It appears that the last Crichton book I read was Jurassic Park, back when I was riding the bus home from high school. I remember from that experience that Crichton is a quick engaging read and does a reasonably convincing job with the science.
Prey was similar. I read the entire 500 pages in one day. It was an excellent read for waiting at the train station and for taking a slower than expected train ride from Sacramento to Reno. The science is reasonable, if not believable. I enjoyed many of the characters, though Crichton kills them off pretty readily.
Despite the sci-fi of the book, Crichton addresses a modern concern: how do we control what we create. It is similar to the point made in Jurassic Park---life finds a way. More specifically, evolution works and anything with mutating genes will work its way out of our control. It reminds me of the concern over genetically engineered crops.
The writing was fast paced. There were a couple moments when the writing was wrong, or just not how a computer programmer would talk or think about a problem. It was a satisfactory book for its purpose.
6/10
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