Crichton, Michael. Prey. New York: HarperCollins, 2003.

1.  When the dull thrumming from the nanoparticles was heard by the workers in the desert, someone usually was about to get hurt.
2. The loading area for truck deliveries at the Xymos Molecular Manufacturing Facility had corrugated doors that folded upwards for easy loading.
3. When the team went outside, they were all in a vigilant state so the nanoparticles did not engulf and suffocate them.
4. Jack and the team of engineers prayed that there were deficits in the nanoparticle’s programming that worked in their favor.
5. There was so much going on at the Xymos facility, that there was not time for the crew to have any retrospection of the traumatic days events.
6. The voice of Ricky coming through the broken earpiece was annoying and tinny.
7. The giant machine used to generate the nanoparticles is photovoltaic because it uses solar energy.
8. Jack stops the emergent end of the world by destroying all of the nanoparticles.
9. Jack and Mae employed MolotovCocktails to hinder the oncoming swarm of nanoparticles.
10. The nanoparticles escaped into the desert through an aperture in one of the facility’s vents
11. Jack glowered at Julie when he saw her after he expected he was being cheated on.
12. Towards the end of the novel, Julie lied to Jack saying that all of the phones were broken and that they were stuck incommunicado.
13. Michael Crichton was born in Chicago, Illinois on October 23, 1942 and was raised in Roslyn, New York. He obtained his M.D. from Harvard Medical School in 1969. He had always been interested in computers and utilized pioneering special effects using computer graphics. His use of never before used computer graphics won him a Technical achievement Academy Award in 1995. He has been such a big name in science, a newly discovered dinosaur was named after him in 1992, Crichtonsaurus bohlini.
14. Imagine being the pursuit of an esoteric being that was getting stronger and more dangerous by the second. Michael Crichton brings this horrifying thought to life in his thriller Prey. The book has a preeminent plot and a thunderous tone. The plot is innovating and blood-curdling and the tone leaves you agog to see the next page from page one all the way to the end.

Prey is a marvelous book that one will need to put aside a several hours to read because it is very hard to put it down. Crichton starts off in a benign, plain setting, and despite it being plain, he still pulls one in with his literary lariat. He makes all of the good characters lovable and the villainous characters easily hatable . Jack, a forty something house husband, does not have a job, and practically lives alone with his three children while his wife, Julia, is the busy president of a medical engineering company. Jack is put in harms way not just once, but five times, which you never see done to such an innocent character. Crichton makes one feel like they are at the Xymos plant in the Nevada desert right next to Jack. The shocking end will bring an open look to one’s face and will leave you pondering it for days.

The first line, “Things never turn out the way you think you will”(p. 5), is constant throughout the plot, but also adds to the tone. Prey can induce shivers and sweat from even the most stony reader. The horrors mentioned in the book last for the perfect amount of time, not leaving one deprived of chills or one bored by dragging adjectives. When predicting that one outcome will take place, one is immediately proven wrong. The book is spontaneous and will leave you ravenous until the end.

I am happy that I read Prey this summer. It was better than any movie I have ever seen and it is possibly one of the best books I have ever read. The scariest horror movie I have seen was not even half as bone chilling at Prey was. Prey is more than a book, its an experience that I will never forget.