The Andromeda Strain

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The Andromeda Strain

Author	Michael Crichton
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre(s)	Techno-thriller
Publisher	Alfred A. Knopf
Publication date	12 May 1969
Media type	Hardcover Paperback Audio
Pages	304 pages
ISBN	ISBN 0-394-41525-6

The Andromeda Strain (1969) is a techno-thriller novel by Michael Crichton. The plot concerns a team of scientists investigating a deadly disease of extraterrestrial origin which causes rapid, fatal clotting of the blood. This novel established Crichton as a best-selling author.

Plot summary

A military satellite returns to earth, and a recovery team, in a single van, to avoid suspicion, is sent out to retrieve the satellite by radio detection. While on a live radio connection to the military base, the recovery team dies. A photo surveillance plane is sent to discover what has happened, and discovers the small town where the van went through to be obliterated, apparently the entire population has been killed. The base commander, upon seeing the film returned by the plane, dials a special tie line number in which a recording takes his message urging that the Wildfire team be activated because of a suspected extraterrestrial organism having been brought to earth.

The primary team is a group of five male scientists (in the movie, Dr. Leavitt is a woman) who would be useful in determining the means to solve the problem of an extraterrestrial biological infestation (a disease or parasite infecting earth). Dr. Stone has specialized in molecular biology; Dr. Leavitt is a specialist in disease pathology; Dr. Burton has specialized in infection vectors; and Dr. Hall is a surgeon with special interest in biochemistry and pH factors. The fifth member, Dr. Kirke, a specialist in electrolytes, is unable to be called up because he is undergoing surgery for appendicitis.

The team of scientists have to find a cure to this terrible "disease" that has appeared in a small town in Arizona. They think the satellite that was designed to find upper-atmosphere microorganisms for germ warfare crash-landed in the town of Piedmont (New Mexico in the movie). It brought an organism that kills by clotting blood to powder. On investigating the town it is discovered that the residents of the town die in mid-stride or go "quietly nuts" and commit bizarre suicide. Piedmont's only survivors, the sick, Sterno-addicted, geriatric Peter Jackson and the always-crying infant, Jamie Ritter, are about as opposite as two humans can be. "We'll have the answer to this disease," says one scientist, "when we know why a sixty-nine-year-old Sterno drinker with a bleeding ulcer is like a perfectly healthy two-month-old baby."

The man and infant are taken, along with the downed satellite, to the secret "Wildfire" laboratory, in Flatrock, Nevada (the location is stated as being about 60 miles from Las Vegas), for study. More investigation determines that the causative agent of the bizarre deaths is a crystal-based extraterrestrial life form that contains the same chemical elements as life on earth, but lacks DNA, RNA, proteins, and amino acids. It works by directly transforming matter to energy and energy to matter, "like a little reactor."

The life form, codenamed "Andromeda" mutates with each growth making its properties change. The scientists discover that it only grows within a narrow range of pH, from 7.39 to 7.43. This explains why Jackson and Ritter survived. By the time the scientists notice this, however, Andromeda has mutated into a form that no longer turns blood to powder. Instead, it degrades plastic -— exactly what the doors and hatches in Wildfire are made out of. As seal after seal breaks, an automatic mechanism begins a countdown to the detonation of an atomic device, housed beneath the complex and designed to destroy (through a 2-million degree incineration) all traces of diseases before they reach the surface. However, given its ability to generate matter directly from energy, Andromeda would only find the bomb a bigger energy source. As Dr. Stone says to Hall, "When the bomb goes off there'll be a thousand mutations, Andromeda will spread everywhere, they'll never be rid of it!"

To prevent the explosion, Hall runs through an obstacle course (including navigating an air vent while being shot full of monkey tranquilisers by automated containment systems) to shut down the atomic self-destruct device before it detonates. He shuts down the device with 34 seconds to spare. "Plenty of time. Hardly even exciting," he says, not realizing that level V, the level that nearly all the scientists were on, would have completely decompressed to vacuum at the 30 second mark. The virus is allowed to escape, because by this time, it has become the best adapted virus on the planet- one which does nothing to the detriment of the host, and thus can exist and spread without the possibility of wiping out its host species, and without challenge from the immune system.

