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 Painted Veil (novel) The Painted Veil (novel) The Painted Veil is a 1925 novel by British author W. Somerset Maugham. The title is taken from Percy Bysshe Shelley's sonnet, which begins "Lift not the painted veil which those who live / Call Life". The novel was first published in serialised form in five issues of "Cosmopolitan" (November 1924 – March 1925). Beginning in May 1925, it was serialised in the United Kingdom in eight parts in "Nash's Magazine". The biographer Richard Cordell notes that the book was influenced by Maugham's study of science and his work as a houseman at St Thomas' Hospital.