Prey - Softcover

Crichton, Michael

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0061703087 ISBN 13: 9780061703089

Publisher: Harper, 2008

Synopsis

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.

About this title

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:

"Crichton delivers."--USA Today

"This is how to write a thriller ...Crichton's latest page-turning triumph."--Detroit Free Press

"INCREDIBLY SCARY and relentless"--Minneapolis Star Tribune

"A cross between Jurassic Park and The Andromeda Strain...."--Columbus Dispatch

"CRACKLING...MYSTERIOUS...."--Entertainment Weekly

"Crichton has proved he knows how to ratchet up the fear factor."--Denver Post

"PREY WILL KEEP YOU TURNING PAGES"--Chattanooga Times

"PREY delivers that expected Crichton charge."--Seattle Post-Intelligencer

"Serious and scary..."--Washington Post Book World

"Another PAGE-TURNING TRIUMPH"--Charlotte Observer

About this edition

• Publisher: Harper
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0061703087
• ISBN 13: 9780061703089
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 528