Τελειώνοντας με τον Σολωμό και πριν αρχίσω με τον Σούτσο, αποφάσισα να βάλω εμβόλιμο το συγκεκριμένο βιβλίο του Κράιτον.

Ο Κράιτον που διάβασα για τον μήνα Απρίλιο, και το πρώτο του βιβλίο που γράφτηκε τον 21ο αιώνα. Θα γράψει άλλα 5.
Δύο θα εκδώσει ενώ είναι εν ζωή (Το κράτος του φόβου, Μετά) και 3 μετά θάνατον (Στις θάλασσες των πειρατών, Μικρόκοσμος Dragon Teeth).

Το Prey ή Θήραμα όπως είναι ο ελληνικός του τίτλος, για μένα ξεκίνησε ως θρίλερ επιστημονικής φαντασίας και κατέληξε να είναι τρόμος. Υπήρχε μια έντονη αίσθηση παράνοιας που μου θύμισε πολύ Το Μωρό της Ρόζμαρι. 

Το θέμα του παρόντος μυθιστορήματος είναι οι επιπτώσεις που (θα) έχει ο άνθρωπος όταν τεχνητοί μικροοργανισμοί που αυτοαναπαράγονται, βγουν εκτός ελέγχου και θήραμά τους ο άνθρωπος.

Ο χειρότερος εφιάλτης ενός αρνητή εμβολίου. .
Με ενδοφλέβια ένεση εκατομμύρια νανορομπότ (μικρότερα από μικροτσίπ) μπορούν να μπουν στο αίμα και ακολούθως σε όλο σου το σώμα. Και πλέον είσαι κάτι περισσότερο από μαριονέτα.

Ο κλασικός Κράιτον με άλλα λόγια.
Παίρνει ένα ενδιαφέρον επιστημονικό θέμα (νανοτεχνολογία) και το μετατρέπει σε κάτι τρομακτικό.

Είναι του είδους των βιβλίων που πολλές φορές τα απολαμβάνω: Ενημερώνομαι περί επιστημονικών θεμάτων αλλά ταυτόχρονα υπάρχει και η απαιτούμενη δράση και πλοκή για να κρατιέμαι σε εγρήγορση και το ενδιαφέρον μου να διατηρείται ζωντανό.

Αυτά τα λίγα είχα να πω περί Κράιτον, διότι όπως ξαναείπα με βιβλία που απολαμβάνω, πολλές φορές δεν έχω και πολλά να πω.

তিন ছেলে মেয়ে নিয়ে জ্যাক ফোরম্যান আর জুলিয়া ফোরম্যান এর পরিবার ভালই চলছিল।  পেশাগত জীবনে দুজনেই ভালো অবস্থানে। এর মাঝে হঠাৎ করেই বেকারত্বের মধ্যে পড়ে জ্যাক ফোরম্যান, পরিবারের জন্য অতিরিক্ত খাটতে থাকে জুলিয়া। মাসের পর মাস চাকরি ছাড়া জ্যাক বাচ্চাদের দেখাশোনা করতে থাকে। এখানেই পারিবারিক অশান্তির শুরু।
এর মাঝে নেভাডা মরুভূমিতে এক ল্যাব এ তৈরি হচ্ছিল ন্যানোপারটিকল বা মাইক্রোবটস। যেগুলো ক্যামেরা হিসেবে কাজ করে মানুষের শরীরের ভিতরে মেডিকেল ইমেজিং করবে। তার মাঝে কিছু পারটিকল হঠাৎ ল্যাবের নিরাপদ পরিবেশ থেকে বাইরে মুক্ত  হয়ে পড়ে। সবচেয়ে বড় সমস্যা এই পারটিকলগুলোর মধ্যে আরটিফিশিয়াল ইন্টেলিজেন্স আছে। তারা পরিবেশ থেকে শিখতে পারে, নতুন পারটিকল তৈরি করতে পারে, নিজেদেরকে নতুন বিপদে খাপ খাওয়াতে পারে। সব মিলিয়ে তাদেরকে জীবিত বলা যায়,  যাদেরকে ধ্বংস করা একেবারেই অসম্ভব। এর চেয়েও বড় সমস্যা তাদের মধ্যে প্রোগ্রাম করা আছে শিকারি-শিকার এর আচরণ। এখানে শিকার হল মানুষ।

