Michael Crichton’s novels tend to present a threat to humanity that is typically of its own making. For instance, in Jurassic Park, it was the decision to bring the dinosaurs back. It was an exciting breakthrough until it became a disaster. In Prey, technology—and aggressively-evolving nanotechnology in particular—is the threat.

Nanotechnology refers to the work conducted with materials at the atomic or molecular level. The particles comprising the swarms in Prey are so small that it is difficult to comprehend their scale. As an example, a meter is approximately three feet and three inches long; in contrast, one nanometer is only a billionth of a meter. The swarms in the novel are visible from afar, which would require a number of nanoparticles that is nonsensical outside of a scientific framework. However, as incomprehensible as a nanoparticle may seem in visual terms, for the purposes of Prey, the reader need only remember that the particles are essentially computer programs that move around autonomously with various levels of goals and memory.

Crichton’s self-replicating machines, which one character refers to as a “mechanical plague” (176), are consistent with the “gray goo” apocalypse, a doomsday situation conceived of by engineer K.