Recently, I stumbled upon the Wikipedia page for panspermia—a concept I was already familiar with, relating to the theory that life on Earth might have originated from an external source. Specifically, a primitive microorganism might have landed here on a meteorite (or, in some versions of the theory, on an alien probe).
While reading about panspermia—a theory that has gained a lot of scientific traction in recent years—I encountered a term I hadn’t seen before: extremophile. It refers to “a microorganism, especially an archaean, that lives in conditions of extreme temperature, acidity, alkalinity, or chemical concentration.” In other words, a really tough bug. Tough to live in the deepest of the ocean, or even in the earth’s mantle.
Recently, I stumbled upon the Wikipedia page for panspermia—a concept I was already familiar with, relating to the theory that life on Earth might have originated from an external source. Specifically, a primitive microorganism might have landed here on a meteorite (or, in some versions of the theory, on an alien probe).
While reading about panspermia—a theory that has gained a lot of scientific traction in recent years—I encountered a term I hadn’t seen before: extremophile. It refers to any microorganism that has evolved to exist in an environment so extreme that most other life would be prohibited. Examples of such environments are hydrothermal vents, salt-ridden lakes, and frozen ice sheets.
Or, perhaps, outer space.
Apparently, the concept of extremophiles—and of panspermia, in general—has taken on new relevancy in the past ten years. Even as we find more and more exoplanets (the most recent count is around 2,000), we have yet to find a single sign of life, intelligent or otherwise. This has led some cosmologists to adopt the so-called Rare Earth Hypothesis, which stipulates that while earth-like planets are a dime-a-dozen, actual Earths—that is, planets with life—might be fabulously uncommon. In fact, there might have only been a few in the early universe, from which all the other life-bearing planets were seeded. This could happen either accidentally (from asteroids; hence the extremophiles) or intentionally (from aliens deliberating spreading life across the galaxies).
All this speculation struck a chord with me. For one thing, it took me back to my youth, to all the sci-fi books and films I consumed. The idea of alien invaders taking the form of germs or seeds goes all the way back, I think, to Jack Finney’s classic The Invasion of the Body Snatchers, in which the evil “seed pods” are actually alien weeds that travel from planet to planet on the solar wind.
But, for my money, the definitive novel making use of the germs-from-space idea is The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton. People over forty will recognize Michael Crichton’s name—he was the guy who created the original WestWorld and also the hit TV show, ER. But to nerds who are even older—say 50-plus—he was the sci-fi god who penned such classic novels as The Terminal Man, Congo, and Sphere.
His first big hit, The Andromeda Strain, anticipated several other genres that would soon take over mainstream commercial fiction: the techno-thriller (ala Tom Clancy), the medical-thriller (ala Robin Cook), and the government thriller (ala Frederick Forsyth). Not only was the book a huge bestseller, it also served as the basis of a first-rate movie, Robert Wise having brought it to the screen in 1973.
The crux of the story might seem trite to the modern, post-millennial ear, but that’s only because it has been ripped off and imitated for almost 50 years. A NASA satellite crash-lands in the desert of Arizona, near a sleepy little town. Within 24 hours, everyone in the town is dead, victims of an alien microorganism. The satellite and its deadly cargo are taken to a high-tech, underground military base, codenamed Wildfire, where a team of elite scientists battle against the clock to figure out how to kill the bug.
Yes, that’s right, it’s an extremophile—an alien organism, which the scientists dub Andromeda. Unfortunately, Andromeda’s biology is very strange, and almost indestructible.
I remember reading the book when I was fourteen or so, tearing through it in a white-hot binge over a single weekend. Even at that age, I was struck by how innovative the style was, conceived as a faux-historical novel (see The Handmaid’s Tale, The Hunt for Red October, and countless others). Crichton renders the narrative as a work of non-fiction, complete with top-secret government documents, footnotes, and sources. It gave the work a kind of verisimilitude that belied the content (basically, a new version of The Blob, updated with the latest biological theory and terminology).
Any would-be novelist could benefit from a study of Crichton’s obvious skill as a story teller. The novel is full of unexpected twists, large and small. For example, the Wildfire team are horrified to discover that the crashed satellite was part of a bio-warfare program designed to harvest alien lifeforms. Then, after arming the nuclear weapon at the core of the underground base, they learn that Andromeda’s chemistry works like a tiny nuclear reactor—it loves radiation.
I sometimes wonder why this style of novel hasn’t been imitated more often. Perhaps it simply takes too much work. And raw knowledge. People like Michael Crichton are very rare, obviously (he was a trained M.D. before he became a novelist), as are people like Tom Clancy.
In fact, it’s pretty amazing that such people ever arrive in the first place. It’s tempting to credit God. Or aliens. Or maybe it’s the extremophiles.
Ash Clifton, Writer 