The Strain That Started It All(A Book Review of Michael Crichton’s The Andromeda Strain)Where others credit classic writers like Jules Verne and H. G. Wells, I forever owe my first real taste of science fiction to Michael Crichton — long before I was even made aware that such a classification exists — and perhaps, as I think of it now, even more.I still remember the day I borrowed Congo from the high school library during my junior year. What made me pick me the book is this vague idea that’s it’s something about monkeys from a film of the same title, if I’m not mistaken then. Monkeys it didn’t have, but gorillas — and talking gorillas at that! I was just so amused by the ingenuity that there’s this machine that could make animals talk by simple hand gestures. This, coupled with my interest in Biology from the previous school year, the mystery of a long, undiscovered civilization in the heart of the jungle of Congo, the nifty gadgets that Crichton featured and a priced precious stone so desired by the parties involved — not only by the value it could've fetched in the market but also by its unusual industrial capabilities — made me turn the pages all too quickly. The book was just filled with so much fond memories recalling it now I think it was one of the books I first bought from Booksale (my baptism of fire that used book shops exists) in their (now closed) Isetann branch for P35 (the money in question I nicked from my PUP college examination fee).My second Crichton, though not strictly belonging to the sci-fi field, is an interesting page turner too. Borrowed from a senior high school classmate who brought it one day (I have no idea why), Rising Sun is a murder mystery. I remember breezing through this one urged by that simple instinct to know the killer without even pausing to think what all those Japanese mumbo-jumbo and culture references meant. Later, I would find out it’s sort of a fictionalized appraisal how Japanese do their business dealings in America. I don’t know if the book’s all about that, but I do know that this one begs for a reread. It’s been quite a long time.Jurassic Park and Sphere were next reads from college highly influenced by their movie adaptations.That case can be said of the former where the movie made the book which in turn made the author a household name in the genre. Dinosaurs have been much a part of the popular culture, but it’s to Crichton’s credit that he made them mainstream once more, no small thanks to director Stephen Spielberg’s animatronics (at a time when CGI special effects were still in its gestation period) that breathed life to this colossal reptilian monsters. What made me appreciate the book more than the movie are not the dinosaurs though. It’s the cutting edge technology that made me love this book and its author further. Crichton has such a way with words that topic you would’ve found boring, like biotechnology or cloning, sizzles with excitement under his deft narration. I mean, no writer I haven’t read then has the single ability to be so informative (I always feel a bit smarter when I’m reading one of his books) yet glues me to my seat with exhilaration at the same time. Other than an entertaining read, I see Jurassic Park as a cautionary tale about the dangers of technology: that though how much knowledge humans can attain, it cannot grasp nature in its control.I believe his sixth novel, Sphere, is one of his overlooked and underrated work that needs attention more than it warrants. Forget about its crappy movie adaptation no matter how sexy you think seeing Sharon Stone having her middle finger in a boner. What at first is an all out sci-fi plot turns into something else and from where it goes I'm definitely shutting my lips tight — you have to find that one for yourself, Gentle Reader. Just for kicks, I love to reread this one, too!It is for this blatant affection for Michael Crichton work’s and how he had put his own imprint in science fiction — giving birth to the techno-thriller subgenre — underscored by his theme examining the present day human affairs through scientific advances grounded in today’s technology, research and development that reads like speculative nightmares that could be tomorrow’s headline that, despite this post being apparently behind its intended schedule, I wish to do him honor by featuring him as the Author of the Month of October 2011 in this dark alley along with reading his debut novel The Andromeda Strain.The Andromeda Strain starts with a top-secret U. S. military arm tasked to find new biological weapons by sending satellites near space to gather samples of bacteria strains. When one of these spacecrafts crashes in an Arizona town, grotesquely killing all but two of its residents, a highly classified emergency contingent team called Wildfire is set into motion. Composed of four pre-selected scientists abruptly summoned from their daily lives, they are locked into a secret research facility located deep within the Nevada desert racing against time to study and find the answer to stop the spread of this lethal microorganism before it causes too much destruction across the globe.Published a good four decades ago, The Andromeda Strain is quite a revealing book first, because it displays an uncanny precise guesswork and second, it lays the foundation of the kind of writer Crichton will later become.Seen as work printed in the 1960s, I’m just astounded by the tremendous imagination the author has considering he wrote it at such a young age. Sure thing, binary codes, voice activated mechanisms, computer imaging processes, airtight protective suits, biometrics, underground laboratories and biosafety measures are technologies so common today that we thought them beneath our notice. Imagine reading about that in the 60s? Add to this how had Crichton foreseen that, aside from the threat posed by the nuclear advancement and arms race of the Cold War, biotechnology will also be a cause of concern in the years to come. Pretty neat, eh? But more than those, I think the book strikes a very uncanny parallelism to the space race mindset of the 60s with the current day paranoia we have over incidents like biological terrorism (e.g. the Anthrax attack in the White House and some parts of the world) and the germination of mutating pandemic super-flu viruses (e.g. H1N1 and Bird Flu).It’s also surprising to learn that some of the literary techniques Crichton used in The Andromeda Strain he will use in later books. As can be noticed from the novel’s plot, it takes science fiction writing to a new degree of stark realism leading people who read it during its initial publication to believe it really happened. Combine with that the structure of the novel patterned like a highly classified government evaluation document and the distanced, non-fiction manner in which it is narrated. It not lend an illusion of believability to the work but also a snoopiness to urge readers to read on and give its narrator elbow room to dissect the crisis, hand out nagging questions with as little answers as it can until the book final’s reveal, and to occasionally insert comments and hints at screw ups and mistakes for the suspense to permeate and leave the readers in the edge of their seats.The novel is un-apologetically clinical. The reader can clearly see that Crichton mined his medical training and background in full as the book is replete with technical descriptions. However, the author knows how to goad his readers on and as fans of Michael’s books knows best he knows how to present scientific ideas by clearly drawing, citing examples and analogies for easy comprehension. Also, the focus with which the author dedicate the minute details of the medical conundrum of the scientists’ work balances quite nicely against the tension knowing the large-scale devastation they are battling against.Being the author’s first work, corollary, it also has its share of slip ups. To begin with, the four scientists feels one dimensional to me, their mostly a cut out of their job or of the role they are going to play for much of the novel. Even in the face of impending doom there’s nothing to make me, and other readers for that matter, care for these characters. Eventually, why do I want them to survive this crisis? So you see, as much as the distanced narration worked on certain levels, it didn’t quite proved effective in this particular area and in some points it lessen the story’s tempo. (view spoiler)[Ultimately, the resolution how the scientists found the answer to the Andromeda crisis has the quality of a dues ex machina to it. There’s this side of me that thinks it’s a total letdown while there’s the other part of me (when I thought much about it) that says it ends on the right note with questions to keep readers thinking some of the concepts explored in the book (also a theme shared by his some of his later works) it’s the people. (hide spoiler)]
Branko Galonja Ms. Campanella English 3H Period 2 8 December 2009 The Andromeda Strain The genre of this breath-taking and awe-inspiring book is classified as a Science Fiction novel, one with many technological and medicinal terms. I chose this book because I am a huge fan of Michael Crichton and I love Science-Fiction novels. I love the feeling of mystery and fear throughout the books and love to see what the characters do in the situations of peril and disaster. The setting takes place in the small town of Piedmont, Arizona. This was a quiet and peaceful little town before the strange and destructive event took place. It seems that there was a satellite out of orbit and was on a destructive path spiraling towards the earth and unfortunately landed in Piedmont, Arizona. As soon as the satellite hit the small town, all the residents in the area started to decimate away. It was a complete mystery, but as soon as the satellite collided with that town, every single living organism died in that town. An investigation party was sent to search and research the crash site, but before they made any report of what they saw, they died as well. So after that two doctors were sent in to take samples of the specimens on or near the site of the crash just in case if any evidence was seen concerning the deaths of all those people. Stone and Burton were sent in to check the crash and encountered possibly the most horrible organism a man meet. It was absolutely disgusting in its approach and it was barely visible. It was up to these two brave scientists to figure out what caused this tragedy and make sure it does not spread to other areas of the United States. Dr. Stone, Dr. Burton, Dr. Hall, and Dr. Leavitt are definitely the protagonists and the antagonist could be the deadly bacterium. The supporting characters are Officer Wilson, Dr. Robertson and Peter Jackson as well as Arthur Mancek who are all part of the team to solve this mystery. The Central conflict conflict could be seen as man versus nature because of their epic fight to solve the mystery of The Andromeda Virus and its horrible symptoms. They would like to see how the virus functions and to create an antidote for the disease so just in case if someone catches