Micro-organism from outer-space!. Review on Andromeda Strain, The - Michael Crichton

Today I completed one more novel of Michael Crichton named ‘The Andromeda Strain’. Previous to this, I’ve read his other novels, ‘Congo’, ‘Sphere’, ‘Jurassic Park’, and ‘Eaters of the Dead’ aka ‘The 13th Warrior’.  I owned one more novel of him, yet still unread, ‘The Lost World’. So, now this one is my 5th read of him, and I loved this book too. This book I bought long back, but now got the time to read it. I was going through my closet and found this one, and decided to bring it with me, and now I’ve finished it, so here’s the review of it.

‘The Andromeda Strain’ is Michael Crichton’s 6th novel, which was first published in 1969; it’s basically a techno-thriller. Alongwith other above-mentioned novels, this one has also been adapted as a film, which was released in 1971 with the same name. But I have watched another adaptation of it long back, which was the TV miniseries, which composed of 2 episodes and released in 2008. That movie was very dull, hence I lost the interest to read the book, but as we all know that what you watch is not what you read, so never judge a book by its adaptation. And I found the book worth a read, now that I’ve completed it. The book I owned is published by Random House, and goes on for 285 pages (which I finished in 7 days), divided over 5 days, 30 chapters and an epilogue. I bought the book for Rs.95. Michael Crichton was one of the best techno-thriller writers, plus he was also a producer, director and a screen-writer, died on 4th November 2008. He’s best known for ‘Jurassic Park’, and his last book published was ‘Micro’ in 2011, while writing it he died, so it was completed by another author. I am interested in his other books like, ‘The Terminal Man’, ‘The Great Train Robbery’, ‘Timeline’, ‘Pirate Latitudes’, and ‘Micro’, let’s see when I get hand on them.

This is a story about a military satellite, which falls to the Piedmont, Arizona area, and a team was sent to recover it. But the two person of the team found the city as quiet as dead. And soon they both died too, just in a matter of few seconds. Nobody knows the reason to this strange thing. A team was asked to investigate, which contains of 4 members – Dr.Jeremy Stone (Bacteriologist), Dr.Peter Leavitt (Disease Pathology expert), Dr.Charles Burton (Infection Vectors Specialist), and Dr.Mark Hall (Biochemist,Surgeon), who was the only unmarried person and the ‘odd man’. They conclude that the satellite is infected by a microorganism from outer space and this microorganism is very lethal, the person in its contact died within seconds, it create blood clotting at lungs which spread outward and within 3 seconds whole blood get clotted and the person died, holding his chest. If it is unable to clot the blood, it creates brain hemorrhage, people become mad and suicidal. But there are 2 survivors – Peter Jackson, an old man, and an infant. How did they survive? They need to find a reason and to contain the virus before it spreads further.

Story is nice, and the explanation is terrific, it’s totally written to the expert level of science, all the hi-fi scientific details have been given. If you love sci-fi, you’ll love this one too. But yes then it’s have a drawback, not all like science fiction, and if it have a heavy dose of scientific explanation, then many would give the book a miss, that’s why this book is limited to only a specific kind of readers, like me ?. This book dealt more with a scientific discovery and less on action, so its lots of theory, though there’s action in the climax. Readability scores fewer points this time because of this and you require more brain out. All the critics gave the novel a thumbs-up for its matter. The explanation of crisis at hand is wonderfully explained, though you can say it’s going on slow. The explanation of their world-class ‘Wildfire Laboratory’ is explained to minute details, what an imagination, I must say.

I am a fan of Michael Crichton, and now that I have completed one more novel of him, I will surely going to buy other novels soon. My take for this one 3.5/5. Do check it out.

GRuchirG.

Jai Raam ji ki :)