It’s weird to think that a popular best-selling novel from 1969 can still have an impact today, but Michael Crichton’s “The Andromeda Strain” is still a rather frightening, fascinating, and fun read, fifty years later.

Crichton was never a stellar wordsmith. He was a much better thinker than he was a writer, but his gift was in taking the latest in socio-political, scientific thinking and shaping an entertaining story around an idea. Oftentimes, these ideas opened the door for conversations on a national scale: genetic engineering (“Jurassic Park”), sexual harassment (“Disclosure”), time travel (“Sphere”, “Timeline”), climate change (“State of Fear”).

Granted, Crichton was not without controversy. His novel “State of Fear” was criticized by many climatologists for its stance on global warming. Crichton took the approach that much of the climate change debate was a global conspiracy by overzealous and militant environmentalists. To what end? I have no idea, as “State of Fear’ was my least favorite Crichton novel, and I don’t recall much about it. It was, however, George W. Bush’s favorite Crichton novel and, sadly, helped to shape his climate change policy. I’m sure if Donald Trump could actually read, this would also be a favorite of his, as it bolsters his ridiculous argument that climate change is a “hoax”.

Despite a few hiccups like that, I still have a fond place in my heart for Crichton. I eagerly awaited every new Crichton novel, and I was saddened by his untimely death in 2008.

Daniel H. Wilson recently wrote and published “The Andromeda Evolution”, a sequel to Crichton’s 1969 novel. It is receiving good buzz, but I hadn’t read ‘The Andromeda Strain” in over 20 years, at least, so I wanted to go back and re-read it.

I’m not a scientist, so I can’t vouch for Crichton’s knowledge in virology, epidemiology, and biology, but I’m pretty sure that the science in his book still holds up. Keep in mind, too, that the book is purposely dated. It extrapolates a first contact scenario involving an alien bacteria and how American scientists would deal with it, given the scientific knowledge of its time.

The story starts with a satellite falling out of orbit and crashing in a very small town in Arizona. When Army scientists arrive in town to collect it, they are shocked to see everyone in town dead. Within minutes, the Army men succumb to whatever killed the townspeople.

A group of hand-picked scientists are quickly rounded up around the country and taken to a state-of-the-art facility in the middle of the Nevada desert. Their job: determine what killed the entire town and how to stop it in case it spreads.

The only clues that these scientists have to work with are the satellite itself and the only two survivors of the town: an old man and an infant.

Crichton’s novel is an edge-of-the-seat knuckle-biter involving a medical mystery and an eventual race against time, but it’s also a subtle examination of the limits of scientific thinking due to human prejudices, irrational fears, and a tendency to disregard out-of-the-box ideas. Sadly, very little of that has changed in fifty years.

So I decided to give Crichton another go. I was optimistic. There is no movie of this one (as far as I’m aware) and I do enjoy a good space epidemiology premise. What can I say? I was right, solid 3. Also, look up ‘page-turner’ in a reputable dictionary and you will be directed to this book. Bloody impossible to put down, almost irritatingly so. I read the last chapters in a kind of frustrated mania, aware I had things to do but also accepting of the fact that they were not getting done until I finished the damn novel.

Still, I cannot rate it beyond a solid three because at the end of the day it suffers from what I have identified as the usual Crichton pitfalls; it’s written like it knows it will be used as a screenplay and the ending is weak sauce. Literarily, it also suffered by comparison from being read right after Heart of Darkness. At one point a character drops a cigarette in snow and Crichton writes that it ‘sputtered’. I was unusually irritated by this lazy writing. Cigarettes don’t sputter in snow, they just go out! Conrad would never write such weak description. He would write about a cigarette in snow using words you had never thought to put together but that somehow perfectly encapsulated the whole fag/snow experience. Still, it’s a bit of an unfair comparison, after all, I kept turning those pages.

