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I have just completed "Prey" by Michael Crichton. It's like Jurassic Park with the technology-out-of-control theme, but this time it's nanotechnology. It compares with Digital Fortress by Dan Brown, but the former comes off better.

I found Digital Fortress quite a good page-turner, but the science, cryptography mostly, wasn't very believable. I don't know much more than probably being able to stumblingly describe public/private key encryption, but what I read sounded too stupid to be close to present or future reality.

"Prey" had the nanothings evolving very quickly, which I'm sure just couldn't happen, but if you concede that point then it's quite an exciting book. It would be good to make into a film, which is probably at the back of Mr Crichton's mind given the success of his dinosaur books.

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