NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERFifty years after The Andromeda Strain made Michael Crichton a household name—and spawned a new genre, the technothriller—the threat returns, in a gripping sequel that is terrifyingly realistic and resonant.The Evolution is Coming.In 1967, an extraterrestrial microbe came crashing down to Earth and nearly ended the human race. Accidental exposure to the … and nearly ended the human race. Accidental exposure to the particle—designated The Andromeda Strain—killed every resident of the town of Piedmont, Arizona, save for an elderly man and an infant boy. Over the next five days, a team of top scientists assigned to Project Wildfire worked valiantly to save the world from an epidemic of unimaginable proportions. In the moments before a catastrophic nuclear detonation, they succeeded.
In the ensuing decades, research on the microparticle continued. And the world thought it was safe…
Deep inside Fairchild Air Force Base, Project Eternal Vigilance has continued to watch and wait for the Andromeda Strain to reappear. On the verge of being shut down, the project has registered no activity—until now. A Brazilian terrain-mapping drone has detected a bizarre anomaly of otherworldly matter in the middle of the jungle, and, worse yet, the tell-tale chemical signature of the deadly microparticle.
With this shocking discovery, the next-generation Project Wildfire is activated, and a diverse team of experts hailing from all over the world is dispatched to investigate the potentially apocalyptic threat.
But the microbe is growing—evolving. And if the Wildfire team can’t reach the quarantine zone, enter the anomaly, and figure out how to stop it, this new Andromeda Evolution will annihilate all life as we know it.
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Exciting sequel
I first read The Andromeda Strain in 1969 when it was first published. Loved it and have read it multiple times since. I also enjoyed the movie based on the book and loved it too. I have read multiple Crichton books over the years and seen many of his movies. So I was a little leery of reading this sequel to The Andromeda Strain by another author (since Crichton passed away in 2008).
But Daniel Wilson did a great job with the baton that was passed to him and followed closely in Crichton’s footsteps.
The first few pages were a little awkward in my opinion but that changed quickly and soon the action really started ramping up. After supposedly being gone for fifty years after destroying a small Arizona town and most of its inhabitants in book one, it seems an evolved from of the Andromeda Strain has suddenly appeared deep in the Amazon jungle. A small team is sent to check it out and…no more from me because that would include spoilers.
I liked the characters in book two. I liked the whole premise behind the book. And I believe there’s a possibility for at least a third book. I hope so.
Be fair to yourself and read The Andromeda Strain first. And watch the movie.
I received this book from Harper Books through Edelweiss in the hopes that I would read it and leave an unbiased review.
The Andromeda Evolution is both a kick-ass sequel and a loving tribute to one of the greatest science fiction novels ever written. Daniel H. Wilson has taken up Crichton’s mantle and reinvented the techno-thriller, by continuing the tale that invented that genre. This is a meticulously crafted adventure story, packed with action, mystery, wonder, and just enough hard science to scare the hell out of you. So good!
THE ANDROMEDA EVOLUTION by Daniel H. Wilson is a science fiction / techno-thriller novel and a sequel to Michael Crichton’s THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN. It can be read as a standalone novel, but it would be beneficial to read Crichton’s novel first.
Wilson continues Crichton’s story after approximately 50 years of waiting. Research has continued on the strain and the world thought it was now safe. The watchdog group, Project Eternal Vigilance is on the verge on being shut down when a large formation appears in the Amazon jungle on the equator showing similarities to the original strains of Andromeda. A team of scientists (Project Wildfire) are deployed to the jungle to investigate and determine how to stop it. However the microbe is evolving and time is of the essence.
This is a well-written novel and carries on Crichton’s legacy and builds on his original story line. I was thoroughly engaged and entertained. The novel is written as a post-incident report. The main characters are well defined with a variety of personalities and traits that came across as very realistic and in the case of one character, highly imaginative.
It took me about 7% of the book to get totally committed to the story, but once I was there, I devoured the book. There are also some technical explanations and diagrams. Don’t let that throw you. They make sense.
Overall, the novel was thought-provoking and entertaining. If you enjoy Michael Crichton novels or science fiction, I recommend you try this. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
Many thanks to HarperCollins Publishers and Daniel H. Wilson for a digital ARC of this novel via Net Galley in exchange for an honest review. Opinions are mine alone and are not biased in any way.
Hubby and I read this book and were disappointed because seeing Michael Crighton’s name on the cover, we assumed this was his work. We soon learned by the storytelling it was not.
