 Prey (2002)
Another satisfyingly empty thriller from Crichton, who seems to specialize in stories about technology run amok.
I'm a total sucker when it comes to Crichton, he ropes me in like the guy on the subway who promised to mail me a fat cashier's check in exchange for one truly disgusting sex act.
Unlike my sad post-college hustling, with Crichton, the day-after shame is a hell of a lot milder, and sometimes nonexistent. And so I reluctantly admit I enjoyed Prey, found it to be one of Crichton's better books of late.
In this case, the rampant technology is nanobotic, meaning tiny robots made out of just a few molecules each – pretty much only visible to an electron microscope or me Pappy's glass eye.
Billions of these pint-sized "Johnny-Fives" make up a swarm connected as one rapidly-evolving intelligence. In Prey, the swarm gets loose, breaks from human control, and commits … murder.
The scientific details are truly fascinating, moving from nanotechnology to the dynamics of insect swarms to radical evolutionary theory. The characters, by contrast, are truly boring, existing only for exposition and as pawns in Crichton's robotic chess game.
The major difference herein is that the book is narrated first-person, which means the action is confined to one computer programmer's perspective. It makes for a lively and suspenseful read, even if the narrator is not very interesting.
There's several magnificent death scenes, and a surprisingly bleak and foreboding outcome, all intended to spark thought about the direction of real-world nanotech. Crichton even provides a cautionary introduction, detailing the history and probably future of nanotechnology, then illustrates it with his fictional storyline.
It's pretty scary stuff, considering how little anyone knows about nanotech, even the scientists developing it. What with nukes and bio-weapons and genetically modified foods and global warming and now nanotech, the decimation of humanity is pretty much a foregone conclusion.
The only rational response is a trip to 7-11 post-haste, to fulfill my every dark craving.
Thanks, Mike. If I survive the nano-swarms, my AA sponsor's gonna kill me.
Review by Crimedog |