This book is quite a mystery to me: I do not understand how it got such high ratings. I love sci-fi, and the premise looked exactly like something I would love, but the writing was just too bad, I really had to force myself to finish it because I'm apparently incapable of dropping a book before the end. I only gave it two stars because of the premise. I am not a writer, but I have heard many time the "show, don't tell" moto, and never really paid much attention to it until I read this book. Everything is spelt out, and everything falls flat. Every other chapter is written from the perspective of one of the two main characters, and their constant reminding us of how amazing and awesome the other person is unbearable (please tell us that once more that Harry is a genius..., his only flaw: he …
This book is quite a mystery to me: I do not understand how it got such high ratings. I love sci-fi, and the premise looked exactly like something I would love, but the writing was just too bad, I really had to force myself to finish it because I'm apparently incapable of dropping a book before the end. I only gave it two stars because of the premise. I am not a writer, but I have heard many time the "show, don't tell" moto, and never really paid much attention to it until I read this book. Everything is spelt out, and everything falls flat. Every other chapter is written from the perspective of one of the two main characters, and their constant reminding us of how amazing and awesome the other person is unbearable (please tell us that once more that Harry is a genius..., his only flaw: he cares too much). And to make things worse at no point did I care about any of the characters in the book. It could have ended half way through with "And then the sun went unexpectedly nova and everything and everyone in the solar system was wiped out clean. The End." and it would have been a relief.
I understand that complaining about nonsensical things in a sci-fi book just, well, doesn't make sense, but there was just too much in this book, especially in a context the story is supposed to take place that I couldn't keep the suspension of disbelief. Spoilers ahead:
Harry went to jail for presumably transferring his dying dad's consciousness to some sort of robotic brain, but what happened to the dad's mind afterward? Of course Harry is then taken out of jail at the last minute during a riot when he almost died, makes you wonder why they didn't extract him from there more than just a couple of days before launching the first space mission if he was such a critical part of it. But what really boggles the mind is that Harry was skilled enough to build a robot (and matching AI) that is convincing enough that people like Emma had no idea he wasn't human even after living with them for weeks or months at a time, and that doesn't even seem like a big deal. Sure, it's hinted that in the next book they'll end up building a bunch of Oscars to fight the bad guys, but you would think that either the government would have been interested much earlier about these amazing human-like robots. And don't get me started about alien computer viruses... Anyway, this is turning into a rant more than a review, but it's been a long time since I was so annoyed and disappointed reading a book.
In the Nevada desert, an experiment has gone horribly wrong. A cloud of nanoparticles -- …
Review of 'Prey' on 'Goodreads'
2 stars
As usual with Crichton books the action is fast paced and entertaining, however I really struggled with the tech premise in this one. I already raised an eyebrow at the pointless examples of "code" included in the book which don't bring anything to the story, but half way trough I really struggled to keep the suspension of disbelief. The writing was still enjoyable enough I guess, but by the end I just wanted to be done with it.
