I read it when I was a kid. A couple of times. It seems to be different from "The Andromeda Strain" by Michael Crichton, which comes up every time I try to Google search. It is an even more sinister story. About a signal that gets received from the general direction of the Andromeda Galaxy, and which contains the recipe for creating some kind of alien organism. It is when some laboratory follows this recipe and manages to create an exemplar of this organism that things begin to go very wrong. I remember that it was quite well written and scary, not some simple minded pulp story.  

The nearest I can think of is A for Andromeda, by Fred Hoyle. But it was a TV series not a book.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_for_Andromeda

 

You might find this a useful resource: http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com

21 minutes ago, Strange said:

The nearest I can think of is A for Andromeda, by Fred Hoyle. But it was a TV series not a book.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_for_Andromeda

 

You might find this a useful resource: http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com

Thanks Strange, Fred Hoyle definitely rings a bell.

Apparently it was originally a TV series, which later became novelised and came out as a book from Macmillan.

From what I have gleaned from the TV series itself, dating from 1961, it seems its character direction is even scarier than its scientific content. 

Edited April 10, 20205 yr by taeto

There was also a sequel

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Andromeda_Breakthrough

 

And  another serial another also around that time.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Pull

11 hours ago, studiot said:

There was also a sequel

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Andromeda_Breakthrough

And  another serial another also around that time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Pull

Thanks studiot! I remember watching a TV series when I was a kid much along those same lines. Scary stuff for a kid 😨. I will try to find any episodes of The Big Pull that are still available, to find out if those are the ones I was watching. 

Also the Andromeda Strain

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Andromeda_Strain

17 hours ago, studiot said:

Also the Andromeda Strain

In Crichton's novel it seemed more of an arbitrary choice to name the invader after our neighbor galaxy. In Hoyle's case (if it was indeed Fred Hoyle), the Andromeda was its actual source, and it makes it scary on an additional level; that of the intrusion having been orchestrated by someone or -thing on purpose.

Imagine receiving in our day a signal from some remote location, say originating from a billion light-years away, which clearly contains technical instructions for the construction of something. Would any laboratory agree to take a shot at it? The outcome could go in different directions, The exciting aspect is to not only have CETI, but you get to have an actual physical thing there to look at, even if you cannot communicate back and forth across the distance.

They were all darn good yarns and rather frightening to boot.

Writers had to rely on good stories in the first place in those days, before CGI.

The scene I remember most vividly, from The Andromeda Strain, is that of the woman having an Epileptic seizure because of the flashing red lights.
At the time, I didn't even know what Epilepsy was, And I couldn't understand why she stopped.
( I now realize it also wasn't a realistic depiction of a seizure )

47 minutes ago, MigL said:

( I now realize it also wasn't a realistic depiction of a seizure )

I'm not sure. I think it is a reasonable depiction of petit mal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absence_seizure

Probably more accurate than a lot of cinematic illness and injury, anyway!

It sounded like Species might have been inspired by this, but a quick skim-read didn't pop up any mention.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Species_(film)