the infection, they will be able to survive the horrible process. They would also like to contain the virus and be definite that it does not spread past the town of Piedmont, Arizona. The theme of this book could be the significance of teamwork in the face of a catastrophe. Teamwork is extremely needed in the face of a horrible ordeal, because if one tries to take on a complex situation by himself, he will surely fail. But if there are friends and family there to help him through the troubles he has a higher chance of succeeding through the ordeal. The motifs in this book are teamwork and strong will. In this book these motifs are expressed greatly, because if they are not utilized by the scientific team, they surely would have been infected by the virus and would have seen the same fate as the others in the town. They worked together, never giving in to the extremities of the virus, fighting through the pain and eventually defeating the virus. In this book there is quite a few examples of figurative language. For example there is a great deal of similes and metaphors and one or two examples of personification. The writing style of the author is interpreted in the language of Science and Medicine. This book in general, has a good amount of scientific and medicinal terms. There is a necessity to this kind of language to further interest the reader because it allows him or her to experience what situations a real doctor must endure through. It gives a real feeling of what the body might go through a disease or what the physical appearance of the body might be because of the infection of the disease. But I was in total awe when I was reading the novel. By every flip of the page, I grew more and more interested in the book. The vivid language of Science and medicine really caught my attention and allowed me to express what a real doctor must go through in the face of a dying patient or critically injured patient. I recommend this book to anyone who likes Science-Fiction novels and who likes a good story of natural disaster and mysteries.
What do You think about The Andromeda Strain (2003)?
This book is all about the tension, not the payoff. As with most entertainment, this book pulls you in by asking some questions. "What is it?" "How does it work?" "What happened?" While those questions are still being asked, this book is a fairly thrilling read.If you don't like books that get too technical about things, though, this isn't the book for you. It's full of pages from government documents, computer readouts, and the like. That only helps the book go by quicker, because I just skipped most of that stuff. For the most part, the book lacks a main protagonist. Even the best candidate for main protagonist isn't given too much to do, and when he is, it's forced. I guess this book works because of the fear of the unknown. Without that, it would be full of boring descriptions of scientific and medical procedures.
—Russ
I saw this movie when it came out. I was about ten at the time, and it impressed me quite a bit. I don't think I've seen it since. Yet I can still vividly remember much of it, and found myself comparing scenes in the book to my recollection of the movie. Here's one of the rare examples where the movie is better than the book, or at least my fond memories of a ten year old's impression of the movie is better.Crichton has great ideas, but his writing is pedestrian at best, his characters lack character, and he doesn't seem to develop the ideas very much at all. I thought that was true of the dreadful Jurassic Park, and it's pretty much the case with this book as well. The situation is gripping. But the treatment of it is fairly boring.The themes between the two books are remarkably consistent. The scientists are out of their league. Technology fails. Either there is no solution, or here, the solution is built into the problem itself. So that nothing man does makes any difference, unless its to make things much, much worse.I was charmed by the quaintness of the super-computers used. Today, much of what they did can now be done anywhere on people's phones. But then, there is a medical diagnosis robot in this book that is still beyond the capability of any computer AI. So the book both shows how quaint the technology was, and how things that sci-fi writers envisioned in the near future are actually much harder to achieve than they thought.I ended up kind of liking this book, but mostly I think because it took me back to my recollection of the movie and of my childhood. If I had read it without that background, I'd probably be much more harsh.
—Duffy Pratt
I read The Andromeda Strain back in my youth and had fond memories of it. So, I recently grabbed an eBook version to revisit it. I'm not exactly sure from where the fond memories came. It's not that great a book. On the positive side, there are few female characters so Crichton's misogynistic streak is mostly absent, but that's about it.Dialogue is sparse and flat. Characters aren't much better. Crichton seems more intent on showing off his research than about telling a compelling story. The whole thing is written as a report, which gives it an air of authenticity. Unfortunately, this also makes it like reading a report. In other words, it's somewhat dry and boring. I still found it readable, but I actually kinda like dry and boring. Still, this was too dry and boring, even for me.The story doesn't have the usual climax. The important thing is the journey, not the destination. But, again, the journey itself isn't exactly gripping.
—Tommy Carlson
