NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Fifty years after The Andromeda Strain made Michael Crichton a household name—and spawned a new genre, the technothriller—the threat returns, in a gripping sequel that is terrifyingly realistic and resonant. The Evolution is Coming. In 1967, an extraterrestrial microbe came crashing down to Earth and nearly ended the human race. Accidental exposure to the particle—designated The Andromeda Strain—killed every resident of the town of Piedmont, Arizona, save for an elderly man and an infant boy. Over the next five days, a team of top scientists assigned to Project Wildfire worked valiantly to save the world from an epidemic of unimaginable proportions. In the moments before a catastrophic nuclear detonation, they succeeded. In the ensuing decades, research on the microparticle continued. And the world thought it was safe… Deep inside Fairchild Air Force Base, Project Eternal Vigilance has continued to watch and wait for the Andromeda Strain to reappear. On the verge of being shut down, the project has registered no activity—until now. A Brazilian terrain-mapping drone has detected a bizarre anomaly of otherworldly matter in the middle of the jungle, and, worse yet, the tell-tale chemical signature of the deadly microparticle. With this shocking discovery, the next-generation Project Wildfire is activated, and a diverse team of experts hailing from all over the world is dispatched to investigate the potentially apocalyptic threat. But the microbe is growing—evolving. And if the Wildfire team can’t reach the quarantine zone, enter the anomaly, and figure out how to stop it, this new Andromeda Evolution will annihilate all life as we know it.

マイケル・クライトンが確立したテクノスリラーの伝統が、ダニエル・H・ウィルソンの筆致により驚異的な深化を遂げました。本作の魅力は、単なるSF設定の巧みさだけでなく、冷徹な科学的リアリズムと未知の生命体に対する根源的な畏怖が融合している点にあります。半世紀の時を超えて蘇る脅威は、現代社会が抱える脆さと、人類の知性が直面する極限の倫理を鮮烈に浮き彫りにします。 物語の核となるのは、自己変革を続ける生命の不気味なまでの美しさと、それに抗う専門家たちの知の攻防です。多様な知性が交錯する中で描かれるのは、科学という武器を手にしながらも、なお運命に翻弄される人間としての葛藤。クライトンの理知的な静謐さを継承しつつ、よりダイナミックに展開する知の探求は、読者の知的好奇心を激しく揺さぶり、ページをめくる手を止めさせないでしょう。