Word: andromedae
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Michael Crichton, 29-year-old dropout physician and author of the bestselling novel The Andromeda Strain, is unleashing an entertainment epidemic. It is being spread through books and movies, only some of which bear his real name. Regardless of byline and credit, however, the Crichton strain is unmistakable...
...says shortly after the operation, "a fallen man," precursor of a generation that may have no memory of what it was to have been human? Crichton does not indulge in such speculation. He is a scrupulous genre writer who is content to dress up old tales with new gadgetry. Andromeda Strain, for example, was in some sense a rewrite of H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds. The Terminal Man is an update of Frankenstein. Can Dracula, or Wolfman in sheep's clothing, be far behind...
...stood him in good stead, but ultimately the novel is little more than a thriller. Crichton is an old hand at those. Not yet 30, he's already had several fair-to-middling successes under a variety of pen names as well as his 1969 best-seller The Andromeda Strain. The Terminal Man shows the benefits of past experience: Only an old hand could think of a sign saying "DO NOT FEED OR MOLEST THE COMPUTER...
Rushed to a top-secret desert laboratory to study a mysterious microbe from outer space, scientists in Michael Crichton's 1969 novel The Andromeda Strain undergo a thorough physical examination before they are allowed to start work. Their hearts, lungs and brain waves are all checked, their body fluids are analyzed, and their immunities to various diseases boosted by shots. But no doctor takes part in the process; the entire examination is automated. Says one member of the team to a colleague: "That machine-you'd better not let the A.M.A. find out about it." The A.M.A. already...
Director Robert Wise and his quartet are so expert at sustaining suspense that they almost disguise The Andromeda Strain's great pretense. Despite its trappings, the plot employs nothing but the conventional weaponry of the grade-B thriller. Andromeda strains for significance and emerges as very modest entertainment. Still, in its darker moments, like THX 1138, it does a thorough job of belittling science as savior...