The Andromeda Strain

　　美國人造衛星「斯古普七號」意外偏離軌道，掉落在一個偏僻小鎮。八小時後，鎮上居民幾乎全部離奇死亡，且血液凝成硬塊；而小鎮附近也發生一些罕見的意外－－一名巡警駛過當地不久後，竟在一家餐廳內瘋狂地射殺其他顧客，後舉槍自殺；一架誤闖該地的空軍戰鬥機，在駕駛留下奇怪的通話記錄彎後便失事墜落......

　　由全國最頂尖的科學家所組成的「野火計劃小組」奉命進入災區調查，他們冒著生命危險，尋回了人造衛星，並意外地發了兩名生還者，之後便進入設備先進的地下室展開研究。正當小組成員逐漸理出頭緒之際，實驗室卻已遭受不明生物體污染，導致爆炸器自動開啟......這一連串的災難都和人造衛星有關嗎？真有外太空生物入地球嗎？科學家們能逃過一劫，解開死亡之謎嗎？本書曾改編為電影《人間大浩劫》，轟動一時！作者經由此書提出發展太空科技後亟需思考的問題，讓讀者在沈湎於緊張驚悚情節的同時，也感受到從另一個角度探索宇宙奧妙的樂趣！

　　The United States government is given a warning by the pre-eminent biophysicists in the country: current sterilization procedures applied to returning space probes may be inadequate to guarantee uncontaminated re-entry to the atmosphere.

　　Two years later, seventeen satellites are sent into the outer fringes of space to "collect organisms and dust for study." One of them falls to earth, landing in a desolate area of Arizona.

　　Twelve miles from the landing site, in the town of Piedmont, a shocking discovery is made: the streets are littered with the dead bodies of the town's inhabitants, as if they dropped dead in their tracks.
The terror has begun . . .

作者簡介

　　Michael Crichton, who died in Los Angeles on November 4, 2008, was a writer and filmmaker, best known as the author of Jurassic Park and the creator of ER. His most recent novel, Next, about genetics and law, was published in December 2006.

　　Crichton graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College, received his MD from Harvard Medical School, and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, researching public policy with Jacob Bronowski. He taught courses in anthropology at Cambridge University and writing at MIT. Crichton’s 2004 bestseller, State of Fear, acknowledged the world was growing warmer, but challenged extreme anthropogenic warming scenarios. He predicted future warming at 0.8 degrees C. (His conclusions have been widely misstated.)

　　Crichton’s interest in computer modeling went back forty years. His multiple-discriminant analysis of Egyptian crania, carried out on an IBM 7090 computer at Harvard, was published in the Papers of the Peabody Museum in 1966. His technical publications included a study of host factors in pituitary chromophobe adenoma, in Metabolism, and an essay on medical obfuscation in the New England Journal of Medicine.

　　Crichton’s first bestseller, The Andromeda Strain, was published while he was still a medical student. He later worked full time on film and writing. One of the most popular writers in the world, his books have been translated into thirty-six languages, and thirteen have been made into films.

　　He had a lifelong interest in computers. His feature film Westworld was the first to employ computer-generated special effects back in 1973. Crichton’s pioneering use of computer programs for film production earned him a Technical Achievement Academy Award in 1995.

　　Crichton won an Emmy Award, a Peabody Award, and a Writers Guild of America Award for ER. In 2002, a newly discovered ankylosaur was named for him: Crichtonsaurus bohlini. He had a daughter, Taylor, and lived in Los Angeles. Crichton remarried in 2005.