রিভিউঃ
টেকনোথ্রিলারে মাইকেল ক্রাইটনের প্রতিভা যে অতুলনীয় এটা জুরাসিক পার্ক পড়েই বুঝা যায়, এটা পড়ে একেবারে বিপরীতধর্মী টেকনোথ্রিলারেও যে কম যান নাই সেটা বুঝলাম। বিপরীতধর্মী বললাম কারণ, জুরাসিক পার্ক ভয়ংকর পর্যায়ের একশনধর্মী টেকনোথ্রিলার। এটাতেও প্রচুর একশন আছে,থ্রিল আছে, কিন্তু সেটা প্রথম দুইশো পৃষ্ঠার পর।
বইয়ের প্রথম দুইশো পৃষ্ঠায় গল্প বলতে পারিবারিক,পেশাগত জীবনের দ্বন্দ্ব পাওয়া যাবে। আর সাথে আছে কম্পিউটার সাইন্স নিয়ে অতিরিক্ত লেভেলের প্যাশন/ আঁতলামির পরিচয়(সম্পূর্ণ এনজয় করেছি)।  আতলামি বললাম কারণ বলি। মুভি, সিরিজ দেখে এই সম্পর্কিত সর্বোচ্চ সিন আমরা যা দেখি অনেকগুলো স্ক্রিনে নাম্বার উঠানামা করে আর নাসার সিস্টেম হ্যাক হয়ে যায়। এই বইতে সেগুলা কিছু নাই। যেটার এক্সেস নাই তো নাই ই, কেউ হ্যাক ও করে নাই, করার সময় ও নাই, প্রাণ নিয়ে পালাতে হবে। কিন্তু প্রথম দুইশো পাতায় প্রোগ্রামিং থেকে শুরু করে,  আরটিফিশিয়াল ইন্টেলিজেন্স, ডিস্ট্রিবিউটেড সিস্টেম সব কিছুর কোর আইডিয়া নিয়ে হাল্কার উপর ঝাপসা  কথাবার্তা আছে।  এটা আমার জীবনে ��ড়া প্রথম গল্পের বই যেখানে লেখক এল্গোরিদম লিখে দিয়েছে।

DNF at page 175/369.

Dear book,

n  n

It's me, not you. I was really into you in the beginning, but you lost me when you got too technical. That's when I lost my interest in you. There was no coming back from that. While I found your premise fascinating and terrifying at the beginning, after you lost me, the premise wasn't interesting to me anymore. This is purely me, and is not your fault. You see, I have an addiction to the Kate Daniels series. I was spending time with you while waiting for the buddy reread I'm doing of Kate Daniels to be ready for the next book. You didn't stand a chance. When I'm in KD mode, not much lives up to par.

I'm sorry for the one star rating I'm giving you. I debated not rating you at all. However, I always rate DNFs with one star, so I would've hurt the rest of the shelf's feelings if I didn't. I'm really sorry. Maybe one day we can resume our relationship.

I'm late to the Michael Crichton party, but now I'm discovering why he was such a popular author. This marks the third book of his I've read, I think (Jurassic Park, The Great Train Robbery), and in each case he tells a well-researched, well-paced, at times thrilling story. In this case, some swarms of nanobots have been loosed in the Nevada desert, with frightening consequences. They've been programmed using some code based on naturally flocking insects and animals, and it's up to the former project manager to rein them in. You might guess the solution based on a famous story which I won't spoil here, but that didn't make it less exciting.

Za sve ljubitelje znanstvene fanatastike, ali i one koji to nisu. Vidi se da pisac zna napisati intrigantnu i napetu pricu, pa sam se cesto osjecao klaustrofobicno, tjeskobno i paranoicno. Ova knjiga spada u zanr tehno-trilera ili tehno-horora. Brza i lakoprobavljiva knjiga sa dosta elementa prave znanosti-npr. evolucija, adaptacija, ponasanje zivotinja, virusi, bakterije, nanotehnologija, kompjuterska znanost (algoritmi, umjetna inteligencija), itd.. Ali zapravo o ovim stvarima ne morate znati uopce puno jer autor sve objasni kako treba, pa sam i ja imao onih "aha!" momenata- momenata gdje su mi se sve kockice poslozile; ugl. autor ne ocekuje da znate ove stvari prije citanja knjiga. Takodjer ima i onih dijelova gdje se prica "sta bi bilo kad bi bilo", ali se vidi razlika izmedju nagadjanja i prave znanosti. Prica knjige je u prvom planu, dok su likovi i ostale komponente zanemarene; sto je ok u ovakvim knjigama, ono sto je pisac imao u planu sa ovom knjigom je uspio uraditi, a to je zabaviti me (pomalo i prestrasiti) u potpunosti na 3-4 dana. Dajem 3,5 zvijezdica jer msm da je ovo super knjiga za poceti sa ovim piscem, ali sigurno nije najbolja; srecom on je napisao puno knjiga, te ima svega za svakoga, pa cete sigurno uzivati u nekoj od njih.

