The Andromeda Strain

by Michael Crichton

NOW CELEBRATING ITS 50th ANNIVERSARY
Read the spectacular techno-thriller that catapulted Jurassic Park author Michael Crichton to fame.

Five prominent biophysicists give the United States government an urgent warning: sterilisation procedures for returning space probes may be inadequate to guarantee uncontaminated re-entry to the atmosphere. Two years later, Project Scoop sends seventeen satellites into the fringes of space in order to 'collect organisms and dust for study'.

Then a probe falls to the earth, landing in a desolate area of northeastern Arizona. A little while later, in the nearby town of Piedmont, bodies are discovered heaped and flung across the ground, faces locked in frozen surprise. But the terror has only just begun, because when they try to find the cause of death, the scientists don't realise just what kind of unearthly danger they are dealing with...

Brilliantly filmed by Robert Wise in 1971, The Andromeda Strain was the first book to introduce Michael Crichton's audacious combination of believable plots and white-knuckled excitement to a wide audience.

• ISBN10: 0099319519
• ISBN13: 9780099319511
• Publish Date: 5 October 1995 (first published 12 May 1969)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Cornerstone
• Imprint: Arrow Books Ltd
• Format: Paperback (A-Format (178x111 mm))
• Pages: 304
• Language: English

Reviews

[jamiereadthis]

I’m trying to imagine reading this the same year Apollo 11 landed on the moon. Wow.

Fifty years later, it still feels so very plausible. The dry technical parts only make it more plausible. I like this kind of thriller.

I will say that, weirdly, I found this book comforting (I blame years of finding The X-Files comforting), but I had the craziest dreams while I was reading it. Things like: my teeth were broken. Or I couldn’t fall asleep. (Which is an especially diabolical dream once you’re already asleep.) So maybe Crichton was pulling some subliminal voodoo mind tricks, or maybe it’s just my own brain, but this is a great weirdly-comforting book that might or might not play tricks on your brain.