Jake's review
The Andromeda Strain
by Michael Crichton
I thought the ending was the best part. And I also really loved the first 10 or so pages of this book. Great sense of isolation and fear and foreboding.
Then again, I haven't read it since...um...9th grade?
Yeah.
9th grade.
So...
Well my problem with it had more to do with the lackluster ending. He did a great job with the suspense, and then nothing came of it. The ending felt lack-luster...although that could have also have been because it took me two different sittings to complete the last chapter and the denouement....
Say what you will, it's still my favorite Michael Crichton movie, and that includes Jurassic Park.
Kind of an "eh" book, though.
I actually haven't seen this movie. I'll probably wind up adding it to my NetFlix queue, though as I do love a good suspense movie. Somehow I always pictured the character of Hall as Richard Dreyfuss. I wonder if they'd consider updating the film, since it's been almost 30 years. In fact it'll be 40 years in '11.
One really interesting thing about the movie is that they cast a woman as Dr. Leavitt, and it works so damned well - she's not a Stunningly Hot Hollywood Female Scientist, or a Token Woman with Woman Feelings, she's just another brilliant, middle-aged scientist like the rest of them.
It's also fairly well filmed and the art direction is great.
Jake's review
The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton
Jake's review
rating:
bookshelves:
2008,
science-fiction---fact
This book must have been the inspiration for those two episodes of The X-Files, where they have the ear bug thing that makes people go insane and the one episode with the volcano life form; with a little bit of the little green bug that eats people episode thrown in for a mix.
Within this story, we find a few things that are interesting, and a lot of things that Michael Crichton indicates may be important later on; and then aren't. It's odd -- as though he's deliberately trying to make us re-read the novel -- the way that he stages the drama. It's almost as though we're supposed to be more focused on what the life form is doing, and less about how it keeps killing people.
Then there's the matter of the book's ending. It ends probably where it shouldn't have, from a perspective that's quite a bit odd. I enjoyed it, although the ending left quite a bit to be desired.
Within this story, we find a few things that are interesting, and a lot of things that Michael Crichton indicates may be important later on; and then aren't. It's odd -- as though he's deliberately trying to make us re-read the novel -- the way that he stages the drama. It's almost as though we're supposed to be more focused on what the life form is doing, and less about how it keeps killing people.
Then there's the matter of the book's ending. It ends probably where it shouldn't have, from a perspective that's quite a bit odd. I enjoyed it, although the ending left quite a bit to be desired.
I thought the ending was the best part. And I also really loved the first 10 or so pages of this book. Great sense of isolation and fear and foreboding.Then again, I haven't read it since...um...9th grade?
Yeah.
9th grade.
So...
Well my problem with it had more to do with the lackluster ending. He did a great job with the suspense, and then nothing came of it. The ending felt lack-luster...although that could have also have been because it took me two different sittings to complete the last chapter and the denouement....
Say what you will, it's still my favorite Michael Crichton movie, and that includes Jurassic Park.
Kind of an "eh" book, though.
I actually haven't seen this movie. I'll probably wind up adding it to my NetFlix queue, though as I do love a good suspense movie. Somehow I always pictured the character of Hall as Richard Dreyfuss. I wonder if they'd consider updating the film, since it's been almost 30 years. In fact it'll be 40 years in '11.
One really interesting thing about the movie is that they cast a woman as Dr. Leavitt, and it works so damned well - she's not a Stunningly Hot Hollywood Female Scientist, or a Token Woman with Woman Feelings, she's just another brilliant, middle-aged scientist like the rest of them.
It's also fairly well filmed and the art direction is great.