The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
“The survival value of human intelligence has never been satisfactorily demonstrated.”
“A crisis is made by men, who enter into the crisis with their own prejudices, propensities, and predispositions. A crisis is the sum of intuition and blind spots, a blend of facts noted and facts ignored. Yet underlying the uniqueness of each crisis is a disturbing sameness. A characteristic of all crises is their predictability, in retrospect. They seem to have a certain inevitability, they seem predestined.”
“Human intelligence was more trouble than it was worth. It was more destructive than creative, more confusing than revealing, more discouraging than satisfying, more spiteful than charitable.”
The Andromeda Strain is about a contamination that happens on Earth due to a satellite falling from space. It lands in a town where subsequently everyone dies except for two people who are on opposite ends of the life spectrum. A group of carefully pre-chosen scientists gather to try and figure out what is going on. They are in this highly classified and scientifically advanced facility deep underground. They do scientific processes to try and understand what the thing is. The government is involved. What is this thing that is infectious and dangerous? Will they figure it out in time? Will humanity be safe?
Michael Crichton, from Jurassic Park fame, wrote this book and I thought it would be better. This one was too scientific and the flow was interrupted by the interjection of details that an everyday reader would get lost in. It could have been cut out and filled in with more tense moments. I know that this was written decades ago but I found it lacking women. It was very patriarchal. There were a couple techniques that were employed that foreshadowed what conflict there was to come and I thought it was well done. It isn’t something I have come across before. I liked how I knew something would go wrong before it happened and then still, I was excited to read how it would truly unfold. It was a quick, engaging read. Stories around natural disasters like tornadoes or viruses are ones I love. When people are working together towards a common goal and are given separate tasks that all help with the bigger goal make me happy. It is like each person has their own skill and the group is relying on them. Even though there was a tense portion of the story towards the end I was very disappointed with the overall conclusion. It went out with a whimper instead of a bang and I was left wanting more. Mr. Crichton could have had so much fun with it. The words that I came across here that grabbed my attention were misanthropic, effete, and elucidating. I was surprised especially after reading Jurassic Park. This is exactly the type of book to read only the first 75%.
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