Make no mistake, this is a good book. The premise is genius enough to absolve sloppy cigarette descriptions and Crichtons’ always good for a few passages of mildly enlightening ‘biological theory for dummies’ exposition. Oh big surprise, I’m pretentious! Fine, go on, read the first chapter, just make sure you’ve cleared you schedule of anything too pressing, doctors appointments, promises to pick people up from the airport, weddings, both others and your own. I’ll see you back here in a few hours.

#12

TitletThe Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton
WhentDecember 2011
WhytFound it on sale at Half Price Books
Ratingt3

Excepțională.

Pe la jumătatea lecturii m-am gândit să văd câți ani avea autorul când a scris-o, mi se părea scrisă cu o mână foarte sigură, a cuiva trecut de 30, poate chiar de 40. Dar nu, Crichton avea DOAR 26 de ani.
Mai citisem de el Sfera, care merge pe aceeași formulă, un grup de oameni de știință izolați într-un loc greu accesibil, care trebuie să investigheze și să elucideze un mare mister tehnologic/biologic etc, dar Sfera se năruie complet după o primă jumătate foarte bine scrisă. Andromeda, în schimb, te ține cu sufletul la gură până la final (deși ultimele 10 pagini mi s-au părut anticlimactice și ușor fâsâite).
E scrisă parțial ca un document de training, cu grafice și indicații vizuale, transcripții din documente „oficiale”, iar dacă informațiile de acolo nu sunt reale (și unele nu sunt), atunci recunosc că sunt scrise cu atâta măiestrie încât n-am crezut nicio clipă că ar fi fabricate. Merge mult pe logică științifică, Crichton face aici cam ce a făcut Harari prin cărțile lui: face o mulțime de probleme științifice complexe accesibile tuturor printr-o narațiune competent construită. Fiind o poveste cu foarte multe elemente tehnice, personajele nu primesc prea multă atenție (dar e OK, nu deranjează, e mai degrabă vorba de tensiune și navigarea unui labirint în care orice mișcare greșită poate însemna moartea) și există multe pasaje explicative pe care Crichton le mânuiește foarte bine într-o pastă
Și așa și-a început Michael Crichton lunga și extrem de profitabila carieră (cică un sfert de miliard de cărți vândute) de scriitor de tehno-thrillere.

Chapeau, omu' meu, chapeau!

The writing was drier than a cracker in the desert...

But I loved the book anyway!

It definitely reads like a scientific/army report but this was such an interesting twist on the classic sci-fi (first contact?). I only recommend it if you already love sci-fi and diseases apocalyptic books.

Left me wanting more... I'll definitely read more from the author!

Here is the perfect summer read. A "popcorn" read, so to speak. Perfect for the beach or that porch swing, it provides suspense, disbelief, and finally a let's-sew-the-ending-up finale. Summer.

I was hooked with the first chapter, as the beginning takes us to a small Arizona hicktown (which, decades later, would now be a strip-mall suburb) and the innocent discovery of something that has fallen from the sky.

No! Don't go near it! No! Don't open it up! Run!

Crichton lost me a bit with his science and codes, but the whole setup, including the reason for the killer virus/bacteria/germ/whatever, kept me swinging on that porch, even as the sun tried to knock me off for cooler climes.

Book Season = Summer (remember what the Dormouse said)

Having recently read a very disappointing Michael Crichton book, I decided to go back to one of my all-time favorites. I think Crichton is at his best here; the conceit that this book is a report on a real scientific and biological crisis is fantastic, and he sticks to it so completely I remember wondering, as a teen when I first read if, if any of it were true.

Crichton was not a master of characterization, but here, it doesn't matter. There are enough character details to keep the men at the center of the novel from feeling like cardboard cutouts, but what makes the book great is not the people, but the science and the tension behind the investigation of the alien "life form." I remember loving the details of the different experiments they run and how Crichton drops things like "and here they made their first big mistake" into the narrative.

I'm also surprised at how well it all holds up despite the technology being antiquated. The sanitary precautions they take, the basic approach to the science, are all just as they would be today, even though I'm sure there are far more complex tools available. And the crisis itself is just creepy. I wish I could read it again for the first time as an adult and see if I could figure out the mystery before they do. Probably not.

