The truth. Truth is the only way forward. Lies and misinformation can destroy any plan, even a good one. Created by writer Daniel H. Wilson in collaboration with the Michael Crichton estate, The Andromeda Evolution arrived last year 50 years after The Andromeda Strain was first published, the book that launched Crichton’s fame as master of the technothriller. The Andromeda Evolution has all the components of Crichton’s best works–the trademark structure of a team of unique experts colliding to prevent catastrophe, the integration of cutting edge science to both inform the reader and carry the plot forward, and the surprising juxtaposition of the improbable and the unimaginable. The ripped-from-the-headlines timeliness was eerily creepy last year, and here in March 2020 with a real pandemic threatening the planet, it’s even more so. It all begins with a disaster in the heart of the Amazon rainforest, complete with lies–government clashes and misinformation campaigns–and ends with a surprise also ripped from last year’s headlines. The Andromeda Evolution is now available in paperback here at Amazon from HarperCollins.
The influences and now, unfortunately, familiarity for readers will harken back to many other fictional tales with virus or pandemic components in sci-fi, conjuring callbacks to Tom Clancy’s Debt of Honor, Isaac Asimov’s Fantastic Voyage II, The Philadelphia Experiment, The Cloverfield Paradox, 2017’s Life, or Crichton’s own novels Sphere and Congo. More recent fictional touchpoints for addressing virus crises include zombies as in Netflix’s Kingdom, and The Living Dead, both reviewed at borg this week, and even aliens: Who now doesn’t feel like Donald Sutherland–suspicious of everyone who walks by–in Invasion of the Body Snatchers simply visiting your local grocery store? More fantasy accounts can be found all over the origin stories of superheroes, like the Hulk, Spider-Man, Wolverine, the Fantastic Four, Deadpool, and in DC’s Swamp Thing series, where the environment itself fights back. Add these to attempts at more realistic stories, the modern, mainstream pandemic thriller, like Outbreak and Contagion.
But can we learn anything from science fiction to help us in the real world, right now?
Those watching the news, working in healthcare facilities, and sheltering at home can certainly find shared experiences as a starting point. But there may be even more. Like how not to handle crises. How the human condition delivers all kinds of different personalities, some who help, some who contribute, and some who hinder. Reading The Andromeda Evolution or revisiting any of the above books, movies, and TV shows may be something you’re not ready for yet. If you are ready, they also may provide ideas. Like anything we might be forgetting. They also may illustrate that no one can say “we never could have planned for this” or “nobody ever figured this could happen.” Those assertions may be said aloud, but science fiction proves them as falsehoods. And if you have kids at home, maybe the superhero stories listed above could help explain how viruses work in real life.
