The Andromeda Strain

by Michael Crichton

Book Overview

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - The novel that redefined the science fiction genre, starring a team of scientists who must uncover what killed the citizens of a sleepy desert town--and stop the deadly... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0345378482
• ISBN13: 9780345378484
• Release Date: September 1992
• Publisher: Ballantine Books
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 0.36 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 4.2" x 6.8"

Customer Reviews

Not Knowing To Loving

I'm 22, To be honest i didn't know who MC was until i was 18 and I started reading Jurrasic Park and The Lost World this past Year, and I wanted to read them since the original cinema trilogy was a huge part of my childhood. But then i read this one. The Andromeda Strain is one of his first books, and just shows how all the Research he put into everything for each book. And making things as real as possible onto the page for imersion. Its a great way to start off your journey into MCs mind. 10/10. I am on a quest to read more of his works! Wish me luck that i don't get lost in his worlds.

excellent book,no spoiler alert..updated june 2021

i originally saw the movie before learning more about this book(and several others) when i was studying environmental science in college. i got the book yesterday and it is such a good book. so far the basic premise is the same as the movie but some of the details are a little diff.hoping the ending is the same as i am about half way done. cricton is an excellent writer and leaves you wanting more. character development is very deep in this book,a huge reason it is so addictive the characters also are very human and relatable. anyone interested in science and or future studies would enjoy this book. Update i was very disappointed in the ending. As i said i saw the movie first but even if i had not I would be angry at the ending. some of the details leading up the ending hint at the ending but those details could also mean other things. The ending was as ridiculous as say a shape shifting alien crash landing in antartica and killing off the base personnel one at a time.(not saying that was a bad movie,just that is was 99.9999% unrealistic).

An excellent early book, worth reading even in the 21st Cent

I've enjoyed a number of Michael Crichton's novels, finding his erudition and dedicated research and some of his philosophy in sympathy with my own interests and concerns. In looking through a list of his books, I found that I had read most of the later works but had missed one of his very first, The Andromeda Strain. I decided to correct the omission and fully enjoyed the book. Although it's a little dated (having been penned in 1969), it bears up well. I was amazed at the number of scientific discoveries that were already put to technological use as early as the 60's (fiber optics being the one that comes most readily to mind).As in so many of his other works of fiction, Crichton introduces underlying issues of modern society, bringing some of the behavior we tend to accept as a "given" into question. In the case of the Andromeda Strain, he focuses on the hubris of the US military and of the scientific community. He highlights society's blind faith in technological "fixes" for every miss management of the environment, as though scientists and engineers can unfailing forestall the effects of every misdeed perpetrated by humanity on the rest of the planet. In Andromeda Strain, the space program has been more or less subtly commandeered by the military to probe Earth's upper atmosphere for non-terrestrial bacteria with which to culture biological weapons of mass destruction--sound familiar? They succeed more fully than they are prepared to handle when the tiny organisms get loose among the naive biota of the earth, wrecking havoc with every living thing. To the rescue is a team of 5 carefully chosen scientists from a variety of fields, sealed away in a hyper-isolation facility in the middle of the Southwestern Desert. Can they save the earth in time? Read on!An excellent early book, worth reading even in the 21st Century.

Strain Relief

This book is the best, and I could never put it down! It describes the search for an organism that is killing people. The way Crichton portrays all of his characters is magnificent, which is why I really connected with this book. I felt as if I was the missing scientist from the team! I sincerely liked the way Crichton concealed the identity of the person who deciphered the mystery. I genuinely enjoyed reading about the long hours spent down in Level V of the Wildfire base. This is where Hall took care of Mr. Jackson and the baby, where Burton performed his autopsies, and where Stone and Leavitt worked on finding the organism. The other part I thoroughly enjoyed was reading about Burton and Stone while they were in Piedmont, looking for the satellite. What they found was so startling, that you hardly new what to expect next. I really believe you should buy this book, because it is such a wonderful scientific mystery!

Hard to Comprehend, Easy to Understand

This isn't my first Michael Crichton book, but i think it's the best. I've read Jurassic Park, and the Lost World before this, and they were fairly good. But this book topped both of them. It was assigned summer reading for me this year, and i thought, "Oh great, another boring book that i have to read." But when i started reading it, I found myself reading for 2 hours just striving to complete the next chapter.(I'm a slow reader) The words that he uses are sometimes hard to read, and i pulled out a dictionary for all the ones that i couldn't figure out. I don't really like reading books, but this book has changed my mind on reading. It was so suspenseful in the end that i found i chewed my fingernails down to stubs when i finished reading. Anyone who loves suspense will be over powered by the amount of it generated by this book.

Way ahead of its time

This is the first Crichton book that I ever read. The book is a thrilling account of the introduction of a space-borne bacteria into the earths atmosphere. The bacteria wipes everyone in a small town except a drunk and a crying baby. The book is a life-like account of what the scientists found, how they tried to find what the bacteria is, why these two people survived, and how do they find a cure. I felt the fictional technology was incredible by todays standards, much less in 1969 when this book was originally copywrited.As an Engineer, I found this book absolutely awsome. The way the book was written in general was excellent. They way the story was layed out for the reader made it so that I never wanted to put it down. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who likes science/science fiction based work.