The narration is great on this audiobook but I have a few complaints.

1. I know we need to know some of the basics about nano-technology but this seemed way too much. I've read Crichton before so I'm familiar with his way of teaching you a little, but maybe it was the subject matter I didn't care for. Mind wandering often.

2. Jack is not taking any of this serious enough. The swarms are killing people. They tell him to run, he asks why. They say the swarms are coming, he says just a minute. They start yelling to run, he jogs and then doesn't make it to the door. That's classic dip-shit behavior if you ask me.

3. You find out your wife may be having an affair and/or possessed by an evil swarm. No tears for your lost love or anger at what she may be doing with a co-employee. He's a little pissy, but that's about it. Even toward the end when he sees glimpses of the wife he loved, he's all ho-hum not grasping her in a heartfelt embrace. He should never marry again. He has no emotional level beyond frustrated and pissy.

So, in conclusion, the book wasn't so good. I thought it would be, there were some gripping parts, but even with death and destruction all around them, no crying or fists banging on tables yelling, "WHY?!" isn't realistic to me. Unless you're a huge Crichton fan and must read his books in order, put this at the bottom of your TBR Crichton stack.

A, for the characters, tour de force of possible nanotech escalation settings.

It´s like a combination of different tropes surrounding grey goo, all seen in Sci-Fi many times from huge scales to tiny scales, resulting in the reader wondering which scenario might unfold next, what crazy ideas these nanobots will have in the following chapter.

It´ hard to waste a perfect nanotech plot, but Crichton exaggerated a bit, he had the ability to even make molecular assemblers and tiny robots a bit unlikely, not to talk of the standard characterization weaknesses one is used to. That´s sometimes so weird that it´s amazing at the same time, kind of as with movies that are trying to overachieve so much that they are already cult and involuntary parodies. But this one is seriously not. Often it´s unwittingly funny, as Chrichtons´writing tends to be average and stereotypical, and this adds an extra layer of self- satirizing over the whole novel.

I´m often asking myself why there is still no series (I know of) that puts the main focus on nanopunk, but it seems to be the same problem as with biopunk, that´s also still at its infancy. Both have to deal with the problem that it has to go along a pretty hard sci-fi route to fulfill the expectations of readers that are more interested in info dumping, technobabble, and plot driven works, which automatically results in the disinterest of readers of character driven, easy to read works.

There is very much potential in both genres, as real-life genetic engineering and nanotechnology are accelerating parallel to fiction, and the first author establishing a trademark series in this new genre might get immortal with his work. It´s also a simple question of time, the more humans, the more readers, so that each subgenre can slowly become more and more worthwhile until the authors can generate enough income to fully focus on their work.

I couldn´t really say how to do it, as there are already so many Sci-Fi works superficially dealing with the thousands of tropes surrounding both technologies, but as Alastair Reynolds impressively showed with his melding plague and Bacigalup with The windup girl, it´s possible. Of course, the authors would have to be both a specialist and a talented writer, but I see much potential in the collaborative writing of some or many people creating the fiction they want to read, but can´t get.

A wiki walk can be as refreshing to the mind as a walk through nature in this completely overrated real life outside books:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...

I thought this book was pretty good, even though I'm not huge into science fiction. I've seen that lots of people review this book and say that the science is so farfetched that it's unbelievable and stupid, but honestly, it's fiction. It's not supposed to be perfectly believable. Suspension of disbelief is required when reading this. I personally just enjoy books that can entertain me, and this one did. It brought up some interesting "what if" concepts, even though they would never really happen in real life. The logic was still interesting.

However, I will say that the characters were not really very developed. I didn't bother trying to remember what names went with which description of each person when Jack went to the fab factory because the characters were stereotypical and not really important as individuals. Also, there was a lot of cussing, which I didn't like.

Overall, I enjoyed this book. I recommend it if you are into science fiction, but you must remember that it is fiction and not take it seriously at all. It really is unbelievably farfetched, but that's the point of fiction, anyway. It's meant to entertain.

Rated this book so highly purely because it was the first of its genre that I had read in a long time, and impressed me very much. It appeals on several levels of geekiness and is hard to stop reading once begun. I normally don't read thrillers because I feel my emotions are being unnecessarily toyed with, but this raised an important worst-case scenario.

