENTIAL MICHAEL CRICHTON, a story to tell and a message to get across. He begins with an introduction that discusses the recent advances in technology and warns of his concerns regarding their dangers. (Just as JURASSIC PARK was not only a great story, but a book about the possible abuses of cloning.)Unfortunately, while I have enjoyed several of his recent works, in my estimation few of them, including this one, fulfill the promise of the his first novel. First, his recent books seem to be written primarily to become movies, in fact this one is almost indistinguishable from a film script. (And it could be a five star movie, but book readers need more detail and character development.) Second, as the review by Roger Buffington indicates, as I understand the technologies involved, the events in this story are highly improbable and some crucial developments go unexplained. (I cannot describe them in detail without giving away the plot.) Third, while the author attempted to clear up a lot of the loose ends in the final chapter, I found the conclusion to be relatively unsatisfactory. The story opens with Jack Forman, an unemployed computer programmer and software engineer, playing the role of Mr. Mom while his wife Julia pursues her career at Xymos Technologies. She is a former venture capitalist turned corporate vp in charge of a top secret apparently "bet the company" project in which Xymos is engaged. The project involves biotechnolgy, nanotechnology, massively parallel computer processing systems and extensive software development of learning algorithms. As the project nears deadline, the pressure on Julia intensifies, and as their relationship deteriorates Jack suspects that she may be having an affair with someone at the company lab where she is spending an increasing amount of time. The project goes seriously awry, and Jack is called in as a consultant and soon learns the ominous truth. The machine has mutated and escaped from the lab and is acting as a lethal virus that has the potential not only to murder the lab employees but infect the human race. Nothing is as it first appears, and the race against time begins to halt the spread of the virus. This is a true techno thriller and very fast paced. All the action takes place within seven days, and in fact in a very effective technique the chapter breaks consist of discrete rapidly moving time segments in sequential order. Thus, despite my reservations I found the book hard to put down until I had finished it, which is one of the reasons why I decided after much reflection it deserved as high as a four star rating. Also, the discussions of the technologies involved were quite interesting and well done. I am familiar in concept with several of them and found this part of the book very enjoyable. (However, if you are not scientifically literate, you will have to either skim them and accept the premises of the book or they will slow you down cosiderably.) Also, while the premise seemed implausible, once accepted the story was internally consistent. The book suffered from two additional irritating flaws. First, several developments were well telegraphed to the reader, yet despite Jack's obvious intelligence and attention to detail he was oblivious to the implications of certain events and some of Julia's actions. Also the last chapter was a forced attempt to clear up some of the unexplained happenings, but seemed to be an afterthought addendum which still left several crucial things not cleared up to my satisfaction. While I recommend this book with the aforementioned reservations, I would suggest that anyone interested in a serious discussion of the topic read the article by Bill Joy, the respected chief scientist at Sun Microsystems, which appeared in WIRED MAGAZINE a couple of years ago about the dangers of technological innovations developing human like intelligence capabilities. At times as I was rading PREY it seemed as if that article had been the genesis of Michael Crichton's plot line. Also, if you are interested in a truly prescient sci fi story regarding the potential of self replicating machines, read the short story AUTOFAC by the great Philip K. Dick. (It is included in the collection titled MINORITY REPORT AND OTHER STORIES - the title story is a great classic and much better than the movie.) In conclusion, I believe that Michael Crichton's introduction to PREY indicates that he had a message that he wanted to convey (and his cautions are in fact well taken); nevertheless, while he developed the story in an entertaining and arresting manner, he stretched the technologies involved to do so and also ignored the historical evidence that technology and human ingenuity have much more often been the source of progress than disaster.
Rating: 
Summary: Not great literature, but still a fun read
Review: (3 & 1/2 stars) The best way to read a Crichton novel is to recognize up front that it is nothing more than popular entertainment. Just surrender to it and go along for what will be a very enjoyable ride. With Prey, as with other previous novels by this author, there is an exciting story that's mostly quick and easy reading. As the cliched blurb quote says, it's a real page-turner. The "villain" of the story is the nanoswarm, rendered in appropriately cool and menacing descriptions by Crichton. The "hero," Jack, is a fairly believable character as he gets deeper into the web of Xymos, the company making the nanoswarms. As other reviewers have noted, the movie rights for Prey have already been sold, and it will translate well to the big screen (with a large SFX budget). There are some flaws with Prey that caused me to give it a slightly lower rating. The scientific explanations are sometimes boring, and distract from the narrative flow. For example, try this passage which pops up right in the middle of Jack's first moments at the Xymos fabrication plant: "The technical definition of emergent behavior was behavior that occured in a group but was not programmed into any member of the group. Emergent behavior could occur in any population, including a computer population." That's just an excerpt from a page-long lecture. Well, "yawn..." The intro, another college lesson from Mr. Crichton, is something to skip -- especially since it repeats verbatim the same exact two quotes that begin the book! There were also a few credibility gaps and holes in the story, but none serious enough to get in the way of the thrill ride of this made-for-Hollywood book. It makes for a great afternoon or two of armchair escapism.
Rating: 
Summary: Seems like Our Molecular Future
Review: The factual counterpart to this book is "Our Molecular Future", that explores the up and downsides of the technologies that underlie Crichton's drama. Read these books together and you'll get a great idea of what may come. On the flip side of Prey are natural phenomena that may be worse, and nanotech that might one day protect us.
Rating: 
Summary: Tripe
Review: Prey is full of made up techno-babble garbage. It has as much depth as a Star Trek novel, if even that much. If you want a more entertaining and better account of nanotechnology in science fiction, read Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age instead.
