Contact
by Carl Sagan
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|
|
| published
|
1986
by Random House UK Ltd (A Division of Random House Group)
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| first published
| 1997 |
| binding
| Hardcover |
| isbn
|
0712695036
(isbn13: 9780712695039)
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| ebook |
|
| pages
| 432 |
| literary awards
| 1986 Locus Awards Winner (First Novel) |
| date added
|
02-12-07
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Read in June, 2008
I can’t say enough good things about the writing of the late Carl Sagan. Previously, the only works of his I had read are his non-fiction works “Cosmos” and “Dragons of Eden”. I didn’t quite know what to expect of his fictional work, though I think I had a few good clues going into it, the first being the fact I’ve seen the film adaptation about fifty times (which I discovered is vastly different than this story, aside from the general, top-level plot) and the second being Sagan...more
I can’t say enough good things about the writing of the late Carl Sagan. Previously, the only works of his I had read are his non-fiction works “Cosmos” and “Dragons of Eden”. I didn’t quite know what to expect of his fictional work, though I think I had a few good clues going into it, the first being the fact I’ve seen the film adaptation about fifty times (which I discovered is vastly different than this story, aside from the general, top-level plot) and the second being Sagan’s stated expectations/hopes/fantasies in his other works when he discusses the forthcoming ‘contact’ from another intelligent civilization which he firmly believes exists, somewhere. While I didn’t know if Carl could write a lick of fiction worth a damn, “Contact” still beckoned.
Much like the message that appears to be originating from nearby the star Vega in the book, Sagan's message penetrates the babbling background noise of commonplace life and I hope that every last one of his readers are glad they were listening with white-knuckled anxiety to that particular frequency. Carl Sagan’s best quality is his intelligent sensibility and incredible sense of wonderment and adventure; his writing and boundless appreciation for the infinite wonders this universe holds is unparalleled, and he’s sickeningly contagious; I dare anyone to read Sagan and walk away without seeing their own existence in a new light. At one point in “Contact” he draws a parallel between the humbling but awesome and enlightening religious experience dubbed ‘the numinous’ or ‘misterium tremendum’ in which the acolyte feels utterly insignificant but absolutely astonished through their epiphany; I was thunderstruck at how accurately he was describing my selfsame helpless reverence for his own powerful work.
One last digression before actually commenting on the book; I can’t imagine what a profound impact the loss of Carl Sagan was to our own exploration of the cosmos. When I think about what we are capable of, and what we are actually actively pursuing, I feel insulted as a human being begging for even a morsel of this knowledge. Astronomers and scientists ultimately blame public ignorance and pitiful government and private funding (with the widespread ignorance as the real culprit driving the budgeting decisions), but when presenting their concepts to the masses, the largest problem I see is that the eggheads just can’t effectively communicate their plans, I can only assume the response from most budget committees is “hey, thanks for completely mind-fucking us with your nth dimensional cosmic jargon and belittling our intelligence in the process of panhandling for a couple of million dollars. Feel free to erase that blackboard-filling-equation before pissing off and taking a flying fuck at a rolling donut”. With his ability to efficiently communicate these things to the layman, Sagan filled a much-needed niche, replaced now by a vacuum and a lack of connectivity between those who could finance such operations and those who dare to espouse these fantastic dreams. We also seem to have lost our balls somewhere along the way in our quest; I understand there is little glory in the Challenger and Columbia disasters, and that both of these tragedies are at the forefront of many minds when contemplating taking that next step in our progress, but seriously, we’ve lost a hundred times as many people in the process of sheep-shearing through the ages, and sure, there’s a major difference in the money lost in these ventures, but it’s time to grow up people. Besides, there’s a good chance we’ll find space-sheep capable of shearing themselves, let’s start looking forward to bigger and better instead of sniveling over past failures.
In “Contact”, Sagan hypothesizes on mankind finally receiving an indication from space that we are not alone. Eleanor Arroway is a radio astronomer bound to the tenets of science and grew up somewhat brash and confrontational due to a poor relationship with her step-father, the nefarious businessman John Staughton. Her 'true' father, a simple, loving, hard-working hardware vendor was taken from her at a young age, and a less-similar replacement than Staughton couldn’t be found in the Milky Way. Ellie’s studies are rooted firmly in the black and white world of science, which is considered uncharacteristic for a woman at the time, and Staughton makes sure to scoff and mock at her passions and desires at every turn, as she slowly gains acceptance and credibility as a radio astronomer. She starts accumulating some serious observation time at premier facilities where she is slowly brought into the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. A thorough skeptic, even Ellie isn’t convinced that SETI is a worthwhile course of action, with thousands of man hours a year spent (effectively) wasting time for little green men.
Until, of course, mankind finally receives a signal, which appears to be the real thing, on her watch.