Also, when Mark learns that the oxygen gets evacuated from the lower levels thirty seconds before detonation, meaning that he only had a few seconds to spare instead of nearly a minute, it gives me chills. I don't know why.

I think this may be my favorite Crichton novel. It's certainly the one I go back to most often. Funny which books end up being comfort reads, when it's ones you wouldn't expect.

As a Crichton fan I am a little disappointed. this one missed the mark for me. I like his dry procedural style and accept his lack of character dimension. The premise is, as always with Crichton interesting. Crichton seem to ask very important what if questions that others don't. Everything is so believable, yes even the one dimensional characters. They're brilliant scientist limited to a specific field. And they serve just as scientist brilliant only in their field. Very functionary! The military bueracracy that goes into containing a deadly outbreak was fascinating at this time of coronvirus. But of course the "wildfire group" sorta failed at containment. This is arguably a 3 or 4 star read but I have two complaints. one a minor gripe another a huge flaw imo. First the grip, Crichton as usual describes very dry scientific processes and even computer code verbatim. I usually take a star off my rating of his work because although I can forgive that part of his style. I understand it's hard for other people to read. And the major flaw imo. is that during the most dramatic parts of the narrative he cuts in and gives post character commentary. Evaporating any suspense what so ever. I understand that this is set in our current timeline and reality. And everything had to turn out alright but In a story involving nukes and a deadly virus. To cut into the suspense to say something like "this is where they knew they made a mistake but it turned out to not be deadly" is a unfortunate literary mistake. Let me think for just a second that a nuke would actually detainate or the virus would become an unstoppable outbreak or even a main character (who i admittly don't care about) would die. Please give me that at least.

Man, this was brilliant! I haven’t read Crichton since I read Jurassic Park in school and Sphere when that came out, but I’m so glad to have rediscovered him. His mix of medical mystery and hard science thriller fascinated me back then and it’s still just as intense and gripping. I often game on my laptop while I listen to audiobooks but I simply couldn’t towards the fast-paced and tension-filled last hour of the bool because I had to PAY ATTENTION.

Now I’ll go throw myself into the man’s large backlog, byebye, real life.

Το blog μου: https://cherrybookreviews.wordpress.com/2018/06/27/review-%CF%83%CF%84%CE%AD%CE%BB%CE%B5%CF%87%CE%BF%CF%82-%CE%B1%CE%BD%CE%B4%CF%81%CE%BF%CE%BC%CE%AD%CE%B4%CE%B1-%CE%B1%CF%80%CF%8C-%CF%84%CE%BF%CE%BD-michael-crichton/


Ένας κατασκοπευτικός δορυφόρος των ΗΠΑ φέρνει στην γη έναν άκρως επικίνδυνο και θανατηφόρο εξωγήινο ιό. Μια ομάδα επιστημόνων διαφόρων ειδικοτήτων συγκεντρώνεται στο μυστικό κυβερνητικό εργαστήριο που βρίσκεται θαμμένο κάπου στην έρημο της Νεβάδα με σκοπό να αναλύσει τον νέο αυτό ιό και να βρει μια θεραπεία ώστε να αποφευχθεί μια παγκόσμια πανδημία με καταστροφικές συνέπειες.
Το «Στέλεχος της Ανδρομέδας» ανήκει στο είδος της επιστημονικής φαντασίας και παίζει με τους φόβους του ανθρώπου προς τους αόρατους στο γυμνό μάτι αλλά άκρως επικίνδυνους ιούς και την επίδραση που μπορεί να έχουν στην ανθρωπότητα.
Ο Michael Crichton ήταν απόφοιτος της ιατρικής σχολής του Harvard και αυτό φαίνεται μέσα από την γραφή του που μπορεί να είναι στεγνή και χωρίς ιδιαίτερη λογοτεχνική χροιά αλλά ελκυστική και εποικοδομητική. Συχνά νόμιζα πως διάβαζα ένα non fiction βιβλίο με κεντρικό του θέμα την βιολογία.
Αν και πίστευα πως αυτό θα ήταν ένα βιβλίο γεμάτο δράση και σασπένς η ανακάλυψη πως μάλλον θα είναι ένα μυθιστόρημα με μετρίου βαθμού αγωνία (αν θέλω να είμαι τελείως ειλικρινής, θα έλεγα πως μάλλον δεν έχει ιδιαίτερα αγωνία) με μεγάλο όγκο πληροφοριών και ένα στάσιμο περιβάλλον δεν με πείραξε τόσο όσο περίμενα. Ίσα-ίσα που αυτό το χαρακτηριστικό ήταν που στο τέλος με έκανε και πέρασα πολύ καλά. Μάλιστα με εντυπωσίασε πως το μυθιστόρημα έχει γραφτεί το 1969 αλλά διαβάζεται σαν να γράφτηκε εχθές! Ο Crichton ήταν σίγουρα μπροστά από την εποχή του και η αγάπη του για την επιστήμη φαίνεται σε κάθε σελίδα.
Σκοπεύω να διαβάσω και το πιο διάσημο βιβλίο του το Jurassic Park , την κινηματογραφική του μεταφορά την είχα δει όταν ήμουν παιδί και με είχε στιγματίσει!

