Word: andromedae
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Some of the faults afflict The Andromeda Strain, a bigger, better-league movie. Micheal Crichton's novel posed the conumdrum: What would happen if a space-probe satellite returned to earth carrying a malignant? The solution it offered was disquieting. The film is a faithful replica complete with deux ex machinations...
Bateriologist (Arthur Hill), biologist (Kate Reid), surgeon (James Olson) and pathologist (David Wayne) are assigned to the microscopic object which consumes plastic and turns blood to powder. One American has already been annihilated; now the Andromeda strain seems bent on total destruction. The Thing multiplies by some unknown process. At great-too great-length, the brains decide to nuke it to death. But wait! They suddenly realize their folly. Split atoms are what make the Thing thrive. It eats them for breakfast. The countdown begins. Can the stalwart defuse the bomb in time? The clock eats up seconds...
...COULD the author of The Andromeda Strain and Dealing write something like Five Patients? After all, Five Patients is supposed to be a serious expose of hospital mismanagement, AMA intransigence, and technological innovations in medicine, isn't it? Actually, author-doctor Michael Crichton has performed no mysterious feat- Patients is just as conversational and dramatic as his other novels; it is written for the ignorant layman and contains just enough intelligent information to fool the reader into thinking that the compelling mystery he is reading is a technical account of hospital life...
With Michael Crichton as one-half of the author, it should be. Though only 28, Crichton has already found time to graduate from medical school and write two popular books-The Andromeda Strain (scifi) and Five Patients (medical reportage). Unlike most other young describers of the world of grass, he knows the value of clarity and coherence. As a full-fledged (though nonpracticing) doctor, he certainly does not inflate pot; he seems to see it simply as a pleasurable, nonaddictive drug somewhat less harmful than alcohol. Moreover, Michael has a kid brother Douglas, a student with a fine...
...Greenwich Village occult bookstore, complain that Schmidt doesn't ascribe any "elements" (air, water, fire, etc.) to his new signs or enhance them "for esoteric value" with much mythology. Actually, Schmidt borrows some myths from the Encyclopaedia Britannica, both on Cetus (a monster sent by Neptune to devour Andromeda) and on Ophiuchus (either a king killing a dragon, Heracles killing a serpent, or a physician curing snakebites). "Anyway," Stillman insists, "according to Schmidt, I'm an Aquarius. But I don't feel it or act it. Therefore...