In order to get confirmation that the inbound transmission from space is legitimate, she has to align the resources of international observatories in order to continue receiving it as the planet turns and to establish credibility from various sources receiving the signal. In two jiggle’s of a jackrabbit’s ass, the authorities swoop down to try to contain the situation, rather displeased that she felt the need to alert foreign agencies of this unprecedented event. The message itself is obviously of intelligent design, patterned around prime numbers with multiple underlying messages within the palimpsest. The first part to be decoded is a doozy, Adolph Hitler announcing the onset of the Olympic games in Berlin. Immediately, the government is less than amused; few things are less expected or desired than a space-faring Fourth Reich. The scientific community assures them that the Nazi broadcast is simply the first earth-bound transmission powerful enough to have reached space, and this is the aliens’ way of confirming that they received are message. The irony of Hitler as our first ambassador to space is lost on few.
After much labor, the message is finally decoded, and it’s a schematic for building a machine, for purposes left unspecified. For the most part, the ‘big brains’ are convinced that the machine is some form of conveyance with which to go and meet this civilization, but the defense agencies of the planet understandably conceive that this thing may very well be a Doomsday Device, or perhaps a Trojan Horse of some sort, upon activation we can either expect that this thing will completely annihilate the planet or transport the Vegan army directly to Earth. These points of view cause quite a sensation, and this is before the religious fanatics begin jumping into the debate, unafraid to compare the Machine (as it is dubbed) to the Tower of Babel, as a blasphemous means to speak with God, and should we be foolish enough to attempt building it, punishment for our insolence is sure to follow.
Naturally, construction begins on not just one, but a pair of Machines, setting in motion a great tale of fantastic adventure in the search for truth and man’s rightful place in this apparently barren universe, dredging up enough speculation to question or validate one’s faith, forging a bond of worldly brotherhood and a desire for a diligent and determined global community, and a moving reaffirmation of the things which make life worth living.
I couldn’t recommend anything better if you have a scheduled week of daydreaming ahead of you, preferably on a sunny beach.
So jump on the bandwagon, find your voice, and cry for the construction of The Machine, or at least whatever the hell we can currently erect that helps us understand and visit the corners of this sprawling playground we were generously given to explore. We’re past the days of launching unmanned flights that contain a phonograph with a golden lp record blindly into space. Let’s face it, knowing our bum luck that thing is going to be intercepted by some amateur DJ on his way to his next gig in the Pleiades, and all he’s going to do is lift some samples from it when he’s scratching away for a hodgepodge of alien species. We can either get our asses in gear and make a mark of our own deliberate fashioning in the cosmos, or be poorly represented to the galactic community by the sweet sounds of frogs mating as some filler in some nimrod's hot 'mix'. Consider yourself responsible for helping make that call.
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Read in June, 2008
I enjoyed this book but for once I liked the movie better. I can't believe it. I guess it doesn't help that it is one of my favorite movies ever. And I learned something important from the movie, so it really sticks in my head, holding unfair advantage. Plus it's always a little weird reading a story when you already know how it goes and are unavoidably picking out the parts that differ from the movie.
One thing I will say this book suffers from is thinly veiled soliloquy. It always bugs me w...more
I enjoyed this book but for once I liked the movie better. I can't believe it. I guess it doesn't help that it is one of my favorite movies ever. And I learned something important from the movie, so it really sticks in my head, holding unfair advantage. Plus it's always a little weird reading a story when you already know how it goes and are unavoidably picking out the parts that differ from the movie.
One thing I will say this book suffers from is thinly veiled soliloquy. It always bugs me when authors use characters like sockpuppets or ventriloquist dummies. They have some point they want to make to the readers and so they make a character say it as though the character is speaking to another character, but really it's the author speaking directly to us. Don't like it. Sagan does that quite a bit in this book and barely makes an effort to disguise it. It's an indulgence I wish authors would resist. Some of the things S.R. Haddon says to Ellie, for example, she might as well not have been there to hear, because she was just a prop set up to keep up appearances while Sagan talked to us through Haddon's mouth. Other times it's observational, the narrator supposedly filling in some color, but really just taking an opportunity to say something clever to us that he wants us to know he thought of. I like both Sagan and Contact too much to let it detract overly much while reading this book, but it's definitely there.
Another odd thing about this book is that in significant parts it reads like a report. I guess that shouldn't be surprising coming from a hardcore scientist, but the beginning of the book covering Elly's childhood, for example, might has well have been a list of bullet points. This, this, and this happened, and then this, this, and this. On this date, this happened. When she was 12, she was given a bicycle. It was red and measured 182 centimeters long. I'm exaggerating there. Even when he was talking about sex or romance, however, it was as though it was part of the abstract of some paper. At that and other times it felt like I wasn't in the story, but rather separated from it by a sheet of clear plastic. Hey... I read this as an e-book on my Treo, so there actually was a sheet of clear plastic between me and the story. Maybe that was it. Nah, I don't think so.