An epilogue to the novel reveals that a manned spacecraft, Andros V, burned up on re-entry as its polymer-based heat shielding failed. All spaceflight attempts were discontinued until further notice.

Odd Man Hypothesis

The “Odd Man Hypothesis” is a fictional hypothesis articulated in the book and also mentioned by name in the film. In the book the explanation is presented as a page from a report, a method repeated in the film:

“

Results of special testing confirm the Odd Man Hypothesis, that an unmarried male should carry out command decisions involving thermonuclear or chem-biol destruct contexts.

”

The Odd Man Hypothesis states that unmarried men are capable of carrying out the best, most dispassionate decisions in crisis situations. A page of statistics is then shown, titled “Group: Index of Effectiveness,” ranging from .343 for married males to .946 for single male scientists. Then listing the same for each of the main characters (Stone .687, Burton .543, Kirke .614, Leavitt .601, Hall .899). Thus, Hall is given the one and only control key to halt, if necessary, the automated self-destruct system built into the Wildfire base. Leavitt also admits that the Odd Man Hypothesis is essentially the only reason for Hall’s assignment to the Wildfire team, in lieu of Kirk's knowledge of electrolytes.

The fabrication of a scientific principle with supportive numbers and charts belongs to a literary technique called false document.

Main Characters in "The Andromeda Strain"

Dr. Jeremy Stone

Professor of bacteriology at University of California, Berkeley; a Nobel Prize winner

Dr. Charles Burton

Professor of pathology at Baylor University

Dr. Peter Leavitt

Clinical microbiologist; suffering from epilepsy

Dr. Mark Hall

Medical doctor and surgeon

Peter Jackson

Sole adult survivor of the Piedmont disaster

Quotes from the book

• “A man with binoculars. That is how it began: with a man standing by the side of the road, on a crest overlooking a small Arizona town, on a winter night. Lieutenant Roger Shawn must have found the binoculars difficult. The metal would be cold, and he would be clumsy in his fur parka and heavy gloves.“
• “…biology, the retarded child… Even in the time of Newton and Galileo, men knew more about the moon and other heavenly bodies that they did about their own.”
• “…first contact with extraterrestrial life will be determined by the known probablities of speciation… complex organisms are rare on earth… simple organisms flourish in abundance… there are millions of bacteria, thousands of insects but few primates… frequency of speciation goes a corresponding frequency in numbers… human interaction with extra terrestrial will… [be] identical to bacteria or viruses.”
• “…it was equally possible for extra terrestrial to contaminate the earth via space probes.”
• "We've faced up to quite a planning problem here. How to disinfect the human body — one of the dirtiest things in the known universe — without killing the person at the same time."

Film, TV or theatrical adaptations

The book was the basis for a 1971 film of the same name, directed by Robert Wise and starring Arthur Hill as Stone, James Olson as Hall, Kate Reid as Leavitt, and David Wayne as Dutton.

In September 2004, the Sci Fi Channel announced it would begin production of a miniseries, executive produced by Ridley and Tony Scott and Frank Darabont. On May 2, 2007 it was mentioned on SciFi channel's news website (The SciFi Wire) that the long- awaited miniseries will now be shown on the A&E Network and has the potential to run up to six hours. Also, on August 16th, 2007, cast and crew filmed at Simon Fraser University Surrey.[1]

The science fiction-themed death metal band Nocturnus have a song inspired by the novel, called Andromeda Strain, on their debut album The Key.

Progressive metal-band Shadow Gallery also have a song called The Andromeda Strain which deals about genetically engineered biological weapons, on their album Room V.

Klaus Schulze has a concert recording named Andromeda Strain.

References

• Crichton, Michael (1969). The Andromeda Strain. ISBN 0-345-37848-2.

Template:Michael Crichtonde:Andromeda (Roman) ja:アンドロメダ病原体