Prey BOOK REVIEW

Enjoy this book review of Prey by Michael Crichton!

[burkhardschmorell]

The thing to understand about Michael Crichton is that he was well-studied on psychological research that shows that we all don't really have very much insight into why we do the things we do, and that guided his whole theory of characterization. People criticized him for that, and in _Prey_ he has this whole monologue where Jack hints out Crichton's rebuttal. I don't know if you recall it, but it's the part where he's reflecting on his sister Ellen's profession as a psychologist--how we never seem to be able to apply any of our thoughts about ourselves to bring about genuine change; change always seems to come from outside us. Jack starts to ponder why that might be, but he never finishes an answer. The answer is in a very early Crichton book, _The Terminal Man_ . There, he explains how Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem implies that our brains can never really have a comprehensive knowledge of ourselves.

And that's something I like a lot about Crichton. He doesn't get lost in a soap opera of backstories and character relationships. His entire model is to set you up with what motivates the characters to move through the plot, which itself is a vehicle for his discussions of science, history, or current social issues.

_Prey_ simultaneously has the most important scientific discussion of any of his books and the most flawed scientific scenario. I am not a nanotech expert; just a psycholinguist with a heavy interest in evolutionary psychology and experience in programming. Crichton never makes it clear in this book that the nanomachines would have to be operating on molecular analogs to Jack's code. He never explains how the E. coli have to be evolving too as part of the swarms. He never explains how the virus phage destroying the E. coli would affect the nanomachines themselves. But in spite of all that, _Prey_ talks about complexity theory, which has massive implications for the A.I.s we've been seeing come out the past few years. Crichton's concluding chapter makes as if nanomachines present a unique threat, but when you think about the implications of self-replicating code that could use the Internet to endanger us... Imagine _WarGames_ meets _Terminator_ meets this book. Yes, we put safeguards in to prevent such scenarios, but how can we ever know those safeguards are enough?

[davidsirois]

Just got it today, never red anything from MC, happy to see a positive review, can't wait to start it in the next 5 years.

[ascensionbias]

Prey was my first MC book, thoroughly enjoyed it, next, Im going to read Sphere

[brandongregory]

I really enjoyed the story. However, I did realize about halfway through, they could beat a dust cloud of nanotechnology with a hazard suit and a garden hose. Similar to when someone sprays water on the driveway to keep the dust down.

[ascensionbias]

Why was Julia even keeping Jack alive?

Was Mae ever in contact with the Virus after her exposure to Julia, i mean, she did kiss her.

And...

What was the "good news" Mae had for Jack? I think maybe the Swarm got out with her...