At other times the book read like something that must have actually happened. There was detail on things that really didn't seem necessary to the story, but were so specific that it seems unlikely they've have been just made up. An example is when Ellie is with her Russian colleague in a bar in Russia with other scientists and an official toastmaster. The trip to Russia wasn't necessary for the story, nor was the night in the bar or anything anyone said there. It may have served to show that her Russian friend would stick up for her in the male-dominated scientist circles, just something to flesh out his character, but that's about it. Why include it? I was puzzled.
Lastly on the downside I think the movie was actually more plausible. With five people in the Machine with corroborating stories instead of just one, the reaction by government officials to what happened with the Machine is much less plausible than what happened in the movie. It doesn't make much sense in the book.
And that point, in fact, is one of the two major differences between the book and the movie. The entire meaning and lesson of the movie hinge on Ellie's solo experience, which actually happened but was unprovable, as compared to and contrasted against the unprovable religious knowledge she had spent the movie dismissing with Palmer. That's the whole point of the movie - the final relenting and opening of the agnostic scientific mind to the possibility of a religious knowledge or experience that can be as true as any perceived/observational/scientific experience while remaining unprovable to anyone else. I thought that was fantastic and it made me somewhat grudgingly but mostly happily release a degree of judgement.
The book unites science and religion in a different way, with something pretty big that isn't in the movie at all. That was neat too but was just part of a story. The movie used a fictional event to illustrate a real point. The book, by way of the major point not in the movie, used a fictional scenario that would just be really cool if it were true, but doesn't otherwise teach a usable lesson because of that dependency.
Read it anyway. It's neat. I think it would appeal to a broad range of audiences.
Interesting factoid: Sagan says in the author's note that the book grew out of "a movie treatment for a motion picture that Ann Dryan and I wrote in 1980-81". So a movie spawned a book spawned a movie....less
bookshelves:
science-fiction
Read in January, 1990
recommends it for:
Anyone
It's funny to me that Dr. Sagan, an avowed atheist, would write a book which included some strong arguments in support of the concept of faith. I really loved this book, though I am religious. It made me think long and hard about many issues surrounding the conflict between science and religion. Though there are many attacks on religion in this book, some of them justified, some of them not, in the end I chose to interpret the book on the whole as a defense of the concept of faith.
It was won...more
It's funny to me that Dr. Sagan, an avowed atheist, would write a book which included some strong arguments in support of the concept of faith. I really loved this book, though I am religious. It made me think long and hard about many issues surrounding the conflict between science and religion. Though there are many attacks on religion in this book, some of them justified, some of them not, in the end I chose to interpret the book on the whole as a defense of the concept of faith.
It was wonderfully ironic how Ellie, who had criticized people of faith for a long time, near the end of the book found herself in a position where she was asking other people to accept her story of her contact with the aliens without being able to give them any proof. In essence, she was asking them to have faith in her. Isn't that exactly the position that every prophet, every person who has ever had a personal experience with God has been in? Wonderfully ironic.
One of the coolest things mentioned in the book was unfortunately left out of the movie. Ellie asked the alien (who appeared to her in the form of her father) if they were the ones who had constructed the network of wormholes that she had traveled through. He said no, that they were far older, presumably created by some ancient race responsible for shaping the universe. The alien went on to say that whoever it was left a message in the irrational number pi. I read that and I'm thinking whoever was responsible for that would fit the definition of God. So later on, at the end of the book, Ellie goes home and starts calculating pi out as far as possible in search of a hidden message. She finally finds it! The message embedded in pi starts out with a picture of a perfect circle!
Ellie had maintained that if there was a God, then somewhere in nature He would have left some sort of proof of His existence, some sort of message. At the end of the book she found it. Wow! To me it was powerful stuff.
As an aside, I loved the movie too, though it took some liberties with the plot that irked me. Anyway, after seeing it I invited my girlfriend at the time to go see it with me (the first time I'd seen it was before we started dating). So we went to see it together and she hated it, and actually walked out of the theater not 20 minutes into the movie. She was a very straight-laced girl who didn't like the swearing at the beginning of the movie. We got into a big argument over it. She just couldn't get past the swearing in order to see the beautiful deep message the movie was trying to convey. We didn't break up at that point, but it was one contributing factor in our breakup a few months later.
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Read in July, 2007
recommends it for:
most people
(pre) discussions on science and religion with an atheist friend in the US led her to give me her battered copy of this. anticipating a good read and will start on it asap.
(post) I quite liked Contact, though it was, especially toward the end, very different from what I expected. I thought Carl Sagan might come down more on the side of science, and at the start, when introducing Ellie the astronomer vs Pastor Rankin the crazy narrow minded evangelist, he was, but toward the end I wasn't real...more
(pre) discussions on science and religion with an atheist friend in the US led her to give me her battered copy of this. anticipating a good read and will start on it asap.
