Death Swarmed Over

Just how does Michael Crichton do it? His new novel, Prey (HarperCollins; 367 pages), lacks almost everything a good novel needs. It contains not one single quotable line of dialogue ("We have to help him!" "There's nothing we can do." That should give you a sense of it). It offers not one single well-realized character. It's riddled with plot holes you could drive a reconstituted brontosaurus through. And yet ... and yet ... it does something few novels can manage: it holds your attention ruthlessly from start to finish.

With Prey Crichton goes from dino to nano: the baddie comes from the currently hot field of nanotechnology, the science of building microscopic machines. The hero is an unemployed computer whiz named Jack Forman, a likable blank who has the misfortune to be married to Julia, a workaholic exec at Xymos, a shady Silicon Valley start-up. Xymos builds tiny nanorobots that possess no intelligence of their own but can assemble themselves, insect-like, into swarms capable of solving complex problems, reproducing and even evolving. Since the thoughtless hubris of scientists is Crichton's Big Theme, all this must go terribly wrong. A nanoswarm gets loose in the Nevada desert and starts killing people. It falls to Jack to fight it.

And somehow it all works. The faceless nanoswarms have an authentically surreal creepiness to them (they'll look great in the inevitable movie), but the real star of the show is Crichton's intricate plotting and flawless pacing, which deliver the necessary shocks and surprises at the precise intervals necessary to keep readers riveted until the more or less satisfying denouement. It lacks a human heart, but Prey is a relentlessly efficient machine that grips and doesn't let go. Don't try to resist. There's nothing you can do.