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
Susan Fletcher (British author) Susan Fletcher (British author) Susan Fletcher (born 1979) is a British novelist. Fletcher was born in Birmingham and studied at the University of York (BA in English and Related Studies) and then at the University of East Anglia (MA in Creative Writing). Her first novel, "Eve Green", was published in 2004 by Fourth Estate, an imprint of HarperCollins. It features an eight-year-old girl who is sent to a new life in rural Wales. It won the 2004 Whitbread First Novel Award, the Authors' Club award and the Betty Trask Prize; it was also shortlisted for The LA Times Book Award