(post) I quite liked Contact, though it was, especially toward the end, very different from what I expected. I thought Carl Sagan might come down more on the side of science, and at the start, when introducing Ellie the astronomer vs Pastor Rankin the crazy narrow minded evangelist, he was, but toward the end I wasn't really very sure what he thought. I mean, its pretty clear he's an awesome physicist and is probably on the side of science in the science vs religion debate - Ellie seems to be the vehicle for his personal point of view - but I'm not quite sure he thought that religion was all that baseless. Ellie after all has a quasi religious experience, as she herself points out, and is put in a situation where she and a small group have an experience that is (nearly) empirically unprovable and the 'explanation' is that it was all a huge hoax. And while the Pastor Rankin character is obviously a strike against irrational and narrow minded Christians, the Palmer Joss character is a lot more enigmatic, and less easily dismissed.
Otherwise, though, I'm a lot cooler on Contact than many reviews on GoodReads are. Sagan's a good writer, but he's not a novelist. The language is complex but straightforward rather than lyrical, the plot is well-thought and the characters interesting but appear (to me) a little too transparently as vehicles for ideas.
Still, it is interesting to see things as agnostic scientist Ellie sees them. It appears to me what Sagan's trying to get at is that you can't give up rationally trying to account for all the evidence there is, and that if your theory can't account for everything, or there are competing theories that can both account for everything, or certain evidence that no theory can at present account for, then you have to remain agnostic, open to changing your conclusions.
Also managed to get through Ernst Mayr's This is Biology... essentially a glance at the various fields of biology and how they evolved (pun not intended!). Mayr's is the book I expected Sagan's to be - an account of science that categorically denies the possibility of creation, by making various statements about the widespread acceptance of the fossil record, the age of the earth, gradual continuous evolution of one species into another, etc. He doesn't really present the evidence itself though. ...less
Read in May, 2008
If there are intelligent beings elsewhere in the universe, why haven't we received a message from them yet? and what would happen if we actually did? Near the end of Contact we learn Carl Sagan's speculative but quite plausible answer to the first question. The bulk of the book concerns his answers to the second question, which are unfortunately far less satisfying.
Contact suffers from an excess of exposition and from generally weak character development. (Isaac Asimov could ma...more
If there are intelligent beings elsewhere in the universe, why haven't we received a message from them yet? and what would happen if we actually did? Near the end of Contact we learn Carl Sagan's speculative but quite plausible answer to the first question. The bulk of the book concerns his answers to the second question, which are unfortunately far less satisfying.
Contact suffers from an excess of exposition and from generally weak character development. (Isaac Asimov could make this work but few others can.) The only memorable character in the novel is its heroine Ellie Arroway, and even she never comes alive; we're told about her emotional revelations and turning points, but I never felt moved by them. There are no bad guys worth speaking of, and little in the way of suspense and surprise, at least on a human level. The story goes on for too long after its climax; at least one or two post-climax elements could easily have been moved to an earlier point in the story to greater effect. To be fair, the book is outstanding in two respects: its attention to scientific accuracy and technical detail; and the fairness with which Sagan, an atheist, portrays his religious characters. None of them is a caricature or cartoon and some are intelligent and articulate in expressing beliefs that were not the author's own.
Written in the early to mid 80s, the book makes a number of false predictions about its period, the late 90s, which serve as distracting reminders that we're inside a fictional world. The Soviet Union is still intact; America has elected its first woman president; the Millennium is approaching but no one's talking about the Y2K problem; recording media are all magnetic but photography's gone holographic, and so on.
It bears mentioning that the movie version of Contact is in a sense a mirror image of the novel. While the novel follows a bland path to a thought-provoking conclusion, the movie follows a more dramatic path (in many ways improved over that of the book) to a neutered conclusion that apparently assumes that the audience is too dumb to understand the explanation that is, in fact, one of the central points of the book. Similarly, the movie's version of S.R. Hadden was in most respects far more intriguing than the novel's, but the film completely dispensed with the last -- and most interesting part -- of his story....less
Read in December, 2006
recommends it for:
Everyone
Contact by Carl Sagan is one of the better works of science fiction dealing with extra terrestrials.
I remember being fascinated reading Sagan's earlier work Cosmos. Flying past the planets of our solar system, a chapter at a time, had excited me as it did the entire world.
When I noticed another book by Sagan at the local library, my expectation rose instantly. As I read the back cover and learned that the book touched the topic of extra terrestrials, I had a vague feeling that Sagan woul...more
Contact by Carl Sagan is one of the better works of science fiction dealing with extra terrestrials.
I remember being fascinated reading Sagan's earlier work Cosmos. Flying past the planets of our solar system, a chapter at a time, had excited me as it did the entire world.
When I noticed another book by Sagan at the local library, my expectation rose instantly. As I read the back cover and learned that the book touched the topic of extra terrestrials, I had a vague feeling that Sagan would do justice to it. I was tired of the worthless depiction of aliens by popular movies. The best I had liked was Robin Cook's Invasion. Would Contact be even better?