I feel there were several plot holes (the swarms should not have been able to recreate the piezoelectric wafer in the wild, necessary for power production and reproduction to the next generation) so credibility went down a little, and the talk about animal behaviour tended to repeat itself. That didn't really change my personal investment in the novel, because the human interaction was capably written, even if I felt that the author was too harsh sometimes, with the nonchalance he wrote his characters' conversations with. The marital breakup was far more horrifying to me than the swarm of intelligent, self-sustaining microbots.

Despite these half-critiques, it was a thoroughly enjoyable read, a good mystery and a necessary thought experiment in raising self-aware machines (not that I think it will ever reach that stage).

Although the book is ostensibly about nanotechnology gone wrong, and includes a decent amount of info on nanotech (including a reading list at the back of the book), it really progresses more like a horror novel... As always with Crichton's books, the writing is very straightforward but eminently readable.... but too much of Crichton's extremly ill-informed and annoying personal opinions come through in the book.

Prey, Michael Crichton
Prey is a novel by Michael Crichton, first published in November 2002. The novel is narrated by the protagonist Jack Forman, an unemployed software programmer who used to work for a company called Media Tronics but was fired and blackballed 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 executive 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. ...; In the Nevada desert, an experiment has gone horribly wrong. A cloud of nano particles -- micro-robots -- has escaped from the laboratory. This cloud is self-sustaining and self-reproducing. It is intelligent and learns from experience. For all practical purposes, it is alive.It has been programmed as a predator. It is evolving swiftly, becoming more deadly with each passing hour. Every attempt to destroy it has failed. And we are the prey.

عنوانها: ش‍ک‍ار؛ طعمه؛ نویسنده: م‍ای‍ک‍ل‌ ک‍رای‍ت‍ون‌؛ تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز یازدهم ماه اکتبر سال 2004 میلادی
عنوان: ش‍ک‍ار؛ نویسنده: م‍ای‍ک‍ل‌ ک‍رای‍ت‍ون‌؛ م‍ت‍رج‍م‌: ن‍ازی‍لا داوری‌دول‍ت‌آب‍ادی‌؛ اص‍ف‍ه‍ان‌: ن‍ش‍ر ب‍ی‍ت‌‏‫، 1382؛ در 448 ص؛ شابک: 9649324577؛ موضوع: داستانهای علمی تخیلی از نویسندگان ‬ ایالات متحده آمریکا - سده 21 م
عنوان: طع‍م‍ه‌؛ ن‍وی‍س‍ن‍ده‌: م‍ای‍ک‍ل‌ ک‍رای‍تون‌؛ م‍ت‍رج‍م‌: ق‍اس‍م‌ ک‍ی‍ان‍ی‌‌م‍ق‍دم‌؛ مشهد: ام‍ی‍د م‍ه‍ر‏‫‏، 1383؛ در 432 ص؛ شابک: ایکس - 964860519؛ چاپ دیگر: سبزوار: یوبان‏‫‬، 1395؛ در 432 ص؛ شابک: 9786008349013؛

در بیابان «نوادا» یک آزمایشگاه تحقیقاتی بزرگ منفجر شده است. ابری از نانو ذره‌ ها- ریزروبوت‌ها- از آزمایشگاه گریخته اند. این ابر خود مختار است، و قدرت تولید مثل دارد، هوشمند است و به تجربه یاد می‌گیرد. عملا یک موجود زنده است. این موجود به عنوان شکارچی برنامه‌ نویسی شده است. به سرعت تکامل می‌یابد، و با گذشت هر ساعت، مرگبارتر می‌شود. هر تلاشی برای نابودی آن با شکست مواجه شده است. و ما طعمه‌ ی این شکارچی هستیم. نقل نمونه از متن: «آنها نمیفهمیدند که چه کاری دارند انجام میدهند. متأسفانه باید بگویم این جمله بر روی سنگ قبر نسل بشر نوشته خواهد شد.»؛ «ما یکی از سه گونه ای بر روی سیاره مان هستیم، که میتواند ادعای خودآگاهی، داشته باشد؛ با اینحال، خودفریبی، میتواند خصوصیت مهمتری برای گونه ی ما باشد.»؛ «تمام دانش روانشناسی، یک مشکل دارد: هیچکس نمیتواند آن را در مورد خود ب�� کار گیرد. مردم میتوانند در مورد نقصهای دوست، همسر و بچه ی خود به شکل شگفت انگیزی هوشیار و دقیق باشند؛ اما کوچکترین دانشی در مورد خود ندارند.»؛ پایان نقل. ا. شربیانی

“We think we know what we are doing. We have always thought so. We never seem to acknowledge that we have been wrong in the past, and so might be wrong in the future. Instead, each generation writes off earlier errors as the result of bad thinking by less able minds—and then confidently embarks on fresh errors of its own.”

