Nightstrike's Reviews: The Andromeda Strain

Currently painting my sample of NS-001-1, so I'm fairly busy this week. I'll share photos soon, though.

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Here's another brief one, partly because there's so much in this book that's central to the plot, and even the premise itself gives away some of what happens. That being said, this is one of Michael Crichton's earlier books, and it definitely maintains that similar feel (Struggling scientists underestimating threat). However, in this case, they managed to ascertain what the issues were and isolate them before the "strain" in question caused mass casualties.

I don't want to go into detail on this, but I highly recommend this one, despite how old it is. Initially I wrote much more for this review, but as I said, even details on the premise can give away the plot to anyone with a fair amount of biological knowledge.

Overall rating: 9.5/10

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[UPDATE: 08_09_2021-11_50_AM]

After looking back over this, I said "screw it." So I'm adding in a little bit of this:

Warning: Spoiler-Heavy Ahead!

The book is structured as if it were a military report, so it focuses very little on the characters themselves, and more on the mistakes they tend to make. One of the opening scenes has a microbe-collecting satellite crashing in a town, and shortly after, a two-man team is sent to recover the object. Not long after, they go radio-silent themselves, after commenting on the dead bodies littering the street.

Fast-forward several hours.

The government has declared this to be an emergency, but are attempting to keep it under wraps. Fortunately, they had prepared for such an emergency, and assemble the "Wildfire" team, a protocol in the event of some form of extraterrestrial microbe being let loose on Earth.

Now here's the part that I initially dwelled on: The microbe is unique. Even considering its environment, it processes energy with 100% efficiency and is capable of adapting as a result of this. It consumes polymers, and is crystalline in structure, as opposed to the "bags of organelles" that make up most cellular life on Earth. In other words, it's the perfect lifeform (as opposed to crabs!). As my family can attest, I'm still dwelling on this information, and talking their ears off about Crichton-related factoids.