Sagan's plot starts at a facility of SETI project Argus. The radio telescopes at Argus — in their attempt to scan the skies for non-random radio sources — hit upon a signal from the star Vega purely by chance. An international consortium is created so that the continuing Message from Vega could be received round the clock. After years of dedicated work, scientists manage to decode the Message: the Message is a manual with the blueprints of a Machine. Despite scores of hurdles and sabotage, the Machine is eventually built. Sagan's description of the eventual tête-à-tête of a selected few humans with the extra terrestrials shines in its elegance and disarming simplicity.
For a fiction debut, Contact is not bad at all. The plot is good. Sagan's arguments are balanced. But the thing I liked the most was the way he intertwines religion in the storyline. The only complaint I have about the book has to do with Sagan's writing style; it seems strained, and the effort to add "difficult" words is plainly visible. It is not difficult to see Norman Lewis in the book....less
Read in May, 2008
recommended to Moire by:
Sarah Prescott
I really enjoyed Contact, but I couldn't help wishing that I had read it sooner. In high school I was very caught up in the science versus religion debate, and I would have found the discussions between Ellie and Palmer particularly captivating. The last 5-10 years have left me feeling fatigued by the same dried out questions being posed again and again, by the superficial confrontation between science and religion that has played out in the media, by the public misunderstanding of how science...more
I really enjoyed Contact, but I couldn't help wishing that I had read it sooner. In high school I was very caught up in the science versus religion debate, and I would have found the discussions between Ellie and Palmer particularly captivating. The last 5-10 years have left me feeling fatigued by the same dried out questions being posed again and again, by the superficial confrontation between science and religion that has played out in the media, by the public misunderstanding of how science and scientists really work. In that sense, perhaps another Carl Sagan is exactly what we need now, someone to bring these dialogues to life once again but in informed and intelligent ways. Within the astronomical community, Carl Sagan was not universally loved. His showman-like ways and his tendency to skip from one "crazy" idea to the next, left some astronomers feeling irritated or overshadowed. But no one would deny his ability to electrify the public and reach out to them, intelligently but not pedantically.
On a side note, I was pleased to find out that the headphones in the movie was Carl's own fanciful idea and not a Hollywood attempt to make the science somehow more approachable. But just to make sure there isn't any confusion, as an astronomer I occasionally use data from the Very Large Array in New Mexico (the radio telescope array depicted in the movie), and believe me radio astronomers do not use headphones to listen to radio waves from the sky! We use computers, as Carl points out in the book. ...less
bookshelves:
sciencefiction
Read in January, 1988
recommends it for:
Sagan fans
Short review - huge book.
I liked Sagan and his "billions and billions" charm. I am sorry he is no longer sharing planet earth with us. As with all of his publications, Contact was well written, entertaining & educational. However, it left me wondering if Sagan truly was an agnostic. (or atheist?)
I hate to admit (& regret the fact) that the religious characters in the book do indeed reflect some Christian's attitudes and beliefs. There are times we (Christians) can do...more
Short review - huge book.
I liked Sagan and his "billions and billions" charm. I am sorry he is no longer sharing planet earth with us. As with all of his publications, Contact was well written, entertaining & educational. However, it left me wondering if Sagan truly was an agnostic. (or atheist?)
I hate to admit (& regret the fact) that the religious characters in the book do indeed reflect some Christian's attitudes and beliefs. There are times we (Christians) can do more harm than good with our closed minds and adamant viewpoints. A few, loud bad apples ...
Ellie is the director of "Project Argus," (in which scores of radio telescopes in New Mexico are used to intensely search for extra-terrestrial intelligence (SETI). Her character, near the beginning of the story, states the agnostic viewpoint that "there isn't compelling evidence that God exists... and there isn't compelling evidence that he doesn't."
Later, after she has indeed not only contacted, but inter-acted with what she "knows" to be other-world intelligent entities (extra-terrestrials) but no one believes her, she is again faced with the conundrum of knowing something through personal experience without having documented, scientific proof (faith.)
The protagonist's frustration spoke to my spirit and my own staunch belief in God: I "know" for a certainty by personal experience but can't prove it by using Sagan's novel computing digits of π (pi) or any other scientifically accepted method.
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bookshelves:
philosophy,
religion,
science,
science-fiction
Read in January, 1987
"You're god is too small."
The heroine makes this comment about 2/3 of the way through this novel. She is trying to get across the idea that, if your god cannot encompass the knowlege which humans have so laboriously amassed over the millenia (which is only about two teaspoons worth in comparison to the enormity of the universe!), then there is something wrong with the god you've made for yourself.
A lot of what is going on in Sagan's book, it seems to me, is the attempt to ex...more
"You're god is too small."
