Thanks for the tip, AG, I haven't read a single Chrichton novel myself since I read "Sphere" back in 1989 (and a scary book it was...too bad the movie sucks).
I am currently reading Richard Morgan's second novel, Broken Angel. It is futuristic hard SF where a team of soldiers are on a commercial mission to find a gateway made by an alien race. Some of their "friends" made them bring along a sample of nanotech grey goo - which turns out to be a sentient lump of matter which primary instinct is to build up defences against anything it meets. So when it starts attacking people - it simply won't die, it just adapts...and it gets very ugly...great stuff.
By the way, Richard Morgan's first novel, Altered Carbon, was perhaps the best debut novel I've ever read!
Tormod