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Prey: A Novel
by Michael Crichton
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- Hardcover:
; Dimensions (in inches): 1.24 x 9.22 x 6.60
- Publisher: HarperCollins;
ISBN: 0066214122; 1st edition (November 25, 2002
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In Prey, bestselling
author Michael Crichton introduces bad guys that are too small to be seen
with the naked eye but 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 specialize in programming
computers to solve problems by mimicking the behavior 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 his wife'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 center, 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 realizes early, however,
that Jack, his wife, and 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, though not without its 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
Jack created at his previous job 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
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