Prey (Paperback)

The story starts off in a most straight-forward manner, where software guru
Jack is living the life of a house-husband after being fired from a shady
Silicon Valley firm. He suspects that his wife Julia (a high-powered computer
executive) is having an affair. She is spending more and more time at her
firm's (Xymos Corporation) experimental fabrication plant in the barren desert
of Nevada. Xymos are having a few problems with its prototype nano-device and
so Jack is hired to investigate.

The narrative is loaded with technical details on the three technologies, among
others and this makes for a very enjoyable and plausible read, if you like
techno-thrillers. Crichton then pits man against the swarm of nano-particles in
a time-constrained thriller, which caused me two conflicts. Firstly, I wanted
to zip through the pages like a madman to reach the conclusion, but at the same
time I wanted to read slowly to absorb the concepts that 'Prey' outlined. The
novel reminded me of three books I had read as an adolescent. It shares a great
deal with Crichton's own 'The Andromeda Strain' in term of plot and Jack
Finney's 'Invasion of the body snatchers' in terms of its paranoia. It also
reminded me subliminally of Frank Herbert's little known masterpiece 'The green
brain' with its understanding of 'hive-minds' and distributed intelligence.

It is however, totally it's own book, and for me, I'll never look at a Nikon
Catalogue in the same way again. Highly recommended and big on ideas as well as
one of the fastest evolving plots I have ever read. It has a high scare factor.
The scenes in the desert are worth the cover price alone.

Worth $30 m ? - Judge for yourself as everyone's going to be talking about this
book over Xmas.

In many ways it's remeniscent of his other books ("The Andromeda Strain" and "Jurassic Park" come to mind) and, I feel, is poorer in comparison. The main reason being the fact that's it's written in the first person. This limits the number of subplots so it loses the richness of the other books. After all (with the exception of one scene) you only know what's happening to the hero of the book. As most people seem to agree, the characterisation is poorer in this one.

That aside it is a good read. The pace, once we get to the lab, is fast and the explanations of the technology comprehensive. There are one or two plot twists.

When you read the disclaimer at the end (which is not the standard disclaimer) you realise what drove Crichton to write this. He fears that it might really happen. He has a bibliography in case the reader wants to find out more about current research in the field.

To summarise:

It's an exciting, fast-paced novel which is based on research. On the other hand, the concern that Crichton has has made this book slightly more "plot heavy" and "character light". If you're looking for a light read then it's worth a try, if you like the characterisation that Crichton normally manages then you're in for a disappointment.

In "Prey", the science gone mad is nanotechnology, something which is mentioned in William Gibson's later novels and featured in the "Jason X" movie.

The hero is a WASP in midlife crisis: fired from his hi-tech job, house bound with high flying wife who works on cutting edge technology, and struggling to keep the kids at home happy.

Something goes wrong in the Nevada desert where his wife is working on a project. Something goes very wrong. Our hero must investigate and fight science with science.

"Prey" works very well being told in first person perspective which makes it different from "Jurassic Park" on that basis alone.

What you get is a very well written novel, with good clear explanations of nanotechnology and (forced) extrapolation of what is possible. I say forced because it is just believable - just, but not completely ludicrous. There are also elements of "ET", 1970's killer bee disaster movie, and a bit of "Disclosure"(the hero's power mad wife could be Mederith reincarnate) put in for good measure.

A good read. Very entertaining. If you want another "Jurassic Park" style thrill, read this novel.