Prey (novel)
First edition cover
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| Author | Michael Crichton |
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| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Science fiction, Techno-thriller, horror |
| Publisher | HarperCollins |
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Publication date
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November 25, 2002 |
| Media type | Print (hardcover) |
| Pages | 502 pp. |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 50433577 |
| Preceded by | Timeline |
| Followed by | State of Fear |
Prey is a novel by Michael Crichton, first published in November 2002. An excerpt was published in the January–February 2003 issue of Seed. Like Jurassic Park, the novel serves as a cautionary tale about developments in science and technology; in this case, nanotechnology, genetic engineering and artificial intelligence.
The book features relatively new advances in the computing/scientific community, such as artificial life, emergence (and by extension, complexity), genetic algorithms, and agent-based computing. Fields such as population dynamics and host-parasite coevolution are also at the heart of the novel.
While the novel has yet to be adapted into a movie, film rights to the novel were purchased by 20th Century Fox.
The novel is narrated by the protagonist Jack Forman, who is an unemployed software programmer who used to work for a company called Media Tronics but was fired for discovering an internal scandal. As a result, he is forced to take the role of a house husband while his wife Julia serves as a high ranking employee at a nanorobotics company called Xymos. Julia claims that she is working on a new piece of revolutionary imaging technology with her company, which takes up most of her time and makes her grow distant to Jack and her family. 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; Jack is impressed, but becomes more suspicious of her straying when he notices the video was not made on the same day as she said it was. Later in the night, their baby girl Amanda awakens in agony as her body turns red from an unknown cause. Jack takes her to the emergency room but the doctors cannot identify the cause of her pain. She is given an MRI for more examination, then suddenly her pain stops and the skin changes disappear. Bewildered and exhausted he returns home to a strangely indifferent Julia who leaves in a hurry, claiming to go on urgent business trip.
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