The Andromeda Strain
by Michael Crichton · first published 1969
44% recommend49% neutral7% critical
Why HN recommends it
Tense, science-heavy medical-mystery thriller about a lab team facing an outbreak, praised for realistic technical detail, its underground lab setting, and its warning about unintended consequences.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
The Andromeda Strain is a 1969 techno-thriller novel by Michael Crichton, his first novel under his own name and his sixth novel overall. It is written as a report documenting the efforts of a team of scientists investigating the outbreak of a deadly extraterrestrial microorganism in New Mexico. The Andromeda Strain appeared in the New York Times Best Seller list, establishing Michael Crichton as a genre writer.
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Interesting - I greatly enjoyed Crichton's earlish work (e.g. Jurassic Park, Andromeda Strain), but found his later stuff to be terrible in its scientific basis and _Prey_ was when I stopped reading because I found it too terrible to just enjoy. Glad someone enjoyed it, I may have been too picky.
on “Michael Crichton and Computers” ↗One of my favorite aspects of Andromeda Strain is the color coded levels of the underground laboratory, that correspond to different target emotional states for the research team (or something like that — it’s been a while). Watching West World on…
on “Movies you should own: The Andromeda Strain” ↗I was a huge Crichton fan when younger, and Andromeda Strain and most of his earlier stuff is head and shoulders above later work. The movie isn't bad either. I'd definitely skip reading anything newer than Lost World. Like Tom Clancy, at some point (and $) you…
on “The International Space Station is growing mould, inside and outside” ↗Check out the book Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton. Plot revolves around something that starts eating all plastic and the chaos that results
on “We Could Brighten Clouds to Cool the Earth” ↗I felt the exact way when I read "The Andromeda Strain". For me, it was the exhaustive statistics and bibliography that sealed the deal. Still one of my favorite Crichton works.
on “The fake chemical compound Isaac Asimov invented to punk science writers” ↗…descriptions of clothes. A Clash of Kings: A song of Ice and Fire, Book 2 - Great book. Diary of a Wimpy Kid - Good book for a kid, pretty irritating kid though (the kid in the book, not mine). The Andromeda Strain - Excellent! Christ the Sum of All Spiritual Things - Great book! Very healthy view of a Christocentric theology. Dracula - Sleeper hit of the year. This book was awesome. Pippi Longstocking - Read…
on “Ask HN: Books you read in 2015?” ↗- Lord of the Rings - Peace Is Every Step - The Hobbit - A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME - The Andromeda Strain - The Power of Now
on “Ask HN: Books you read in 2016?” ↗…Alexandre Dumas - The Aubrey-Maturin Series by Patrick O'Brian - The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon - Watchmen by various - Star Trek: Doctor's Orders by Diane Duane - The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton - Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini - Ice Station Zebra by Alistair MacLean - The Cthulhu Casebooks - Sherlock Holmes and the Sussex Sea-Devils by James Lovegrove - Contact by Carl…
on “Ask HN: What is your favorite fiction book?” ↗…info dumping / FAQing the derivations. In that light, some similar stories I've found are... - Dragon's Egg (Robert Forward) - Of Ants and Dinosaurs (Liu Cixin, 3 body problem author) - The Andromeda Strain (Crichton, more medsci than math) - Schilds Ladder, Diaspora (other Egan stuff) The first two are especially similar to Egan's stuff in that the only real character is the civilization / setting…
on “Permutation City (1994)” ↗Off the top of my head, I'd count Asimov's Foundation, Crichton's The Andromeda Strain, Niven's Ringworld, Gibson's Neuromancer, Bear's Darwin's Radio, and Stephenson's Snow Crash.
on “Tomorrow people: For a century, it felt like telepathy was around the corner” ↗…technical failures like that, IMO. The scene where they realize they've been running on backup power and everything goes down is another good one. I won't call them realistic per se, but they just felt right. Andromeda Strain, another Crichton work, was also pretty good at this.
on “Fuzzing between the lines in popular barcode software” ↗Do you mean the Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton [1] (also a movie) and I seem to remember it being a good watch when I last watched though that might be a good 15 years ago. The idea was novel enough it's stuck with me since and…
on “Widespread distribution of bacteria containing PETases across global oceans” ↗Andromeda Strain, Michael Crichton's first big success. Great movie, but even better book.
on “Moss survived outside of the International Space Station for 9 months” ↗…Green", the banality of corporate control of "Rollerball". The idea of a computer virus in the film "Westworld" was, to me at the time, something out of left field. (And speaking of Michael Crichton, "The Andromeda Strain" was "intelligent" sci-fi and we enjoyed it.) "Mad Max", though it came after "Star Wars", drew inspiration from "A Boy and His Dog", "Deathrace 2000"… A Golden Age for sure.
on “Colossus: The Forbin Project” ↗I think the prototypical one is Michael Crichton's The Andromeda Strain.