The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton

Michael Crichton began writing novels when he was medical student at Harvard. He went on to be one of the biggest selling authors of all time, with many of of his books being made into major motion pictures, like Jurassic Park and Raising Sun. He is also the creator of the TV show ER. Throughout his career he specialized in medical and technical thrillers. The Andromeda Strain fits both these categories.

The books opens with a military satellite returning to Earth, and a recovery team is dispatched to retrieve it. During a live radio communication with their base, the team members suddenly die. Aerial surveillance reveals that everyone in Piedmont, Arizona, the town closest to where the satellite landed, is apparently dead. The base commander suspects the satellite returned with an extraterrestrial organism and recommends activating Wildfire, the government-sponsored team that counters extraterrestrial biological infestation. The scientists believe the satellite, which was actually designed to capture upper-atmosphere microorganisms for bio-weapon exploitation, returned with a deadly microorganism that kills by disseminated intravascular coagulation, or turning your blood to toothpaste. When they search the town, the team discovers that the residents either died in mid-stride or committed bizarre suicides. However, two Piedmont inhabitants, the sick, geriatric, Peter Jackson, and a constantly-crying infant, somehow survived. The man, infant, and satellite are taken to the secret underground Wildfire laboratory, a secure facility equipped with every known capacity for protection against a biological element escape into the atmosphere, including a nuclear weapon to incinerate the facility if necessary. Further investigation determines that the bizarre deaths were caused by a crystal-structured, extraterrestrial microbe on a meteor that crashed into the satellite, knocking it from orbit. The microbe, code named "Andromeda", mutates with each growth cycle, and it is the scientists job to find out how to stop it before it invades Los Angeles.

While this book is a classic, it does feel dated. It relies on many intricate technical details that seem very old fashioned, especially when Crichton details what in 1965 must have seemed like an amazing main frame computer. With the Internet and the speed of communications today, teletypes and atomic self destruct devices seem laughable. However, Crichton clearly researched this book thoroughly and the details and attention to detail help create an exciting finale.