Prey by Michael Crichton

PREY by Michael Crichton

GENRE: Science Fiction

SYNOPSIS:

In the Nevada desert, an experiment has gone horribly wrong. A cloud of nanoparticles – micro-robots – has escaped from a 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. Every attempt to destroy it has failed.

And we are its Prey.

Chandana speaks:

Jack Forman is an unemployed software programmer who was fired from his previous job when he discovered an internal scandal. As a result he takes the role of a stay at home husband while his wife Julia serves as a high ranking employee at a nanorobotics company. Julia claims that she is working on a new piece of revolutionary imaging technology with her company, which takes up most of her time. He starts believing that during her long hours away from home she is having an affair, and becomes watchful of her changes.

One night Julia comes home late and shows Jack a video of her demoing the Xymos nanobots. In the video, the nanobots are put into a human test subject, and video from inside the body is broadcast in real time. The next day, Julia is in a car accident, and Jack is offered a job by Xymos, because the project manager, Ricky, is having software issues with the nanobots.

Jack is taken to the Xymos research facility in the desert. Jack is given a tour of the lab and meets the programming team. Ricky claims that hazardous elements such as the assemblers, the bacteria, and the nanobots were blown into the desert, which evolved and eventually formed the "swarms". These swarms start attacking and killing animals in the wild. Most alarmingly, the swarms seem to possess the ability to quickly learn and to innovate. The swarms tend to wander around the plant during the day but quickly leave when strong winds blow or night falls.

Jack goes outside to inspect a dead rabbit killed by the swarm and they find that the rabbit died of suffocation resulting from the nanobots blocking its bronchial tubes. Jack is attacked by the swarm and he barely manages to get through the airlock inside the lab before falling unconscious

The team proceeds to find and destroy these nanobots. After multiple escapes with death Jack discovers that somewhere among them is the person who let them out in the first place and someone among them is the one who has infected everyone else with the swarm. The rest of the story revolves around how they try to destroy this new strain.

Drawing on up-to-the-minute scientific fact, Prey takes us into the emerging realms of nanotechnology and artificial distributed intelligence in a story of breathtaking suspense. Prey is a novel you can't put down.

Because time is running out.

PRICE: INR 214/- (Flipkart price)

RATING: 4/5

Sphere by Michael Crichton

SPHERE By MICHAEL CRICHTON

GENRE: Science Fiction/Techno thriller

SYNOPSIS:

The novel follows Norman Johnson as a psychologist who is engaged by the united States Navy to join a team of scientists assembled by the U.S Government to examine an enormous space craft discovered at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. The depth of coral covering the craft suggests that it has been lying there for over 300 years and so could only be of alien origin.

The novel begins as a science fiction story but quickly transforms into a psychological thriller, ultimately exploring the nature of the human imagination

Chandana Speaks:

Michael Crichton is one of my favorite novelists and I have literally devoured every book of his. Right from Jurassic Park series, to Prey to Andromeda strain. I must have read every book at least twice and never got bored of it.

Sphere, has an equally captivating and chilling storyline – which was made into  a lousy movie, but we all know that right? Books are always way better than their movie counterparts.

So the story!

The spacecraft that they think is of alien origin, turns out to be an American spacecraft constructed 50 years in the future and apparently sent through time, crashing 350 years before its creation. On further exploration, the team discovers a mysterious spherical artifact, clearly of extraterrestrial origin, which quickly becomes the focus of their attention. At this point a Pacific storm traps the scientists on the ocean floor without contact or support from the Navy on the surface for over a week.

The crew soon focuses on attempting to open the sphere and learn about it. Harry eventually succeeds in going inside it. Upon returning, he has a terrible headache and he remembers little about what happened inside or how he opened it.

As they continue to theorize, they are contacted by an intelligent, seemingly friendly life form which calls itself Jerry, from within the sphere. While they struggle to communicate with it and translate its coded language, bizarre things start to happen. Sea creatures that never even existed start to appear.Jerry tells them he is "manifesting" the creatures. Members of the team start to die in various attacks by sea life and a new form of giant squid, and the dwindling survivors struggle to placate the unthinkably powerful, childlike, and temperamental Jerry.

The rest of the story revolves around how they discover who Jerry is and how they escape from the submarine to the surface.

The novel lives up to its expectations. The good thing is that it keeps you going even when you are pretty sure of what will happen next!

PRICE: INR 434/- (Flipkart price)

RATING: 4/5

Airframe - Michael Crichton

AIRFRAME

ISBN - 071-267-5639
FIRST PUBLISHED - 1996

AUTHOR - Michael Crichton

BEST-SELLERS - The Andromeda Strain, Jurassic Park, The Lost World

SYNOPSIS - The twin jet plane en route to Denver from Hong Kong is merely a green radar blip half an hour off the California coast when the call comes through to air traffic control :

'Social Approach, this is TransPacific 545. We have an emergency.' The pilot requests priority clearance to land - then comes the bombshell - he needs forty ambulances on the runway.

But nothing prepares the rescue workers for the carnage they witness when they enter the plane.

Ninety-four passengers are injured. Three dead. The interior cabin virtually destroyed.

What happened on board Flight TPA 545?

EXCERPT - She sat with the coffee cup on her lap and realised she dreaded going to the factory. But ofcourse she had to go. Casey pushed the cup away, and went to the bathroom to dress.

When she came outside and got into her Mustang, she saw a second sedan pull up behind the first. As she drove down the street, the first car pulled out, following her.

So Marder had ordered two sets of guards. One to watch her house, and one to follow her.

Things must be worse than she thought.

FL Speaks - My first Michael Crichton book. Yes, i read Jurassic Park later. But that's not the issue. The issue is i do NOT know why i waited to read him. I loved this book. Disclaimer - not something you want to read if you are on a flight *shivers*

I have taken a break from fantasy reviews since i realised most of you haven't read fantasy other than Harry Potter, Artemis Fowl (sorry, but this doesn't count at all) and Twilight. So for the next few reviews will be of books that i am re-reading for you all.

It all starts with one of the many flights of the day. As people prepare themselves for the landing, it nosedives without a warning. With 3 people dead and many others injured, the TransPacific flight is a deathtrap. The makers of the plane, the Norton Company is pretty low financial and is welcoming the sale of 50 N-22 twin jets to China that will save the company. But without finishing the investigation of the accident and providing proof that Norton widebody planes are safe, the Chinese are obviously apprehensive.

Enter Casey Singleton, Vice President of Quality Assurance (QA) at Norton. Its upto her and her team to find out what went wrong. The amount of effort Crichton has spent on getting the facts right is unbelievable. Most of the technical jargon would have gone straight out of my brain, yet Crichton somehow managed to read the minds of the reader and explain the technical know-how in the most simplest of terms. Hell, I feel i know half the language of aviation and aeronautical engineering now.

The book follows Singleton as waves and waves of bad news and trouble threaten to disrupt her investigations. The Union disputes arise. They believe the higher management is selling important parts to Chinese and that will kill the company directly. Add to that, friction in the higher management and a spy among them. Also, there is a pretty annoying reporter Jennifer Malone who gets on my nerves. As the investigation progresses, Casey realises there is more at stake that that meets the eye. Including a rumour about Koreans foraying into the midst. And Casey has exactly one week to prove the plane is safe and save her job and life from the frequently growing accidents.

Amazing writing by Crichton. Though not his best work, this is still a stellar example of his brilliance.

My Rating - 3.5 stars

PRICE - INR 299/- Arrow Publications (Paperback - 2006)