Michael Crichton seems to have a bee in his bonnet about misuse or abuse of technology.  Jurassic Park,  The Andromeda Strain,  Congo,  Next etc. are all cautionary tales about this theme. Prey explores the development and possible (probable?) misuse of nanotechnology. While it is a cautionary tale it is, first and foremost, a blockbusting sci-fi thriller. This is what Crichton (RIP) did, he wrote popular best-selling novels, mostly with a scientific theme.

Prey is about the development of an imaging technology for the military using nanotechnology to create molecular cameras that work together in swarm formations to take photos behind enemy lines. These cameras are hard to destroy as they are made up of billions of minuscule nanoparticles. The development of this imaging system leads to the scientists combining the nanoparticles with bacteria in order to give them a biological imperative to work together toward a set goal. Unfortunately, once these wee machines become critters they start to have their own ideas of what they want to do.


The novel is narrated in the first person by the protagonist Jack Forman. The first few chapters are mostly about Jack’s disintegrating marriage with bits of science expositions thrown in the mix. Jack is “between jobs” and is looking after his three kids while his wife works as an executive at a company called Xymos where they are developing the nano imaging system. Then his wife starts acting strange, their domestic strife begins to escalate, and a potential nano-apocalypse arises.

There is definitely too much soap opera in the first third of the novel for my taste, Crichton should have kept the domestic scenes down to a perfunctory level; he is no  Thomas Hardy. Having said that, the build up toward the nanotechnology crisis is quite good. I like how odd little things start happening at Jack’s house, an MP3 player suddenly malfunctioning, one of the kids develop an inexplicable illness which clears up equally inexplicably. I have to say the child characters are awfully written and irritating, fortunately, they are not featured much in the narrative. Jack Forman is a frustratingly terrible protagonist, it seems to take such a long time for the penny to drop for him, that something very weird is going on. He keeps noticing odd things then dismissing them through some idiotic rationalization. While he is the character that drives the narrative forward he also holds it back. I was rooting for the nano-things to put him out of his misery.

The best thing about Prey for me is the science expositions, they are very well written and accessible. Unlike hard sci-fi authors like  Greg Egan or  Stephen Baxter Crichton aimed his science writing at the layman and this is probably the secret of his huge commercial success. I actually learned something about “agent-based computing”, how this programming leads to the nanoparticles developing an “emergent behavior” where the particles work together to solve problems even though individually these particles are brainless little things, together they form a “distributed intelligence” which enables them to plan and reason. What the constantly evolving nanoparticles are eventually able to do after they are fused to bacteria is fascinating.

In spite of its flaws I enjoyed Prey tremendously, it is an exciting read that also manages to be educational. Learning through fiction is the most pleasant way to pick up knowledge. I look forward to reading more Crichton soon.

Notes:
• Most of Crichton’s books are sci-fi but tend to be marketed as general fiction. To catch the fools who disdain sci-fi yet want to read it, I suppose. As far as I know, none of his books are set in the future or an alien planet.  Sphere as aliens in it though.

• It is odd when Crichton is in the middle of narrating the character’s domestic strife and suddenly slips in and out of science infodump mode.

• As an SF author he not a patch on the likes of Clarke and Asimov but he probably has a wider mainstream readership.

• Prey was optioned for a movie adaptation years ago, so far nothing. If done well, it would make a pretty great movie, I think.

Quotes:

“Within fifty to a hundred years, a new class of organisms is likely to emerge. These organisms will be artificial in the sense that they will originally be designed by humans. However, they will reproduce, and will “evolve” into something other than their original form; they will be “alive” under any reasonable definition of the word.”

“Sometime in the twenty-first century, our self-deluded recklessness will collide with our growing technological power. One area where this will occur is in the meeting point of nanotechnology, biotechnology, and computer technology. What all three have in common is the ability to release self-replicating entities into the environment.”

“They didn’t understand what they were doing. I’m afraid that will be on the tombstone of the human race.”

“They reconfigured the nanoparticles to add solar power and memory. They rewrote the particle program to include a genetic algorithm. And they released the particles to reproduce and evolve, and see if the swarm could learn to survive on its own.”

“We think our bodies are solid, but that’s only because we can’t see what is going on at the cellular level.”

“Obstinate egotism that is a hallmark of human interaction with the environment.”