The Andromeda Evolution, Daniel H. Wilson

2019, Harper, C$24.99, 366 pages, ISBN 978-0-06-295666-8

Freakishly observant readers of this web site have probably noticed something fundamental: I’m no longer the book-reviewing powerhouse that I once was. For decades, I kept up an eight-book-review-a-month pace – but that number took a dive off a cliff once I was no longer a bachelor, stopped riding the bus for my commute and shifted my primary area of interest to movies rather than books.  This is likely going to be my only book review for 2019.  I’m not happy about it, but getting back to my previous stream of book reviews will have to wait a bit longer. if nothing else, this shift has informed me on the lifestyle of the smart people who don’t read: it turns out that you have to work at integrating literature in your life, and that takes both time and specific circumstances. So easy to spend hours obsessing about politics through social media when a far more productive use of time would be to read meaningless genre entertainment.

So, anyway: While I don’t read as much as I did, or buy as many books as I did, a recent Costco expedition had me contemplating a curious novel: The Andromeda Evolution, written by Daniel H. Wilson — a sequel to the well-regarded Michael Crichton novel The Andromeda Strain.

I did think twice about picking it up.  On the one hand: a trade paperback techno-thriller, available for cheap at Costco?  I do have a fondness for The Andromeda Strain, which I re-read not too long ago after watching the movie adaptation.  On the other hand: this kind of literary necrophilia must stop.  I don’t really want to encourage the kind of publishing behavior in which a dead author is propped up as a marketing term so that another writer can write sequels rather than come up with something more original. Yes, I know, even techno-thriller writers must pay the bills.  On the other, other hand: If I’m already thinking that hard about a novel before even reading it, chances are good that it’s going to make great material for a review.  Of course, I bought it.

The existence of The Andromeda Evolution is not an accident – not when it’s released on the fiftieth anniversary of The Andromeda Strain, not when it depends on the agreement of the Crichton Sun literary trust (the novel is copyrighted to Crichton Sun, suggesting straight-up work-for-hire), not when there’s a Hollywood Reporter article talking about how Crichton Sun looked for a writer for the project.  Not when the last acknowledgements in the book are not from Wilson, but Crichton’s widow.  Considering how deep we’re into posthumous exploitation, the question becomes: How skilled would Wilson have to be to deliver a novel that would be worth a read as more than a commercial object?

It turns out that there’s something really interesting, at least in concept, in the idea of turning in a fifty-year-removed sequel to a techno-thriller.  As The Andromeda Evolution gets underway, it goes have the luxury of blending the events of its predecessor into actual ever-more-distant history. From the opening moments of the book, as automated systems pick up traces of something of high interest to the US government, the incidents of The Andromeda Strain become deep history informing some modern actions.  (There’s even quite a bit of irony in how some character don’t quite know, or remember, why the automated detection systems were put in place.)

The meta-fictional games don’t quite stop there, albeit with mixed result – it’s somewhat off-putting to see weak Crichton quotes being used as epigraphs for the novel’s sections.  What’s more interesting for anyone with fresh memories of the original novel is seeing how much Wilson has tried to ape Crichton’s supremely authoritative style: The novel is written as an official “meticulous reconstruction of a five-day scientific crisis that culminated in the near extinction of our species.” [P.xi] and wrapped in ominous warnings, formatted pseudo-documents, plans, even an evidence “photo” and a hilariously misleading list of end references that includes the original novel, its movie adaptation, reviews and articles about Crichton alongside scientific articles and papers.

Alas, Wilson isn’t as skilled a bullshitter techno-fabulist as Crichton – moments such as the original’s utterly convincing digression about the fictional Kalocin drug, or the “odd-man hypothesis” are never matched here.  But Wilson does give it a good attempt and mostly manages the necessary suspension of disbelief required to get readers invested in the early pages of the novel. As the US government resurrects old contingency plans to deal with a fatal extraterrestrial threat, we shift from historical fact blended with Crichton mythology to more traditional genre thriller tropes. The prologue ends with the delicious and frankly irresistible “Conservative estimates from the DC-based Nova America think tank conclude that Stern’s hunch likely saved three to four billion lives” [P.33].

After that, we’re off to the races, albeit more circuitously than you’d expect.  Much of the action doesn’t necessarily go back to the high-tech antiseptic atmosphere of the original book – rather than hunkering in a bunker, the crew of specialists off to save the world head to the Amazonian jungle, echoing more the feeling of Congo than The Andromeda Strain. But at the same time, we go in orbit to spend time with another character in the International Space Station.  The two plotlines eventually intersect in a somewhat convoluted fashion.  In dealing with the inheritance of the original novel, Wilson pushes Crichton’s concept even further, positing conscious design and goals for the Andromeda strain that take it up a notch in time for the last third of the novel…. While reaching deep into the details of the first book for an essential character of the second.

Despite some of my skepticism, it works more often than not: it’s a page-turner, and it uses the first novel in interesting way compared to vast majority of posthumous sequels – something very much helped by the acknowledged fifty-year gulf between both novels.  But if my admiration is substantial, I’m not quite as enthusiastic about the fictional nuts-and-bolts of the book.  The pacing has some severe issues, especially as the team of characters heads into the jungle and the novel feels as if it’s spinning its wheels until it gets to the good stuff.  Some of the story’s humanism seem laid on a bit too thickly (perhaps inevitable considering the balance required to make the novel’s techno-fetishism more palatable) and while such things usually pass me unnoticed, I couldn’t help but feel that one antagonist’s motivations curdle straight into uncomfortable ableism.  A more serious issue is that while the re-use of Crichton elements is interesting, it does prevent The Andromeda Evolution from truly coming into its own.  You can also certainly argue that Wilson demonstrates the perils of overreaching —while the original was a masterclass of hermetic claustrophobia, this sequel goes much wider, much wilder and doesn’t quite have a tight focus.

As a reviewer looking to flex critical muscles once again, I do have some lingering appreciation for the ways The Andromeda Evolution is interesting – and am somewhat more muted on its effectiveness as a novel. But I enjoyed reading it, and sometimes that’s all you need.

Especially if this is going to be the only book I’ll review this year.