The heroine makes this comment about 2/3 of the way through this novel. She is trying to get across the idea that, if your god cannot encompass the knowlege which humans have so laboriously amassed over the millenia (which is only about two teaspoons worth in comparison to the enormity of the universe!), then there is something wrong with the god you've made for yourself.
A lot of what is going on in Sagan's book, it seems to me, is the attempt to explore and express the wonder that is offered by scientific investigation and knowledge.
The story of the world cooperation to build the Machine to travel into the galaxies -- and the subsequent breakdown of that cooperation -- is a further examination of the conflict between humans who desire to get beyond themselves, and those who are too fearful/threatened/self-absorbed/power-hungry to embark on that journey.
Sagan spends a lot of time in this book giving us an idea of the humongous extent of the universe, and thereby offering his own vision of the transformative possibility inherent in that investigation.
The film of this novel cops out, of course; the film industry is too scared of organized religion to relay the story Sagan is actually telling: belief in something larger than yourself is easy - just look up, around, down, in
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Read in January, 1999
recommends it for:
anyone with an IQ above 100
For the love of God, Zeus, Hashem, Allah, yourself, or whoever you worship, please do not think you have read this book if you have seen the movie. The movie is beautiful, intriguing, and emotionally engaging. However, the book is simply phenomenal. I wish I could remember all of it; Maybe I'll read it again soon. From what I remember, the relationships in the book are much more clearly defined. Without giving too much away, Ellie has a much more complicated relationship with her father, mo...more
For the love of God, Zeus, Hashem, Allah, yourself, or whoever you worship, please do not think you have read this book if you have seen the movie. The movie is beautiful, intriguing, and emotionally engaging. However, the book is simply phenomenal. I wish I could remember all of it; Maybe I'll read it again soon. From what I remember, the relationships in the book are much more clearly defined. Without giving too much away, Ellie has a much more complicated relationship with her father, mother, and stepfather (yes, there are more characters) which in part propel her towards her search for "the truth" and something else "out there". In this search, not only does Ellie find answers (and more questions) to religion, ETI, and her family--but she finds what the movie only made a minute attempt to explain: Ockham's razor (the simplest explanation often being the best explanation). Also, from a literary perspective, there are many devices used to make this a great book such as beautifully descriptive language describing everything from science to religion to landscapes to relationships, etc...and there are interesting juxtapositons to illustrate the similaries of such quests as romance, religion, and science--most expertly accomplished in "the pendulum scene" (it's hot)....less
bookshelves:
romance-time-travel
Read in September, 2001
I'm a closet science fiction fan, although I suppose one has to be in the closet about it to be... in the closet.
ANYWAY, this is one of my all-time favorite books Ever. I think I saw the movie first and despite not really liking it, my interest was piqued by the book... and a big book, too. I really like long, good reads (chalk it up to my early interest in historical romance novels which for the most part - especially early Johanna Lindsey ones, none of her new crap - are long and big... ha...more
I'm a closet science fiction fan, although I suppose one has to be in the closet about it to be... in the closet.
ANYWAY, this is one of my all-time favorite books Ever. I think I saw the movie first and despite not really liking it, my interest was piqued by the book... and a big book, too. I really like long, good reads (chalk it up to my early interest in historical romance novels which for the most part - especially early Johanna Lindsey ones, none of her new crap - are long and big... haha) and this is definitely fits that category.
Sagan, is quite simply, a master at what he knows and how he conveys all of it in this novel. While I didn't understand his explanations of radioastronomy or even physics, it made sense on some accessible level that did not take away from the heart of the book, the journey of its characters, especially Ellie, and his views of modern society, religion, and God.
I especially liked his theory of world peace coming about when the citizens of the world realize they are part of a much larger entity than themselves and their nations after the realization of extraterrestial life. I guess you can call me a sci-fi romantic....less
Read in November, 2003
recommends it for:
Film buffs who may like the book version better
The film version of this book was great, but not as great as the book itself which goes into the "virtues" of atheism. Jody Foster's portrayal of the atheistic scientist in the film is better fleshed out in the book. Her victimization at the hands of fundamentalist congressmen is a frightening parody of the hold that religious Christian political extremists have on American government today.
This and various other Carl Sagan books have helped me understand that Christianity and al...more
The film version of this book was great, but not as great as the book itself which goes into the "virtues" of atheism. Jody Foster's portrayal of the atheistic scientist in the film is better fleshed out in the book. Her victimization at the hands of fundamentalist congressmen is a frightening parody of the hold that religious Christian political extremists have on American government today.
This and various other Carl Sagan books have helped me understand that Christianity and all religions in general are frauds, fakes, and myths. The need to grovel before imaginary gods and the need to have some of those gods encourage the sacrifice of godsons, first sons, virgin daughters or other virginal heroes on crosses, slaughter stones, or thrown into volcanoes to atone for “our sins”, transgressions or shortcomings seems to be hardwired into our brain cells/genes. These beliefs spring from primitive human needs to explain bad guesses about the unknown and to cope with imaginary “punishments” which we now know are simply the vagaries of nature.
