The next book to discuss in our pub-based book club is an oldie. The Andromeda Strain by Micheal Crichton, the writer of Jurassic Park. Now I hadn't read any Crichton for years and recollect thinking that his novels were somehow similar to one another. I mainly remember them as something I'd be reading standing on rush hour Central Line. Not too taxing and easy to restart. His other books include Congo - monsters in the jungle. Jurassic Park - monsters on an island. Prey - mini monsters in the desert.
But that's a but unfair. After our last pub group book (Dave, by Will Self), this one was a much easier page turner.
The Andromeda Strain is one of Crichton's earliest works about a nasty bug that comes back inside a space capsule. Although the plot is mini monsters in the desert, there's some interesting bits of science included, particularly considering the book dates from about 1969.
The book is not available on Kindle, and doesn't seem to be in publication anywhere. I managed to get an American copy via eBay, but I'm wondering if there's about to be a bumper anthology version issued for Christmas, or something?
It's quite interesting to see an author developing his style in this type of book. He has the various players make a variety of mistakes, but to help the reader, they are all quite heavily signposted as the story runs along. Kind of "Don't take the mysterious capsule back into town...Don't try to open it...Don't forget to wire up the security buttons in all of the secret underground rooms" and so on.
I enjoyed it as a read for our upcoming discussion, and my copy of the book is interesting of itself. Its pages are cut right to the very edge of the text and in my copy there were a couple of squished items. I couldn't help thinking that maybe the andromeda strain was lurking in these old library books, waiting to be released.
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