3 stars. I’m sure in 1969 this was cutting edge, but it doesn’t quite stack up in 2018, either in terms of suspense, science, or inclusivity. This book fails the Bechdel test so hard, it reminds me of why the Bechdel test was invented. The only women I can remember are a switchboard operator, a nurse, and a (literally, I can't make this up) recorded voice that is described as sensual, almost sexy, UNTIL the male hearer realizes it belongs to a woman in her sixties, at which point he presumably loses interest. Ugh.

Still intriguing though! Read so I could thoroughly immerse myself in the Jurassic Park series.

A superior work of science fiction read upon our return from Africa.

I've shared this before and am never hesitant to cop to it: I grew up with an outsized fear of germ warfare. By my youth, the nuclear scare was winding down and just about over so I never feared death by atomic fire from above. But I did fear death from biological agent. Anthrax. Weaponized smallpox. Germ warfare. And I read The Andromeda Strain when I was young, possibly too young. I was in third grade when Jurassic Park hit theaters which led me to Crichton by way of my parents, who checked out dog-eared copies of JP, Eaters of the Dead, and the rest from our public library. I'd usually get the copies to myself for reading on family road trips after they'd finished with them. So I've read more than a few of his titles (and seen their TV/movie adaptations) but over time I've lost a lot of the details. All I remembered about The Andromeda Strain on this second reading was that there were guys in big, bulky biohazard suits. I knew it was about germs, but forgot all about the extraterrestrial origin angle. Germs... FROM SPACE! Spooky!

Crichton occupies an interesting space in sci-fi: too technical to qualify as strictly pulp reading, not technical enough to qualify as hard sci-fi. "Techno-thriller" is the term you'll see bandied about. He gets the germ of the science topic set up (har har!) and then explores the thrilling human dramas that might take place within the general confines of that premise. He's very good at that, the thrills part, the gripping sense of "what happens next?" And the opening of The Andromeda Strain is quite effective as a thriller, given how it's framed not as a wild and extreme "what-if" scenario but rather as a dramatization of real events, comprised of interviews, military files, and fleshed-out details of what may or must have happened, after the fact of some catastrophe.

When the plot is moving fast, this is indeed thrilling. But when the action slows the faults become harder to ignore. All the characters sound alike, wooden and monotone. The minutiae of technical details pulled from classified files and woven into a traditional narrative become dry and easy to gloss over. There is no doubt that Crichton can write effectively, driving readers forward with feelings of suspense and curiosity. But he does not always write consistently, and at the times he runs out of steam his books begin to falter. What's more, in this title he has a tendency to undercut his own suspense with spoilers and commentary about things the characters missed or forgot to take into account.

3 stars out of 5. It passes the time sufficiently well but doesn't have much staying power.