Word: strainingly
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...ANDROMEDA STRAIN by Michael Crichton would probably not be selling as well as it is, if it were not for the nation's current narcissistic delight with its space program. Dealing as it does with a research satellite that returns to earth lethally contaminated, there has rarely been such a right book at such a right time. Only two months ago, I remember hearing someone's garbled version of the proposed Apollo recovery that had our trio of astronauts stepping onto the Hornet and then shaking hands with President Nixon before being packed off into a world of saran-wrapped...
Thankfully, fiction is more entertaining than life. The Andromeda Strain tells of how a group of super-scientists (at least one of whom is a toned-down version of J. D. Watson) set to work in a secret, five-story, underground bacterial research center in Nevada--part of "Project Wildfire." Their object is to identify and neutralize a lethal virus brought back from the upper atmosphere by a Scoop satellite that has crashed in the middle of the Arizona desert. Since the enterprising virus multiplies at a giddy rate, they must, of course, do in the thing by the time...
...Andromeda Strain is more than just a biological tug-of-war, though. To judge by Crichton's example, the role that the clipper ship used to play in 19th century fiction now is handled by the space program (both novelistically and cinematically, for Kubrick's 2001 held much the same appeal). Where Melville and Dana used to fascinate their readers with descriptions of rigging and trade routes, Crichton delivers mini-lectures on space research, micro-biology, and biochemistry. Meanwhile, names like Wald and DeBakey weave in and out of the narrative. Most of this material is, of course, quite elementary...
This novel's other basic appeal is much more telling. The Andromeda Strain is not really science-fiction in any strict sense. The "science" it treats is too commonplace--even if sophisticated--and it isn't really that speculative. Instead, this book represents a kind of "government-fiction"--the most recent development in the genre of the Washington Novel...
...that mayors now must have advisors to learn how to cope with it. Alan Drury's melodramas soon gave way to the Burdick-Fletcher-Knebel potboilers that always had Washington a button away from nuclear destruction--unbeknownst to us all. Dr. Strangelove was the logical extension. Well, The Andromeda Strain is its biological brother. By mixing fact with Crichton's only too probable fantasy, his novel locates itself in a never-never world of secret government installations. It is the revelation of purported government secrets that make the book so compelling. For example, if a contaminated satellite falls within...