“No blood!!!” (The Andromeda Strain - Michael Crichton)

Member Name: zOOm

Product:	The Andromeda Strain - Michael Crichton
Date:	10/10/01 (413 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good story

Disadvantages: Can't tell whether it's real or not!, Lame ending

This is a weird book! At the start, the author claims that this is a true story. But then you question it because if it was, then he wouldn’t be allowed to write about it because it is about the secret experiments that the Government of the United States carried out during the 60’s. I have checked the author’s website and he claims that he started this as fiction, but it turned out that it was a true story afterall. In the Acknowledgements section the author does thank enough people of importance to make you believe it is a true story.

The book was written in 1969 and it "recounts the five-day history of a major American Scientific crisis" which took place during 1968.

The book concentrates on 5 scientists who are the chosen ones to deal with any emergency scientific situation. Project Wildfire is designed to make sure that humanity is not threatened by the experiments that are being carried out by the government.

A facility is constructed that allows them to study the biological threat in secret with only the President's knowledge.

The Plot (Spoilers)
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The satellite "Scoop VII" crashes near a town called Piedmont. It's mission was to collect "lifeforms" from the edge of the atmosphere to be studied by the scientists to evaluate their use as biological weapons.

Contact is lost with the army unit responsible for recovering the satellite and the commander of the operation calls for a directive 7-12 (I'll let you find out what that is) and requests that Project Wildfire memebers be called into action.

Although having been setup 2 years earlier, project Wildfire members never faced an emergency. The 5 scientists are flown in to a secret location that the research building is in. The building is constructed into the rock and has 5 levels of decontamination so that nothing escapes the facility.

So far all the Sco
pp missions have returned with nothing significant, but Scoop VII is different. There is something wrong at Piedmont. The whole population (about 48 people) has died and there are only 2 survivors. A new born baby and an old man. What is the connection? Why did they survive and everyone else died?

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At 300 pages the book is written well and although the excitement level never gets to "amazing" status, it never drops to "boing" status. The story runs like a techno-thriller rather than a technical report. The terms and language used is sometimes too technical, and it is interesting to see what the government computers were capable of back in the 60's. It makes you think what they are capable of now.

The story is told from the point of view of the 5 different characters rather than the point of view of an outside observer which would have made the book boring. There are a lot of biological details explained which I am inclined to believe are true. In any case it makes an interesting reading.

Although this is no match for a Tom Clancy techno-thriller, I do recommend this book to anyone that is interested in biology, computers, conspiracy theories and just a good read.

Summary: