The Andromeda Strain

De: Michael Crichton

Narrado por: David Morse

First published fifty years ago, The Andromeda Strain redefined the science fiction genre, and immediately established Michael Crichton as one of the brightest voices in contemporary literature worldwide.

"I love anything Michael Crichton writes." (Stephen King)

A military space probe, sent to collect extraterrestrial organisms from the upper atmosphere, is knocked out of orbit and falls to Earth. Twelve miles from the crash site, an inexplicable and deadly phenomenon terrorizes the residents of a sleepy desert town in Arizona, leaving only two survivors: an elderly addict and a newborn infant.

The United States government is forced to mobilize Project Wildfire, a top-secret emergency response protocol. Four of the nation’s most elite biophysicists are summoned to a clandestine underground laboratory located five stories beneath the desert and fitted with an automated atomic self-destruction mechanism for cases of irremediable contamination. Under conditions of total news blackout and the utmost urgency, the scientists race to understand and contain the crisis. But the Andromeda Strain proves different from anything they’ve ever seen - and what they don’t know could not only hurt them, but lead to unprecedented worldwide catastrophe.

©1969 Constant c Productions, Inc.; Copyright renewed 1996 by CrichtonSun LLC (P)2015 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved.

Could not get past the first 15 minutes

Would you try another book from Michael Crichton and/or David Morse?

Great book by Mr. Crichton, but gut wrenching performance and technique.

What didn’t you like about David Morse’s performance?

When there was dialogue, there was back and forth definition of who was talking, akin to watching a Ping-Pong ball go back and forth. It became nauseating and deplorable to listen to. I think this could have been edited in a way to be less annoying.

Unfortunately dated

I loved the book and movie twenty years ago. Now as a work of fiction it is rather "dated". No cellphones or Internet here, the major piece of technology is the teletype machine. The underlying story is good, but it is just difficult to get past the "cold war" mentality of the book. However, there is some good "biology" in the book that is still relevant today. The author (same as Jurassic Park) does go to some lengths to explain to the listener some of the science behind technology such as electron microscopes and X-ray crystallography .

I purchased this on sale and not sure I would pay more than the $9.95 that it cost me.

Great performance

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Story is really dated now with the advances in technology

If you’ve listened to books by Michael Crichton before, how does this one compare?

There's too much technical information -- especially for an audio book where you're hearing someone read reports rather than seeing them.

What does David Morse bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Really, really good performance by David Morse. He kept the characters separate by using different voices, and kudos for the pronunciation of some of the difficult medical and scientific terms.

Any additional comments?

In this one case, I can honestly say that the movie was better than the book because the tension stays higher in the film.

Probably better read than listened.

First, let me just say that I love audiobooks. I have listened to many books before.

"The Andromeda Strain" is probably better read physically than listened. There were a lot of meaningless numbers being read (mind-numbingly boring and so slow!!) and jargons/filler words that don't really do anything towards moving the story along other than making whatever it is seem more "authentic" and serious.

I love the idea of this story and I could see why a lot of people liked the book. I just found it really anticlimactic. The story was too slow and too one-note (until the last two chapters or so) for such a rich subject matter. I guess it's trying to focus on the journey of these scientists while they search for answers instead of the actual possible ramifications of the virus. The readers are in the scientists' head for most of the book, which means that you're hearing about a lot of interesting scientific facts about biology and infectious diseases-- I enjoyed it at the beginning, but found that this aspect of the book dragged on and on and on. I didn't have the patience for it at the time I listened to this book. It is just so much harder to concentrate on hard scientific facts when you're listening. I think I would have enjoyed the book more if I had read it. And not about to go to sleep.

The narrator did a good job overall in adopting different voices and intonation for different characters.

Dated

No doubt it was an exciting story in 1969, but almost 50 years later it's dated. Long detailed explanations of science and technology, and a struggling storyline make it drag.

meh

the narrator did well. the plot was ok. I was expecting more action. I found it very anticlimactic.

Agonizingly slow narration

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

I recommend the story, although I'm not yet finished. The third person narration was slow from the beginning. When other characters spoke their voices were even slower to the point of being untenable. I sped up the reply to 1.25, but I'm unlikely to purchase another book read by this narrator.

Would you be willing to try another one of David Morse’s performances?

Probably not.

Not bad, but not gripping.

Part of the fault may like with the format (audio), but I never really felt connected to the characters. it wasn't until the last chapter or two that I was able to distinguish even one of the core characters from the others... it was too short to flesh out all the ideas it contained, and ended up feeling very predictable, and linear. like a short story forced in to novel length.

very disappointed audio book

too drag out by the time it ends I was tire and plain bored

In a small town people are dropping dead.

In a small town where life has gone on the same way for decades people are suddenly acting crazy and then dropping dead. Sometimes, the insanity that overtakes them is violent, and leads to harming others. Elsewhere, it may be a relived memory. Everywhere, people are committing suicide. The incidence is too many to be a coincidence.

As a sickness ravages through a town a baby and Sterno drinking alcoholic seem to be immune. A special team of scientists are dispatched to the horrible scene to determine what is casing the illness and how to fight it. The military has the idea of simply burning it off the face of the Earth - with a nuclear weapon. Only for an organism that evolved in the depths of space, will the radiation and heat kill the virus or will it be like throwing gasoline on a fire.

Things are not always what they seem.