Prey by Michael Crichton

Prey by Michael Crichton

This is a thrilling story about technology and experiments going horribly wrong.  Not only do they go wrong but they start to evolve, things start to think...start to copy us, start to try and take over.  It's a small piece of the world that this technology actually starts to control...but the thoughts are planted as to how far technology can go...and how fast it can go horribly wrong.

Our main character thinks his wife is having an affair...he's out of work and home with the kids.  She comes home later and later each night.  Sometimes not at all.  by the end of this story, he wishes she was having an affair.  I bet an affair would be much better than what he actually had to deal with.

These stories always start the same.  Jurassic Park for instance...we think...wow...a park where we can see dinosaurs, real life dinosaurs.  Wow!!!  Yes!!!  But one of my favorite lines from Jurassic Park was Jeff Goldblum's line where he says something along the lines of they were so busy thinking about if they COULD do it, they didn't stop to think whether they SHOULD do it.  I am not putting that in quotes because I'm sure it's not exact but you catch my drift, I'm sure.  This book is not about technology for entertainment such as live dinosaurs.  This one is about injecting teensy weensy cameras into your blood stream so they can see what the heck is wrong...the size of nano particles.  A great idea, right?  I mean, they would travel through the chambers of the heart, the lungs, etc.  Doctors could see EVERYTHING.  I was thinking...hey, maybe then they could tell me what was wrong with me and maybe I could enjoy food again...lol...sorry...I digress.

So it sounds great.  But some problems develop.  Lots of problems.  You want to know more?  READ THE BOOK!!!  I picked this book up at a thrift store on a Saturday.  I was done by Thursday.  I couldn't put it down.  It was thrilling, suspenseful and very creepy!!!  Very creepy.  LOVED IT!!!!  It's been a while since I've read a book that I just had to finish...but lately I've found a few.  I'll be reviewing another one later this week (sorry too tired tonight to do more than two reviews).  This book made me want to pick up other Michael Crichton books that I've had on the shelf but hadn't yet read.  Airframe will be next...but after I vary the genres a little bit.  I try hard not to clump all my books together like that.  Not everyone loves the same types of books and even though I only have a few followers, I have to think ahead to when I have a few hundred, right???

So yes, I give this book a fabulous five stars.  I loved it and will probably read it again in a few years.  A must read if you love reading about technology...but you don't have to be a geek.  There is enough information for us non-geeks to understand what is going on but not too much to cause us to get confused and say never mind!  We get the gist...and that is what we need in order to go for the thrill ride.  After reading this book, I will never walk through another swarm of gnats at the beach without being a little more afraid than I used to be.

"Julia's original email says, "We have nothing to lose."  But in the end they lost everything--their company, their lives, everything.  And the ironic thing is, the procedure worked.  The swarm actually solved the problem they had set for it.  But then it kept going, kept evolving.  And they let it.  They didn't understand what they were doing.  I'm afraid that will be on the tombstone of the human race.  I hope it's not.  We might get lucky."

--Prey by Michael Crichton pg 502

Breathe My Name by R.A. Nelson

Breathe My Name
R.A. Nelson

Okay, I don't know what is going on but I'm having trouble adding in Amazon associates so that you can purchase a copy of the book right here...it looks like a lot of people are having the same trouble and it doesn't look like anyone can resolve it.  So I'm not sure you will be able to order this book through my blog...but here goes anyways....

This was an interesting book...hmmmm, no, that might not be the right word for it.  I have to say, I read this book with a different perspective than most will read it.  As a foster parent...a mother of children who have seen and lived through things they just shouldn't have seen and lived through.  This is a book about one such child who survived a mother who had severe issues...maybe schizophrenia?  Not really sure what her diagnosis was...it might even say in the book but it's been a while since I actually read this that I had to go back through and refresh my memory a bit.  So we have this teenage girl on the verge of adulthood...18 years of age who doesn't just have the struggle of life between being Mom and Dad's kid and an adult but also the struggle of a past with a Mother who she no longer has a relationship with who is actually in an insane asylum and the memory of siblings who do not have the same opportunities she has been given (I don't want to give too much away so am going to leave it at that).

Then we also have the VERY strange twist of someone wanting an eye for an eye...and trying to ensure it happens...and then that same mother who took away the happy thoughts of childhood giving this 18 year old girl her the gift of an adult life which if she wasn't there, she wouldn't have.

Like I said, it's an odd book...at first I was thinking this would be a great book for some of the teens I know who were adopted out of foster care to read...but after getting to the end...ummmm....no.  There's violence...a twist that is twisted and unexpected.

I did like the thoughts that the main character (Frances) has in the story.  The story makes you question what it would really take to not only forgive or to get forgiven but what about eternity?  What does it take to buy your spot in heaven after doing something so wrong it seems you can never make things right?  Here is a quote I found to be a very neutral answer to that question.

"One thing I am sure of--death is a very big place.  There is room for all kinds of people."  So she categorizes heaven and hell together into one place called 'death' and leaves it at that.

Okay...as far as imagination and character development...great job on the main character...everyone else was sort of background info and that was okay...you got the idea of who the people were and what they were about.  You felt the sadness when Frances meets her father, you can feel the regret, the choices, the disgust.  You can also feel that Frances no longer fits into that world...and wonder how she ever did fit into that world.  It's amazing how children move from such a horrible situation and learn to thrive in a wonderful family.  I have seen it firsthand and this book did a good job of showing it.

The twist is the story is totally unexpected...but I almost felt like it didn't fit.  It wasn't what this book seemed to be about...kind of like you have this puzzle before you and one piece left and it's a nice piece but it's not the one that fits into THAT puzzle.  ODD...that's the best word for it.  It wasn't horrible...just odd and a bit unsettling.
For the feeling of discontentment the book left me with, I'm going to leave this book with three star...maybe even 2.75 stars.  I wouldn't let young teens read it...it's disquieting...young adults perhaps.  I didn't walk away glad that I had read this book...but it made some good points...showed me a person with a certain perspective some good character development and transition (but not very universal).  I also for the sake of the author will say I'm not a person who enjoys reading about mentally ill mothers...a personal thing so that could be part of my disquiet as well.  When a child is afraid of her own mother, when she knows that there is something not quite right but no one else knows or maybe she has everyone else fooled, it is a heavy burden to bear, that fear.  An excerpt from the book that was a perfect description of that fear for me, and I will leave you with this...

"In the night, in my imagination, there is no light where she is.  Momma moves on the tips of her big fingers, scrabbling along on a dirty concrete floor like a spider.  She is a spider.  That is what she has become.

Maybe that's what she always was.  Only none of us knew, because she kept it hidden.  And through everything, all the times she was kissing us or playing games with us or being the queen of our pretend kingdom, really she was a spider underneath everything, just itching to break free.  And every night the stiff little spidery hairs were coming to the surface, and she had to be careful to pluck them off each morning so that no one would suspect she was really a spider.  Toward the end she began to smell different too.  That was her spider smell coming out.

But still none of us knew.  We didn't know a person could be a spider.  We didn't know that in the middle of the night she would crawl out of her bed and get down on her fingers and toes and climb up the wall and scuttle across the ceiling just to keep in practice, because she knew she would be transformed into a spider again soon.  Now she gets to have her wish.  She can be a spider all the time."

---breathe my name, R.A. Nelson, chapter 1, pgs 4-5.