Product Description

From the bestselling author of 'Jurassic Park', a terrifying page-turner in classic Michael Crichton tradition, masterfully combining the elements of a heart-pounding thriller with cutting-edge technology. In California, odd things are happening to unemployed scientist Jack Forman. His children tell Jack that strange men have visited the house. And Julia, his wife, isn't helping -- she acts, even looks, somehow different. Deep in the Nevada desert, in the laboratory where Julia works, things are out of control. A swarm of rogue microbots, designed to reproduce and learn, is developing with a frightening speed that has the scientists battling to contain it. Only when Jack is called in to help does he discover the shocking truth -- the microbots have been programmed to behave as predators. And Man is the prey!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #20946 in Books
• Published on: 2006-12-04
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 544 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
In Prey, bestselling author Michael Crichton introduces bad guys that are too small to be seen with the naked eye but who are no less deadly or intriguing than the runaway dinosaurs that made 1990's Jurassic Park such a blockbuster success. High-tech whistle-blower Jack Forman used to specialise in programming computers to solve problems by mimicking the behaviour of efficient wild animals--swarming bees or hunting hyena packs, for example. Now he's unemployed and is finally starting to enjoy his new role as stay-at-home dad. All would be domestic bliss if it were not for Jack's suspicions that his wife, who's been behaving strangely and working long hours at the top-secret research labs of Xymos Technology, is having an affair.

When he's called in to help with her hush-hush project, it seems like the perfect opportunity to see what she's been doing, but Jack quickly finds there's a lot more going on in the lab than an illicit affair. Within hours of his arrival at the remote testing centre, Jack discovers his wife's firm has created self-replicating nanotechnology--a literal swarm of microscopic machines. Originally meant to serve as a military eye in the sky, the swarm has now escaped into the environment and is seemingly intent on killing the scientists trapped in the facility. The reader realises early, however, that Jack, his wife and their fellow scientists have more to fear from the hidden dangers within the lab than from the predators without.

The monsters may be smaller in this book, but Crichton's skill for suspense has grown, making Prey a scary read that's hard to set aside. It's not without minor flaws: the science in this novel requires more explanation than did the cloning of dinosaurs, leading to lengthy and sometimes dry academic lessons. And while the coincidence of Xymos's new technology running on the same program that Jack created keeps the plot moving, it may be more than some readers can swallow. But thanks in part to a sobering foreword in which Crichton warns of the real dangers of technology that continues to evolve more quickly than common sense, Prey succeeds in gripping readers with a tense and frightening tale of scientific suspense. --Benjamin Reese

Review
'One of the most ingenious, inventive thriller writers around ! 'Prey' sees him doing what he does best -- taking the very latest scientific advances and showing us their potentially terrifying underbelly. Another high-concept treat ! written in consummate page-turning style ! fascinating.' Observer 'This is Crichton on top form, preying on our fears about new technology and convincing us that we aren't half as afraid as we should be.' The Times 'Mixing cutting-edge science with thrills and spills, this is classic Crichton.' Daily Mirror 'Reading Crichton is like taking a speed-reading course, your eyes flying across the page because you're completely gripped and desperate to know what's going to happen next.' Time Out 'Having written about dinosaurs in "Jurassic Park", Crichton has gone to the other extreme by casting micro-robots as his latest villains!the race to combat the deadly swarm, which reminded me strongly of his first novel "The Andromeda Strain", is as gripping as anything he's ever done' Mail on Sunday 'Riveting, masterly entertainment' Evening Standard 'Very good' Daily Telegraph

Publishers Weekly
At the top of his game, dealing with a host of important themes, in his most gripping (novel) since Jurassic Park

Customer Reviews

'THE RETURN OF THE MAGNIFICENT CRICHTON'
..'Prey' was completely outstanding. It is
carved in Crichton's trademark style of taking an emerging technology and
showing how it can run amuck in the wild. This time around he takes three
emerging technologies - genetics, distributed intelligence and nanotechnology
and brews up a terrifying tale of science gone well awry. One criticism often
levelled at Crichton's door has always been with regard to his characterisation
playing second fiddle to his plot. With 'Prey' the plot is so inventive and
'out-there' that no character could compete. Having said that, I must add that
this first-person narrative has very interesting protagonists, with probably
his most well painted landscape yet.

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.

Good but not his best
The story line is simple enough. As it says on the cover, Jack is called in to help with a problem at a company his wife works at. The problem is that the company has a runaway swarm of nano-robots with lethal intentions.

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.

Michael Crichton does it again
Michael Crichton techno thrillers are like James Bond movies: they have a standard formula.

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.