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 Great Fire (novel) The Great Fire (novel) The Great Fire (2003) is a novel by the Australian author Shirley Hazzard. It won the U.S. National Book Award for Fiction and a Miles Franklin literary award (2004). The novel was Hazzard's first since "The Transit of Venus", published in 1980. The novel commences in Japan in 1947, and subsequently takes in Hong Kong, England and New Zealand. Written in the third-person narrative, the novel principally follows its protagonist, the decorated British war veteran Aldred Leith, who is travelling through post-war Asia to write a book. At times the narrator follows Peter Exley, an Australian