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bookshelves:
sci-fi
This book changed my life when I read it as a nerdy little sixth grader. Ellie Arroway became the strong female role model I needed in my life, and I became determined to be an astronomer when I grew up. I then proceeded to read all of Carl Sagan's nonfiction books one by one to solidify my nerd status.
I fell in love with Contact because it was about more than just Earth receiving a transmission from an alien civilization. Sagan addresses religion and the idea of god severa...more
This book changed my life when I read it as a nerdy little sixth grader. Ellie Arroway became the strong female role model I needed in my life, and I became determined to be an astronomer when I grew up. I then proceeded to read all of Carl Sagan's nonfiction books one by one to solidify my nerd status.
I fell in love with Contact because it was about more than just Earth receiving a transmission from an alien civilization. Sagan addresses religion and the idea of god several times in the novel and not just from his usual agnostic point of view. He explores how politics tries to interfere with science, usually to the detriment of everyone. Sexism in a male-dominated field is a recurring theme, and Ellie continues to struggle against it throughout her childhood and her later career. The end is beautifully written, and I must have read it at least 20 times while I was growing up. Ultimately, it is about a search for meaning and finding a way to not feel alone in the universe....less
bookshelves:
sci-fi
Read in April, 2002
recommends it for:
astronomical lovers
Superb-splendid! i love this book so much! One of the best theme in my lifetime history. Versi bukunya lebih menawan dibanding filmnya.
Ellie Arroway, seorang ilmuwan wanita pada SETI, mendapat transmisi radio dari rasi bintang Vega. Sebuah konsorsium internasional dibentuk untuk memecahkan kode tersebut. Setelah bertahun-tahun ratusan peneliti dari seluruh dunia yang tergabung dalam project argus akhirnya berhasil memecahkan teka-teki yang ternyata adalah sebuah cetak biru mesin yang diduga ...more
Superb-splendid! i love this book so much! One of the best theme in my lifetime history. Versi bukunya lebih menawan dibanding filmnya.
Ellie Arroway, seorang ilmuwan wanita pada SETI, mendapat transmisi radio dari rasi bintang Vega. Sebuah konsorsium internasional dibentuk untuk memecahkan kode tersebut. Setelah bertahun-tahun ratusan peneliti dari seluruh dunia yang tergabung dalam project argus akhirnya berhasil memecahkan teka-teki yang ternyata adalah sebuah cetak biru mesin yang diduga dapat mengantarkan manusia melintas antar dimensi. Maka Ellie terlibat dalam eksotisme perjalanan antar dimensi, lubang cacing dan lubang hitam yang menawan.
Carl Sagan menyajikan dialog yang bernas tentang hubungan antara astronomi, cinta, agama dan penciptaan Tuhan dalam karya monumentalnya ini. Menjadikan Contact sebagai literature sci-fi terbaik yang pernah saya baca sepanjang hidup disamping Star Trek Handbook.
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Read in May, 2008
I really enjoyed this book. I loved the movie when I saw it years ago, and put the book on my 888 list for my book-to-movie category as one of those books I've always wanted to read but have never got around to. I am so glad that I finally did.
While parts of the story stray widely in the movie, I think that the movie does stay true to the central themes of the book. I think that the parts I miss the most in the movie are the other team members, who make little/no appearance on the big scree...more
I really enjoyed this book. I loved the movie when I saw it years ago, and put the book on my 888 list for my book-to-movie category as one of those books I've always wanted to read but have never got around to. I am so glad that I finally did.
While parts of the story stray widely in the movie, I think that the movie does stay true to the central themes of the book. I think that the parts I miss the most in the movie are the other team members, who make little/no appearance on the big screen. The interaction between the team members, and between the team and their loved ones really cemented the themes of love, and value to me.
Of course, the philosophical aspects of the book fascinate me. The battles between science and religion, the existence of God and of other intelligent life; these are themes that intrigue me, and reading this book allowed me to examine my own perspective on these questions....less
bookshelves:
old-friend,
scifi
Has a copy to sell/swap
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Read in September, 1999
recommends it for:
scifi fans, astronomers, geeks and nerds
I read this after my first session at CTY in 1999, and the combination of experiences is largely what set me on the path to becoming an astronomy major at Cornell. I already liked astronomy, but CTY cemented it. Contact has a lot to do with why I came to Cornell specifically. Sagan was here, we operate Arecibo from here... I wanted to be Ellie Arroway when I grew up. I still do.
It's been a while since I read it, but aside from the enormous life-changing effect it had on me, I remember it...more
I read this after my first session at CTY in 1999, and the combination of experiences is largely what set me on the path to becoming an astronomy major at Cornell. I already liked astronomy, but CTY cemented it. Contact has a lot to do with why I came to Cornell specifically. Sagan was here, we operate Arecibo from here... I wanted to be Ellie Arroway when I grew up. I still do.