The story has many flaws. Hubby, a science person, felt information given in a scientific manner, that wasn’t science fiction, was problematic. He audibly argued with the storyline. As for me, the writer, there were many flaws writers should not allow.
The overall storyline was intriguing…that is why so many have reviewed this book, and many others have opened the cover and haven’t written a review. The problem is, with Michael’s name on the cover we went into the story with certain expectations. It was harder to forgive the flaws.
Give it a whirl. You may like it, though.
We read a library copy.
Odd ending it’s only problem.
Great follow up to the classic Andromeda Strain!
Daniel H. Wilson has done an incredible job carrying on Michael Crichton’s legacy, and fans of the technothriller genre owe it to themselves to read this story!
I can’t believe The Andromeda Strain came out 50 years ago, and Wilson put together a wonderful update to the cornerstone novel. I really enjoyed the story’s unique point of view, and how quickly this story grabbed and compelled me to keep turning pages late into the night.
I really liked it.
original cook story!
The Andromeda Strain had been on my wish list for quite some time, but when I saw that a sequel was in the works, I decided to skip the original and read THE ANDROMEDA EVOLUTION instead. And I think it was a big mistake, not because I felt like I had missed where it all started, but because THE ANDROMEDA EVOLUTION is not the sort of book I would willingly choose. I expected a novel about a virus, not a crash course in aerospace engineering.
THE ANDROMEDA EVOLUTION is well written, and quite in a similar style to Michael Crichton’s. However, it has a painfully slow start. At nearly 20%, the authorities have been alerted that the microparticle – the anomaly – has been spotted and the team gathered. That’s it, nothing has happened except an extraordinary amount of info dumping. The pages are filled with innumerable technical details on the equipment, the space programme in relation to the Andromeda strains – it was very creative, but it seemed endless. While it’s a good thing to have the main characters’ backstories, it just went on for too long; do I really need to know that a character was an orphan, especially when it has no bearing on the story whatsoever? I almost fell asleep on the book.
Daniel H. Wilson obviously researched everything meticulously; I presume his facts are correct, but a lot of it went completely over my head. There was so much information, I was getting bored, and becoming antsy and eager for something, anything to happen.
I’ll admit that Mr. Wilson accomplished quite a remarkable feat: for all his excruciatingly detailed explanations, I couldn’t visualise the International Space Station or the climber, or the “anomaly”, for that matter. It’s all very technical yet the torrents of words never paint a clear picture. In two or three places, what I suppose must have been very dramatic – if unlikely – action scenes, I couldn’t for the life of me picture in my mind’s eye what I was supposed to see. It’s hard to get excited when you don’t understand what you should be excited about. Not only that, but the way the storytelling is structured, the author also manages to spoil his own reveals. He also killed off my second favourite character, then my very favourite one. At least, Komarov – a very minor character – lived. As for the ending, I couldn’t give it away if I wanted to because it was such a bunch of technical stuff, I’m not exactly sure what happened. I was past trying to see or understand what was being described and honestly, I wasn’t even trying anymore; I was only relieved when the ordeal was finally over.
Unless you possess a solid knowledge of engineering and/or the space programme, this is not a book I would recommend. I did learn some historical facts that had, for the most part, no bearing on the story arc. I did not find THE ANDROMEDA EVOLUTION informative, which it could have been had the author not assumed that every reader is familiar with the technology and that describing technology and things is equal to a plot. Now, I will read The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton, even if it is fifty years old. Mr. Crichton made sure his readers understood what he was talking about; I always learned something valuable from his books and had fun doing so.
Started well, OK characters. For me, too much technical detail that showed off the author’s knowledge/imagination but didn’t really advance the plot. Then around half way through the plot started going in a direction that didn’t interest me. Lot’s of action; I get the idea someone hopes for a movie deal. I ended up skimming the last third of the book to see how it ended. Clearly set up a possible sequel which I probably won’t read (but did not end in an unfinished cliff-hanger).
This was a great techno-thriller and the first book by Michael Crichton that I read. It was written 50 years ago but is still relative to today’s world. It’s a scary scenario about a deadly extraterrestrial virus and the governments attempt to contain it.
I hope that there will be another book in this series. I really loved reading this sequel to a book written many years before. This can be a scary situation to think that the government and scientists might be keeping things like what happened in this story from us. I loved these characters and how this was written. I loved the intrigue throughout. I received a copy of this book from edelweiss for a fair and honest opinion that I gave of my own free will.