This was a blast from the past... I read a lot of Michael Crichton's works back when I was in high school, but I really haven't read any of his stuff since then... over 20 years!
I recently picked up a copy of The Andromeda Strain and read it again... I can't believe this book came out in 1969! It seems newer than that to me.
The Andromeda Strain is Michael Crichton's tribute to the rise of biology and biologists. He notes how, up until recently (in 1969), physicists and chemists got all the limelight, but that from then on, they would have to compete with the real advances that were going on in the techniques and results used by biologists.
The book is written with a reporter's tone and feels very close to nonfiction at times. It's a bit dull at first, as Crichton sets the stage for the main action of the book, but that problem goes away pretty soon. Once the establishment of the fictional biological quarantine facility is done, Crichton very quickly moves to the main plot, and his writing is slow, tense, and full of atmosphere.
The basic plot of The Andromeda Strain is simple: a space probe intended to bring back samples of any biological matter from upper Earth orbit suddenly fails and falls out of orbit. It lands in a little town in Arizona, and seems to kill everyone nearby. The focus of the book is the efforts of a few brilliant scientists to isolate, investigate, understand, and possibly counter these lethal effects. Is it extraterrestrial or not? How and why is it so lethal?
The book is chock full of very realistic science stuff, mixed with very cleverly fictionalized elements. For instance, the book has a bibliography at the end, but as far as I can tell, the whole thing is faked! It looks very convincing, though. I tried looking up some of the more banal articles in the bibliography and even those don't appear to be real. As a physicist, I found it very funny to be trolled by Crichton.
On the minus side, some of those realistic science elements work against the book. For instance, early in the book, some people investigating the town use a fictionalized chemical called "chlorazine" to kill all the birds nearby and prevent them from spreading the pathogen. Crichton describes "chlorazine" as an "uncoupler," which is a very real thing, actually! Some potentially dangerous diet pills use a mild uncoupler to induce weight loss. However, uncouplers would also kill any remaining survivors in the area, and Crichton somehow misses this!
Another minor plot hole stems from their attempts to grow the pathogens on different media. Based on what we learn at the end, it's highly unlikely that would have worked!
The ending is also incredibly rushed, without enough explanation or falling action after the climax.
However, despite its few notable flaws, The Andromeda Strain is still a gripping and intense look at the difficulties inherent in dealing with complicated, multivariate systems, the assumptions we make about what life must or should "look like," and more questions that real scientists really need to think about. It's a fairly short book, and absolutely worth a read.
And, just as an aside, there was a great moment in the book where one of the scientists told another to complete their scan before making conclusions. It was weirdly similar to another moment in my first novel, Pursuit of the Heliotrope. It was very weird to see, but it was part of both characters' personalities: a preference for thoroughness and thoughtfulness, and avoiding jumping to conclusions.
Anyway, go give The Andromeda Strain a read if you like good realistic sci-fi, especially if you like first contact stories or biological horror. The e-book version is really expensive, so I recommend an old paperback version, if you can get your hands on one.
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