THERE ARE two things you can be pretty certain of with a Crichton novel: first, that it will read like a screenplay, and secondly, that it will become one. A blockbuster at that.

His previous book, Timeline, was an atypical disaster, a medieval costume caper of knights and villains held together by a time travel gimmick so corny that even Star Trek scriptwriters might have winced.

It is being turned into a movie anyhow. But it is a huge relief to find Crichton back on sparkling form with Prey.

There is a slight problem with the predictability, insofar as the minute a main character looks at a high ladder and mentions his fear of heights you know that he is soon going to be climbing it for his life.

Then there are the scenes written for the special effects team, such as the beautiful lead actress’s body (it is hard not to think in terms of roles instead of characters) dissolving, shrinking and being flattened against walls.

But then you could also call that clever craftsmanship. So what about the plot? Simple: nanotechnology gone wild.

Molecular-sized machines, designed for medical and military use in a symbiotic relationship with the e-coli bacteria, escape from their desert production facility.

Worse: they develop group intelligence, self-replication and, thanks to a prey-and- predator computer programme designed to help stupid machines to focus on goals, a tendency to hunt down raw material. Given their basic bacterial engine, that means living flesh. In other words, people.

Our hero, Jack Forman, is a high-powered but recently redundant software engineer working as a house husband for three demanding kids. His even higher-powered wife Julia works such long hours at her nanotechnology corporation that Jack suspects she is having an affair.

The truth, of course, is far more sinister. When her car crashes and Jack is called in to help with the “predprey” programme, the nightmare begins.

This is Crichton on top form, preying on our fears about new technology and convincing us that we aren’t half as afraid as we should be. Coming soon to a cinema near you.

Peter Millar

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