It's been a while since I read it, but aside from the enormous life-changing effect it had on me, I remember it being a superb piece of science fiction. Science fiction written by actual scientists is always fun because of the depth of the science; Sagan really thought everything through. Contact also has quite good characterization, which is something science fiction written by actual scientists sometimes lacks. This is definitely one of my favorites....less
It ain't like the movie. Not really. Sure the basic plot is still about a supposed alien race making contact and the machine we build that sends somebody out to their planet. But apart from that, this book is basically one long tirade about the value of science over religion. Which is unfortunate. Not that I have any problem with Carl Sagan's proudly noted atheism. It's just that he makes the mistake that a lot of CHRISTIAN authors often make: he stops telling his story to preach his point...more
It ain't like the movie. Not really. Sure the basic plot is still about a supposed alien race making contact and the machine we build that sends somebody out to their planet. But apart from that, this book is basically one long tirade about the value of science over religion. Which is unfortunate. Not that I have any problem with Carl Sagan's proudly noted atheism. It's just that he makes the mistake that a lot of CHRISTIAN authors often make: he stops telling his story to preach his point of view far too many times.
I read the book hoping it would give a deeper explanation of the aliens and the things Jodie Foster experiences while in the machine. But it really doesn't. At least not enough to make the slog through Sagan's manifesto worth it.
This is one of those rare cases where the movie really was better than the book....less
bookshelves:
best-adult
Read in January, 1998
Here's what I wrote when I reread it in 2003:
Contact is a book that is literally science fiction--full of theories about space and time, chemistry, mathematics, all the invisible building blocks of our logical world, yet also full of human emotion, of religious thought, of anguish and love. It's a book about being human and I continually held myself up for comparison, measuring my own responses, forming my own thoughts. I will be lucky if I ever find another book that makes me respond this ...more
Here's what I wrote when I reread it in 2003:
Contact is a book that is literally science fiction--full of theories about space and time, chemistry, mathematics, all the invisible building blocks of our logical world, yet also full of human emotion, of religious thought, of anguish and love. It's a book about being human and I continually held myself up for comparison, measuring my own responses, forming my own thoughts. I will be lucky if I ever find another book that makes me respond this way.
Is Contact now my favorite book? Probably not. It doesn't feel like a book to me--it feels like an experience. My favorite books tend to contain characters I identify with, which I don't find in this book. But I definitely look forward to the time I will have forgotten its magic so I can pick it up and feel this curious rush again....less
bookshelves:
sci-fi
recommends it for:
science lovers
Hey, what do you know, a sci-fi book with real science in it! And let me just add the obligitory "the book is so much better than the movie" sort of comment. Not that I didn't appreciate the movie, I liked it, but yeah you know how these things go.
More than science, though, there were really subtle and clever themes on faith and belief interwoven into the story. This book boasts one of the most stunning (to me) concepts I have ever read in a story. The part at the end when the ...more
Hey, what do you know, a sci-fi book with real science in it! And let me just add the obligitory "the book is so much better than the movie" sort of comment. Not that I didn't appreciate the movie, I liked it, but yeah you know how these things go.
More than science, though, there were really subtle and clever themes on faith and belief interwoven into the story. This book boasts one of the most stunning (to me) concepts I have ever read in a story. The part at the end when the main character is looking deeper and deeper into the number "pi", and what she finds, was just one of those moments that totally blew me away. So few books are able to do that, and this is one of them.
Hmm, I had it rated as 4 stars but as I write this I realize how much I enjoyed this book. 5 stars!...less
bookshelves:
pagetopage
Read in January, 2000
For those thinking that this is just another first contact-we come in peace-alien turns bad book, you're in for the shock of your life. You must miss the author's name there, or you have no idea who the guy is.
The late Carl Sagan was a respected scientist, and if he decided to write something about ET, we ought to sit down and read.
I was hooked from the very first page, and kept turning the page until it was over. Contact bravely walked through the thin line of religion against science,...more
For those thinking that this is just another first contact-we come in peace-alien turns bad book, you're in for the shock of your life. You must miss the author's name there, or you have no idea who the guy is.
The late Carl Sagan was a respected scientist, and if he decided to write something about ET, we ought to sit down and read.
I was hooked from the very first page, and kept turning the page until it was over. Contact bravely walked through the thin line of religion against science, and provided enough valid arguments from both sides to make them at peace with each other. And the ending might seem a perfect one, even though those lightsabers-yielding type would disagree.
See the movie adaptation to get a glimpse on the wormhole travel, and the ever important pod....less
book data (includes all editions)
avg rating
(all editions):
4.02 (2092 ratings)
avg rating
(this edition): 4.25
(4 ratings)
number of reviews: 200
