Yesterday I read ’’Prey’’ by Michael Crichton. The book had been on the shelf for about a year, but now I finally took it up. I took it up and didn’t put it away before I was through. It is a real page turner.
Scientifically the book is nonsense. Of course there is such a thing as nanotechnology, there is computing and genetics, but still Crichton’s ideas are far from real. But then that doesn’t matter one bit. When you read a novel, you know it’s a novel and not a scientific article.
The first person narrator is a clever programmer who lost his job because he discovered disloyality with one of his superiors. His wife is working at a firm that does nano research. And then the story starts. While he adopts more and more to the role of a househusband, doing household chores and looking after the three children, his wife changes. She is thinner, more energetic, works long hours, wears tighter skirts, takes showers the moment she comes home - if she comes... Does she have an affair?
Actually I felt like watching a movie instead of reading a book. In his typical Crichton style the author pictures everything vividly, so you see rather than read it.
In the end you almost wish that she had had an affair instead of... Read for yourself!
Of course this is another book of the ’’Do not temper with creation’’ type, which I think is a direct outcome of the Christian-Jewish paradise trauma, which Adam and Eve were thrown out from when they tried to understand, such as Mary Shelley’s ’’Frankenstein’’ or Michael Crichton’s own ’’Jurassic Park’’. Actually I don’t really like the message, still I liked the book a lot.