Prey, by Michael Crichton

Michael Crichton. Prey. New York: HarperCollins, 2002. 363 pages. ISBN 0066214122.

In Michael Crichton's thriller Prey, Jack Forman is an out of work software engineer whose wife works in the nanoscience and technology industry. Jack is beginning to worry about his wife who's been acting strangely and whom he suspects is having an affair. As he tries to find out what she's up to when she's at work, he learns that she's been working on a project to create nano particles that can work together to complete a task. It all begins to unravel when it becomes clear that the scientists have lost control of the nano particles which have begun to turn on them. Jack is recruited to try to capture the nano particles that have escaped and which are reproducing in the Nevada desert, but he has to go up against some of the scientists who don't want to stop the nano particles.

Prey is one of the earliest books in popular fiction to address the development of nanoscience engineering and technology. It's a little bit on the alarmist side, but is nevertheless an engaging work of science fiction.