The Andromeda Strain

by Michael Crichton

What if there was a virus so lethal, it could kill people as quickly as they took a breath? What if it spared some people from instant death…but drove them hopelessly insane instead? What if the softest acting, deadliest virus ever known to humankind could be spread by no more than a gust of wind—from the remote desert site of its first massacre to the busiest cities in America…and the world? What, if anything, could stop it?

There are no villains in this hot zone. Only the microscopic seeds of Earth’s extinction. It is stealthy, sudden, savage. And we are all susceptible to it…
—back cover

• ISBN10: 0307816419
• ISBN13: 9780307816412
• Publish Date: 10 May 2014 (first published 12 May 1969)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publisher: Random House USA Inc
• Imprint: Vintage Books
• Format: eBook
• Pages: 205
• 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.