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The back story: my mother accidentally packed her copy of this book in with my possessions during one of her many "my daughter is at college, I'll put her things in the basement" routines. I subsequently shuttled it around, happy to ignore it and put it on the bottom shelf of each bookshelf it has seen since. In a recent "I'll sell everything I don't need" movement of mine, I put this up for sale on Amazon as a collectible (mine's a first edition). Unfortunately, the price structure on that site means I am forced to ask for too much money for this book and will likely never sell it, especially with the glut of used copies on the market. This got me to wondering if the book was any good. It is. The book is told in the first person limited, which is refreshing in a world of omniscient or partially omniscient narrators. The main character and narrator in Prey, Jack Forman, is a house-husband who was wrongly fired from his last job as a programmer for trying to expose corruption in his company. His presence at home and his new role as primary caretaker of the three Forman children has put a strain on Jack's relationship with his wife Julia. He begins to suspect that she is cheating, and the first quarter of the book is mainly concerned with this and other domestic issues. When Jack is called out to help solve a programming problem at Julia's company, however, things take a wild turn and the action picks up. The entire plot unfolds as though the reader is seeing a puzzle put together one piece at a time. You're aware that you are going to be able to see the picture, and you are constantly given clues as to what you're seeing, but ultimately it takes a lot of puzzle pieces before everything falls into place. The main element of the plot is the sci-fi concept of intelligent swarms of nanorobots that use a predator/prey program originally written by Jack and his old team. My main criticism of the book is that every 5 or 10 pages, Jack reminds the reader about the qualities of this program and how it may or may not be influencing the swarm. It's as though Crichton were alloted 50 references to the computer program and decided, what the hell, he'll use them all. Ultimately though, this novel is a sci-fi cautionary tale on the level of Jurassic Park, with a focus on real science developing into a fictional (but not too unrealistic) problem. The resolution of this novel is much, much less satisfying than Jurassic Park (and The Lost World, for that matter) but it's definitely worth a read. The characters are believable and the style is engaging and engrossing. I recommend a read, and possibly a buy.Read full review
I purchased this book because my boyfriend really likes the author, so Michael Crichton comes highly recommended in that vein. I wanted to get a feel for the writing without having to resort to sneaking his books out from under him. =P I'm very impressed with the writing and how the author goes about unfolding a story. This book in particular is extremely compelling. I recommend it to anyone that wants to read something different. I hope to find the other books he's written just as good, if not better.
I bought the book because on a blog on Telegram, a woman stated, "It could save your life". I don't know about that at all. I don't have handy access to a MRI machine and I don't do physicians/hospitals. But the book, despite the blasphemy against the Lord in verbiage and the unnecessary swearing, which was unnerving, it was compelling, hard to put down, I read it in a day. It gave me chills twice, worth the read.
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
Prey is an engaging book with all of Crichton's trademarks in play: exhaustively researched science, elements of science gone "bad," good people having to figure out what's going on and how to fix it. It utterly absorbed me to the end, but I felt the ending was rather weak and detracted from the book overall (denoumont? What denoumont?). It's as if he just hit the end of what he had to stay and pop! the book stops. All in all, an entertaining read about nanotechnology (not quite what I expected given the title!), with a disappointing ending. Worth reading, but I'd recommend picking it up from the library rather than making it a permanent member of your collection.
This book has everything you would want in a "thriller" book. It's not called a "thriller" book for no reason. The plot was well planned out, and at the end has a great twist (kind of a twist). These people have to save themselves from evolving nonobots that keep mutliplying, but once their collegues get "infected" they have no one else to turn to but themselves. Time is of the essence, and you wont believe how it ends (a little sad, but nothing short of AMAZING!).
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