When I first picked up a copy of Prey by Michael Crichton I was in the airport with Jenny heading to Derek's hometown due to his rapid decline in health.  I tend to read when I fly and, in this particular case, needed a wee bit of literary stimulation to keep my mind off of the reason we were traveling.

I read the synopsis of Prey and was immediately intrigued.  Nanotechnology is a budding scientific pursuit that even today is becoming a reality.  Crichton often provides a very real scientific background for his fictional works (this is part of what lends credence to his writing — there is real science mixed in with the fiction).  Knowing that even if the book was bad I would learn something, I purchased a copy and read it.

Despite the locomotive start to the story (the first 50 pages or so really grabbed my attention), I slowly became disappointed in it and, by the end, found that it was far less enjoyable than I expected from the author of Jurassic Park and The Andromeda Strain.

The scientific aspects of the story are phenomenally high-scaled, so don't pick this one up if you want a light read.  Crichton adeptly integrates very new and real science into the story about nanotechnology going astray.  His description of the nano-manufacturing apparatus is quite interesting.  The explanation of nano-evolution is even more intriguing as it poses questions I believe we should be asking about this technology.  As I had hoped, Crichton even provides a bibliography of reference material that he used to develop the scientific aspects of the story (which gave me lots of really nerdy follow-up material to digest).

I found it terribly sad, though, that he allowed the plot of the story to devolve so quickly.  The characters suddenly became frightened flocking targets with little realism in their interactions.  Too many questions are left unanswered at the end of the book, leaving the reader wondering if they only purchased part of the story.  The last-minute attempt to wrap up the loose ends with what amounts to a two-page excuse seems to be a last-ditch effort to pardon the story itself — a rushed closure seemingly spun from Crichton's lost interest in the material.

Another aspect of my disappointment came from the eerie similarity between Prey and the nanotechnology-related material in Decipher by Stel Pavlou.  Decipher, released some two years prior to Prey, includes a story arch regarding nanoparticles that can mimic humans, eat flesh and which ultimately become a formidable foe.  That the entire premise of Prey.  I realize that Decipher is a far more complex story and that the nanotechnology aspects are only one of its many parts, but Prey seems terribly similar.

The misuse of nanotechnology is a frightening prospect, one which Crichton failed to fully realize in this story.  It wasn't disturbing enough.  The realism got lost in his zeal to tell a story — any story.  Suspension of disbelief became impossible as the nanobots began to demonstrate abilities that were laughably unbelievable, including perfect human emulation that even a spouse could not recognize during intimate encounters.

Crichton's minimalist approach to what should have been a fantastically disturbing story is disappointing at best.  I expected a synthetic version of The Andromeda Strain to unfold.

The book is worth reading just for the science, but don't expect much more than that (you can get the full science by skipping the story and going directly to the bibliography).