Book review of Prey by Michael Crichton
Prey by Michael Crichton was first published in the United States in 2002. After reading the summary I was intrigued and put in a reservation for it on the Libby app. Yesterday it finally became available, to say I was excited is an understatement. Perhaps this is where the problem laid, maybe my expectations were too high, leaving the book to fall short and making me feel as if I had been cheated out of the story it promised.
Ā āIn 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.ā
I love dystopian books, and any story set at the end of the world, or at the beginning of the end, and Iām rarely able to put these kinds of books down before I finished it and this one was no exception.
The characters have a somewhat depth to them, especially the relationship between the protagonist, Jack and his wife Julia. The way they interact and fight has a very real touch to it. You get the feeling that the author used personal experience when describing body language and writing the dialog between the two.
The descriptions of the characters have an excellent balance between describing details and leaving enough out that you can create your own picture of them. Despite that I couldnāt help but feel the characters themselves was missing something to give them real depth.
Ā For the most part I enjoyed this book, though I felt that a lot of the time. Instead of using dialog to explain technical terms or for Jack, and us, to find out about the nanoparticles by reading or overhearing other characters talking, the author simply had Jack stop and tell the reader about it.
Itās clunky and takes you out of the story, and more than once you wonder how he could possibly know about it, even with his experience as a data programming biologist.
About half way through this audiobook, for some reason, music started playing between some chapters, not all chapters, just a few towards the end. Not only was the sound loader than the readerās voice, making me jump and wishing I wasnāt wearing headphones, there was no need for this.
Ā I listened to this book in one sitting and stayed up late to finish it as I wanted to know how it ended, which is always a great sign for a book.
All in all, itās an alright book that is easy to listen to and you donāt want to turn off once youāve started it. But on the other hand, I was left feeling disappointed that I had been robbed of any tension by having the ending revealed in the first chapter.
The first third of the book is very good and I liked the characters. After that, it goes downhill with much clunky explaining, lose ends being tied together far too easily, timing problems, plot holes, an ending that leaves you feeling cheated and with more questions than you started.
Ā Iām glad I listened to it, and if someone was looking for an easy book to have on in the background I would recommend this one. But if youāre after a book that has a battle between humans and other lifeforms and the possible destruction of humankind; this book will only leave you feel disappointed.
