The Andromeda Strain

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Summary: AN INTRESTING AND RIVETING NOVEL BY THE KING OF THRILL
Review: A very intresting story about a killer virus that lands on Earth in a contaminated satellite called Scoop. The virus clotts up your blood or drives you to the brink of total insanity and causes you to calmly kill yourself in sometimes a very odd fashion. If Crichton keeps this sort of novels coming out for a while longer he will be known as the king of the technothriller, or the master of suspense. If you haven't read any of his books, and you're looking for a intresting and suspenseful author who delivers a powerhouse of a novel every time he writes, read Crichton, and read The Andromeda Strain The reason I enjoyed this novel so much is that he doesn't write it from the viewpoint of someone who is running from the virus, but someone who is trying to stop it. If you are planning to go to the library anytime soon, check this out and start reading it ASAP.

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Summary: True terror...
Review: Be prepared for the unexpected! This hair-raising novel by Micheal Crichton deserves all of the awards!

Project Scoop, a government owned space project, has launched seventeen satellites into the edges of space to collect organisms and space bacteria for further study. The satellites had all been failures, until one falls to earth, raging havoc on the unsuspecting inhabitants of Piedmont,AZ. The 48 citizens were found dead, flung to the ground in heaps, clutching their chests, and wearing a frozen look of surprise and pain on their faces. Project Wildfire is launched immediatey. 5 specialists are called in, and they find something horrible, something that could destroy all possible life on this planet. Something that has a deadly pattern of destruction. Something unexpected....

I really enjoyed this book by Micheal Crichton. Even though it scared the pants off of me at first, I couldn't seem to put it down. It is definatley my favorite of his books, and I even like it better than "Jurassic Park". The format of the book is so realistic that you find yourself wondering if it really is nonfiction, no matter what the label on the spine says. For a chilling masterpiece that you can't put down, read "The Andromeda Strain" by Micheal Crichton.

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Summary: STUNNED
Review: The Andromeda Strain by Micheal Crichton is an intense book about several scientists racing to eliminate deadly bacteria, which came from outer space. In some ways I see it as a horror because of its direct applications to real life, its believability. It doesn¡¦t infer any blame on the government, like a lot of biological thrillers do. Yet it does surmise the possibility of underground facilities in which the equipment is tech enough to handle many kinds of biological disaster, or outbreaks. The premise of the book was good and the action sequences were nail biting. Although there was a lot of dated components, old computers, methods, etc., I feel it still ran miles ahead of its time, for a book that was written in the 60s. I felt awfully empty when reading the parts of the book in which the town was described. It made me feel like I was going to die. The scientist that did the fieldwork wore these moon-suits with tube for oxygen bulging from the sides. The people they found were dead, when the veins were cut open on the corpses the blood rolled out like sand. But before they left, two brought along¡Xalive. All of these things were part of plot development and key to the book's clincher. The characters in the book were easy to identify with. They had families, personality flaws, and compassion. Characters, I feel, make or break a book¡¦s quality level. The Andromeda Strain is a good book to read if you¡¦re a fiction junky. It also tantalizes the intellectual, and entertains the novice.

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Summary: Interesting book playing off an issue of the time
Review: This book was written around 1969, when astronauts were first landing on the moon. There was a serious concern about the possibility, however slight, that there were micro-organisms on the moon that might return to Earth and cause an epidemic. This concern led to the quarantine of returning astronauts (and the rocks they collected) from the first few missions that landed. This ended when the fears proved unfounded. (There is an interesting side note. The second moon landing recovered several pieces of an unmanned probe that had landed several years earlier. It was found that bacteria in the probe had survived the launch, the landing on the moon, and several years on the airless surface of the moon with temperature swings of hundreds of degrees.)

This book plays off of this idea of "bad stuff from space causes problems on Earth." There are more than 300 other reviews, so I'll mostly leave the plot alone here. What I liked about it was the sense it gave of scientific investigation of an important topic on a short time scale. Trying to "beat the clock," the scientists have to come up with and discard theories for how the unfamiliar organism works with unaccustomed speed, which (as you might imagine) stresses them out. In parallel with other Crichton books, the action takes place over about a week, with simple errors and accidents costing valuable time. The book is newly relevant with the possibility of "designer" biological agents from labs in rouge nations (or from terrorists) playing the role of the alien infectious agent in the book.

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Summary: The Father of the techno thriller at his best!
Review: This is Michael Crichton's first novel (not considering the pseudonym thrillers he wrote while in college). It's also his best and the most thrilling science fiction novel I've ever read. If science fiction to you means aliens, spaceships, monsters and all those things, you're in for a big disappointment.

A scoop satellite sent into space to collect micro-organisms for study crash lands in a desolate area of Arizona. Two army officers are sent to retrieve the satellite. But before they get there, people from a nearby town find the wreck, and try to investigate. When the officers reach the town, all they find is deathly silence. Miles away, in Mission Control, the transmission from the officers is monitored, and the last thing heard is a high pitched scream.

Further investigations reveal that all the people in the town have been killed. Some just dropped dead on the streets, their blood clotted, and others driven hopelessly insane and finally committing suicide. The only survivors are a drunk old man and a young baby. It's a biological disaster that wiped out the entire town. Immediately, a team of experts is gathered in a top secret underground laboratory to investigate the deadly bacteria code-named 'The Andromeda Strain'. The team must race against time to learn more about the organism, which begins to mutate and take on even more dangerous forms. The biggest mystery, of course, is why the two individuals who seem to have absolutely nothing in common survived...

Definitely a best-selling plot. Once again, the high point ot the novel is the technological detail. The secret lab is amazing. It has a decontamination process that takes almost a whole day. The bacteria itself is entirely authentic. As in most Crichton novels, the action is accompanied by essential illustrations to better explain the tests carried out by the scientists. Even if you're a layman, Crichton makes you feel quite comfortable even with all the seemingly technical gibberish.

Although there's not much action, the plot is quite thrilling. I read the entire book in a single sitting! The only disadvantage is the climax which is slightly disappointing. Still, it's a fabulous book you simply can't afford to miss. I loved it, and I suppose you will too!