I listened to this one on four cassettes, over the last week to and
fro from work. It was quite a solid story, with the quick caveat
that there's an introduction read by the author.
You know that saying, "That guy has a face for radio?" Well,
Michael Crichton has a voice for print. I could barely maintain
listening and concentration to his part, and heaved a sigh of
relief when he finally shut up.
Then the story started - and it was good. Read by Robert Sean
Leonard, he gave it a good go (though often his voice seemed
younger than the forty-something hero of the tale). Jack is a "did
the right thing and got fired" tech fellow, who specializes in
writing code that mimics natural biological behaviour. His wife is
working with a company doing something with nanotech. Things start
to go wrong, and what escapes is nano-sized, pred/prey programmed,
and self-replicating. Cue the cacophanous "Oh no!" music that ends
each side of each tape (acually, it's a horrendous screech that has
no place on an audiobook, and should not have been chosen), and the
slowly rising tension that I'm used to Crichton providing.
If I have any qualms, it's with the not-always explained abilities
of the escaped nanotech, and a somewhat obvious "this is what I
think is inevitable, so smarten up, humanity!" overtone that
Crichten might have toned down just a little.