The Andromeda Strain to the upper atmosphere, where the oxygen content is lower, better suiting its growth. The novel's epilogue reveals that a manned spacecraft, "Andros V", was incinerated during atmospheric re-entry, presumably because Andromeda had eaten its tungsten/plastic laminate heat shield and caused it to burn up. Crichton was inspired to write the novel after reading "The IPCRESS File" by Len Deighton while studying in England. Crichton says he was "terrifically impressed" by the book - "a lot of "Andromeda" is traceable to "Ipcress" in terms of trying to create an imaginary world using recogniseable techniques and real people." He wrote the
The Night of the Generals (novel) The Night of the Generals (novel) The Night of the Generals: A Novel () is a thriller novel by German writer Hans Hellmut Kirst, published in 1962. In German-occupied Poland in 1940 in Warsaw, a prostitute is murdered in a very bestial way. Since the Polish police discover that she is on a list of German informers, they have to summon the German military police. From the lavatory by the staircase an old man has seen the leg of the suspected killer, and states that it was most likely some kind of uniform which the killer wore that he never