The Andromeda Strain by michael crichton

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

April 26,2025

This is a review of the audiobook.
I first read The Andromeda Strain way back when I was about 12 years old or so. Back then the YA genre wasn't available for us precocious readers so we graduated from Nancy Drew straight to Stephen King, Micheal Crichton and the like.
There is nothing scarier than something we cannot see. Add in some alien elements and it becomes even scarier. Alien virus from outer space - freaky.
The audio version was not as good as the book, nor was it as good as the movie from what I recall. However, I did enjoy listening to it, it just didn't amaze me.

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yorokobi826

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

April 26,2025

My mom told me this was one of the most thrilling books she had ever read. I think she is easily thrilled. I was bored out of my mind. Had there been some dionsaurs it would have been a whole lot better.

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psyche-K

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

April 26,2025

I really enjoyed listening to this story on audible. Something from outer space lands in Arizona and wipes out a whole city - except for a crying baby and an old man. What is it and can the government figure out how to stop it in time. Another great thriller by Michael Crichton.

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the_pillows

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

April 26,2025

I don't get the complaints about Michael Crichton's writing. Take the following complaint about this book:

"It's a boring procedural with flat, uninteresting characters."

Yeah. It's a procedural. That's what Michael Crichton writes. Explorations of a scientific idea. He's an asker of "What If?" What if we were able to recreate dinosaurs. What if we developed nanotech and it got away from us. What if a deadly alien virus came down from a satellite.

I like such stories. When I buy a Michael Crichton, that's what I want to read, and that's what he delivers. Complaining that it's not a character-centric drama is like going to see Transformers and complaining about the lack of a good script.

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Raks0330

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

April 26,2025

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NoriAvidReader

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

April 26,2025

Note to self: Next time, remember that you don't like books that involve medicine. That took a whole 2 stars off for me.

Definitely fun infectious disease story, though I wish there had been more about the outbreak and less about the science behind it.

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Sairenn

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

April 26,2025

To my knowledge The Andromeda Strain is the "hardest" science fiction novel extant - meaning that the science is not simplified. Crichton was an MD who looks to have been a true scientist in that this novel demonstrates that he was far more than a mere rote memorizer of facts. He explains in Acknowledgements:

"This is a rather technical narrative, centering on complex issues of science"

I saw the film on first release ca. 1971 and soon thereafter read the novel. Both are faithful to scientific realism and expect the spectator to run along and keep up. Despite this, the novel can be enjoyed without digging deeply into the science. As a serious thriller it works without the need for a science background. The film is serious in that it is devoid of Hollywood Moments (which are de-rigueur in garden-variety "science fiction" films.)

That said, as a "science kid" the film and book were both like catnip to me. A re-read as an amateur science adult held up very well. No surprise, because science ages well - nothing in the book is "incorrect".

(just as Einstein's General Relativity does not render Newton's Mechanics "incorrect" subsequent advances in the biological sciences enhance what went before. Still, I'd like to see what professional biological scientists think of this novel's scientific integrity)

This is not a film review - but I'll add that the film is one of the most faithful SF adaptations ever done - on par with 2001: A Space Odyssey - which was not a adaptation so much as a multi-year collaboration between Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke - the latter of whom earned a British first-class degree in mathematics and physics.

I’ll offer a setup:

A U.S. government satellite crashes in the desert near Piedmont, New Mexico. Within hours all of the town's inhabitants die - except two survivors — an old man and an infant.

It is feared that the satellite brought back a virulent microbe, so the satellite and survivors are brought to a classified underground laboratory called Wildfire.

Thus we are off and running.

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