Average Rating: 
Rating:  - A peak into our powerful and dangerous future
As part of a broad public discussion, not a specifically scientific one, Michael Crichton reaches into the deep thick darkness of our future with his new book, "Prey," and viscerally pulls out some issues, some potential realities, with his poetry-prose, that are so central to our continued breathing and cognition that we are well advised to ignore the obvious scientific weaknesses of many parts of this book. The issues he brings up include the development of nano and bio technologies, artificial life, and swarm and emergent behavior.
The plot of "Prey" is formulaic in many respects, following closely in the footsteps of books such as "Frankenstein," which was the first real story about artifical intelligence, "2001: A Space Odyssey" and, of course, "Jurassic Park."
In ignoring these varied faults, as we read "Prey," we sit quietly on this beautiful dark night and get a glimpse of the deeper issues that glimmer, simmering, on our nearest horizon.
Rating: - Nanoparticles run amok.
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:  - The Swarm vs. The Flock
Before I read the first page of the Prologue, I resigned myself to reading technical material on nanotechnology, willy-nilly, like it or not. Michael Crichton, along with Mary Poppins, is a firm believer that a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down. The "sugar" being the characters and story line.Actually, the disinterested wife fascinated me right up to the finish line. For this, I was pleased. The story is formulaic: doomed scientists frantically searching for the key to destroy the monster before the monster destroys them (and the world). This monster is only impressive in numbers, not size. Microscopic computer chips programmed to be an "eye in the sky" for defense purposes. Individually, they are dumb; put a few billion together and they evolve very quickly. Because these chips have been formulated in a hunter/prey mode, there are certain short-term defenses that can be taken. When a group of scientists is threatened, one smart fellow yells "Flock!" I confess I would have been struck dead right there, for I haven't the first notion of how one "flocks." It turns out they were to march in step together taking up the most amount of room possible making the swarm think they were facing a huge entity (until said swarm figured it all out, that is.) Mostly I enjoyed the book and had a small glow of self-satisfaction because I had plowed through the technical pages per Mr. Crichton's wishes. I can't help but think it will be a very silly movie, but I suppose a movie it will be, as I believe it is written into MC's contract before he even takes pen to paper. I suggest waiting for the paperback, unless you are a die hard Crichton fan.
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