Rating:
Summary: Nanoparticles run amok.
Review: Michael Crichton, in his latest book "Prey," has returned to his "Andromeda Strain" and "Jurassic Park" roots. The hot topic of the day seems to be nanotechnology, which is also the theme of at least one other recent novel by a popular author. Nanotechnology, for the uninitiated is "the quest to build man-man machinery of extremely small size, on the order of a hundred billionths of a meter." The main character in "Prey" is Jack Forman, an out of work scientist, with expertise in creating computer programs that model biological processes. Jack is now a saintly stay-at-home dad, who takes care of the kids while his wife, Julia, works long hours at a mysterious company called Xymos. Julia and her colleagues are using nanotechnology to generate exciting medical applications. During the rare occasions when she is at home, Julia is tense and argumentative, and Jack suspects that his marriage may be in trouble. Only when Jack is hired as a consultant at Xymos does he discover that Julia and her colleagues are working on something that is top secret and extremely dangerous. For the first half of the book, Crichton does a bang-up job of creating an intriguing and frightening scenario. Since the reader has no idea what is wrong at Xymos, Crichton drops little innuendos and subtle clues to fire up our curiosity. By the time we get to Xymos, and Jack starts to sniff around, we are ready to be shocked by the revelations to come. Although there is gore and fright aplenty to please fans of this genre, Crichton is unable to sustain the excitement and intrigue throughout the novel. The ending is forced and a bit silly. There is no character development whatsover. Crichton's didactic theme is that man must not let his arrogance lead him to overreach, lest he unleash uncontrollable forces. This theme has been done to death, and it is getting a bit stale. However, I still give the book four stars for the dynamite beginning and for the fascinating primer on a technology that is real and absolutely amazing.
Rating:
Summary: Could have been better
Review: I have been reading Crichton since I was about 14 years old and have considered him one of my favorite writers of all time. His stories always appeal to me and I never want to put the book done once I start. Prey was no different but there was many things that did alter my judgement of the book. For one the story taking place during the course of a day (more or less)seemed to both enhance the evolution of the nanoparticles as well as giving the audience the feel of a rush. In my opinion I think it was rushed to much and it gave that feeling of unrealistic. The end, as well, in my opinion, without giving too much details, was horribly rushed and could have been written for a little bit more suspense. Also the added extras that made no sense...the continual noting of the sprinklers, car crash (essential to a degree but could have been done differently), etc, could have been used to, again, enhance the suspense of the reading. Overall the book was good, I would suggest it but not Crichton's best.
Rating:
Summary: "Prey"ing for another installment
Review: Michael Crichton has the rare intellect and ability to synthesize the most daunting scientific postulates and theories into a language that is easy to grasp for those for whom microscopic technology is an endless enigma. His new novel "Prey"is a frightening, horrific venture into the potentially destructive manifestations when molecular engineering detours off a contolled course. The main protagonist, Jack Forman has been laid off from a prestigous programming position in Silicon Valley and has been relegated toa "Mr Mom" role while his wife, Julia is vice president of a corporation involed in the manufacturing and harvesting of molecular particles which could revolutionize architectural structures and even delicate medical procedures with more innovative instruments. Problems arise when particles amalgamate into swarms and develop the capacity to become not only self sustaining and predatory. Jack has the ability to halt the scourge of these rabid, destructive particles before the repercussions are epidemic and disastrous for humanity on the whole. "Prey" is riveting in its impact and a cautionary tale which if not heeded ould lead to a holocaust generated by mans tampering with microscopic components that they do not understand fully. "Prey" really dramatizes the Walt Kelly quotation from Pogo "We have met the enemy and they is us" For in this novel, man has definitely sown the seed for its unintentional obliteration.
Rating:
Summary: Chrichton does it again
Review: Prey, the newest thriller by Michael Chrichton has everything we've come to expect in a Chrichton novel. Mad scientists, high technology, and wonderful writing. The one fear people may have with Chrichton is that he may fall into the old formula trap of writing the same book with slightly different settings. Thankfully his fans have nothign to worry about. Chritchton keeps his books diverse enough and suspensful enough that he avoides any hint of falling into formula. With books like Prey, fans of Chrichton can rest assured they have a long time.
Rating:
Summary: A rare misfire from my favorite author
Review: I'm a big MC fan and have greatly enjoyed all of his previous books with the exception of Terminal Man & now, Prey.
The problem with his latest is that it is a bit close to the now typical MC scenario. We know the protagonist isn't going to die because MC chose to write the book in first person. When the hero describes the players in the scenario, we as readers literally pick who is going to suffer the book's titular fate and who is not. (For the record, I was right about the victims!) We then turn pages to see how close we were to our predictions and also to see how gruesome their particular fates are going to be.
This is normally escapist fun but this book is a shade too melodramatic and formulaic to reach that level. Also, while resurrecting dinosaurs on a large scale & traveling to another dimension/time is obviously not plausible, MC truly made it seem like these advances in technology were right around the corner. The technology here - nanobots "breeding" and turning slightly malevolent in their choice of sustenance while the protagonist happens to be the only person able to stop them - is just too far away to make it seem like this is possible; this book is a shade too clearly on the science fiction portion of the literary spectrum. The final fate of some of the book's characters is pretty far out there.
I will say that I shivered and got itchy while reading the book & that I had to read it in one sitting just to see where it was going. I also enjoyed one portion that seemed nearly lifted from 'Aliens'. However, this is the 'Star Trek 3' of MC's oeuvre - wait for the paperback and its sure-to-be-lurid cover if you simply must read it.
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