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In the Nevada desert, an experiment has gone horribly wrong. A cloud of nanoparticles -- micro-robots -- has escaped from the laboratory. This cloud is self-sustaining and self-reproducing. It is intelligent and learns from experience. For all practical purposes, it is alive. It has been programmed as a predator. It is evolving swiftly, becoming more deadly with each passing hour. Every attempt to destroy it has failed. And we are the prey. As fresh as today's headlines, Michael Crichton's most compelling novel yet tells the story of a mechanical plague and the desperate efforts of a handful of scientists to stop it. Drawing on up-to-the-minute scientific fact, Prey takes us into the emerging realms of nanotechnology and artificial distributed intelligence -- in a story of breathtaking suspense. Prey is a novel you can't put down. Because time is running out.… (more)
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At this point, the novel moves into the Sci-fi techno-horror realm as the nanobots escape, evolve, and learn. Creighton, as was his wont, displays a terrific grasp on the state of technology, as well as current issues and challenges employing it. There are no less than 5 pages of bibliography at the end, but Creighton keeps the science accessible (likely artificially so). It's been a long time since I've blown through a 500-page book in just two days, and even longer since finding the task so effortless. The story is recent enough that technology portrayed doesn't come off as already obsolete...a frequent problem with this type of story.
What I didn't expect in this book was the extreme aggression towards the way the legal system handles fathers in divorces, and the attitudes of society towards stay-at-home dads --- did he or a friend go through a vicious divorce a few years ago? (On the other hand there was all that misogyny in Disclosure, so perhaps it's not that unexpected.)
As always we get the pop science explanations throughout the book of evolution and of various programming models inspired by natures (for example genetic algorithms). All in all these were not too bad (and a whole lot more relevant than the inane tangents on chaos theory in Jurassic Park), but the whole package falls apart badly on the science side by the time we get past the middle of the book. There is no distinction made between evolution and learning, there is no attention paid to the *selection* and even more so the *reproduction* aspects of evolution, and the pace of everything biological was taken to be far far too fast.
My natural inclination would be to avoid State of Fear because of the subject matter, but having listened to this, I think I can also safely avoid it on the grounds of it probably being crap.
My second book by the author, the first being the very mediocre Pirates Latitude. However I have always found his subject matters interesting so decided to try another of his novels.
I am very glad that I did. Prey focuses on the concept of evolution of manmade
The main concept of the novel is that a swarm of Nanobots have been released from a research facility deep in the Nevada desert. Not wanting to inform the authorities for fear of the company having funding stopped and the widespread panic, they enlist the help of former employee, computer programmer Jack Forman. However, when he arrives at the plant, things are far from as they seem. Accompanying this are numerous subplots that break up any monotony the reader may feel (although I doubt they will). The ending was slightly weaker than I would have liked and the more eagle eyed reader would have seen it coming with around 100 pages or so to go.
The main aspect of the book that impressed me was the mountains of research that Crichton must have waded through. Parts of the novel felt as if they could have been written as a textbook with more than enough for a reader new to the subject to gain a grasp of the mechanics and thinking behind nanotechnology.
I would recommend this to anyone familiar to Crichton or as an introduction. In my opinion it is probably lesser known due to the fact it has to stand against his other mammoth works such as Jurassic Park.
Pros & Cons: The book is suspenseful, intelligent, and engaging. It seems to follow the typical Crichton formula: A big corporation does something that can be harmful to the population, an unsuspecting character has the knowledge to solve the problem and save the day while exposing the corporation, the scenarios seem like they can actually happen. Crichton is an excellent story teller, and although I enjoyed this book, I liked it less than some of his other books. The ending felt rushed and did not seem to fit with the flow of the rest of the story. Recommended for Crichton fans and those who enjoy thrillers
However, I ended up thoroughly enjoying this book. Even though it was about nanotechnology, it was all explained in a way that turned it into English and you could at least almost understand what the characters were doing. But probably what got me into the book the most was that the whole first half of the book, the protagonist is a stay-at-home Dad and I just love the way he interacts with his kids, how he takes over the household chores, etc. etc. You really like this guy a lot, especially by how intuitive over his baby daughter he is, and because he knows what her cries and gestures mean. It's just an endearing quality, his relationship with his kids and his responsibility for them.
So then he ends up saving the planet, cool!
Not a bad book at all. I'd give it a 7.5 on a scale of 10. A very enjoyable read!
As fresh as today's headlines, Michael Crichton's most compelling novel yet tells the story of a mechanical plague and the desperate efforts of a handful of scientists to stop it. Drawing on up-to-the-minute scientific fact, 'Prey' takes us into the emerging realms of nanotechnology and artificial distributed intelligence -- in a story of breathtaking suspense. 'Prey' is a novel you can't put down. Because time is running out.
Maybe it's the literalist in me coming out, but I think he confuses the processes of evolution with the action of intelligent agents. The agents had a capacity for learning quickly which he attributed to evolution. These are related but still quite distinct processes, and his explanation didn't convince me.
His characters are quite weak: I felt no empathy with any of them. It's a bit like a nanotech Jurassic Park, where humans are introduced mainly to waffle about science, scream a lot and be eaten on a regular basis.
Unfortunately, at about the same time, things started going down hill fast. Old-style Crichton stories are some of my favorite books: The Terminal Man, Eaters of the Dead, A Case of
Terminal Man was an entire book of character development with only a thin veil of science as a stage. Prey, on the other hand, presents only the most rudimentary of character development, and those pages are merely to move the story along so that we can get to the “exciting” stuff. There is very little tension in the story between the main character and his wife, even though he suspects she is having an affair. Granted, Crichton wants there to be tension…but it just isn’t happening.
And don't get me started on some of the technology bits that are just plain laughable.
In the end, you know what is going to happen and, well, it goes ahead and happens. Not exactly a page-turner, but a fairly mindlessly enjoyable read for those weekend days that you don’t want to do a lot of thinking.
And, Michael Crichton, if you are out there: Please forget the movie deals for one or two books and show us all why we liked you so much before you went “Jurassic II” on us.