In my last book swap of the trip I picked up this famous tale along with the next book from a backpackers in Livingstone, Zambia, in exchange for Sasha’s Shantaram and Steve's The Mote in God’s Eye. Reading it on the bus to my flight from Lusaka, and on the subsequent plane, I found the book quite difficult to put down. In a nut-shell, a nasty, possibly extra-terrestrial strain of a lethal virus is unleashed on a small American town after a returning space probe is cracked open. A group of five crack scientists is assembled in an atomically armed underground bunker to figure it out and find an antidote. Of course, if there is any contamination the bomb will go off, giving the narrative that extra level of anxiety. The book is quite medically technical and informative, following Crichton’s background, but seems to express the same suspicion of science and scientists as Jurassic Park and Crichton’s later climate scepticism. If a scientist can make an error, he does, and with the most catastrophic consequences. Apart from that, the scientists are definitely ‘good guys’ and have some actual character devoid in a lot of contemporary sci-fis. The ending was pretty uninspiring, though.