Disappointing to Crichton fans. Review on Prey - Michael Crichton

Confirmed Michael Crichton fan that I am, I went out and bought Prey as soon as it hit the shelves. The next few days were a blur of a few minutes snatched here and there from an insanely hectic schedule. Finally, I managed to finish Prey. Strangely enough, I was left with a feeling of happy emptiness - happy at having finished the latest Crichton, emptiness at having been let down yet another time.

It all began with Timeline. Till then, Crichton was the Master, the Infallible Guru of all (well, almost all) things written. His word was sacred and his works, a Canon to be revered. At least, that is what I as a fan felt. Timeline seemed to have it all - abstruse scientific concepts explained in simple layman terms, the impossible being touted as merely a few breakthroughs away, a less-than-scruplous company trying to make a lot of money by shortsightedly using such technologies, and finally, a doomsday scenario that is brought to an end by the timely (bad pun, couldn't help it!) actions of the protagonist. Typical Crichton one would say. But wait - it was too gung-ho, had too sugary an ending, too fairy-taleish, too lived-happily-ever-afterish. It was merely a science fiction time travel tale told with a new explanation. In clichespeak, old wine in a new bottle.

Enter Prey. The few reviews were good. The blurbs were promising and the excerpt I read was typical Crichton, albeit with a touch of what seemed to be faintly Dick Francis about it. The book itself is well-conceived, well-thought out and wonderfully written. As you read the book, you are taken by Jack Forman - out-of-work househusband, expert in distributed computing, protagonist of Prey - through the world of nanoparticles and wildlife behaviour, predator-prey relationships, molecular manufacturing and a few worlds in between. The narration is crisp and the storyline zips along at a fair pace, till the heart-thumping finale and a relatively quiet end. You do not get a sense of the whole thing till you've finished it, put the book down and thought about it. It is then that you realise with a start - Prey is nothing but a good old-fashioned ''oh-my-god-we've-created-a-monster'' story.

With Timeline and Prey, Crichton seems to have firmly entrenched himself in the ''popular science fiction'' category. There is no denying the genius in the storytelling, the wonderful way in which fact and fancy are woven together to leave you wondering. But you do miss the Crichton touch that made Jurassic Park or The Andromeda Strain more than science fiction.