Book Bearings
Contact
- 432 pages · about 7 hours
- First published 1985
- 50 editions
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1 About this book
Ellie Arroway is a radio astronomer who directs a project listening for signals from other civilizations, against the doubts of much of the scientific community. One day the project detects a signal from the direction of the star Vega: a sequence of prime numbers, with further layers of information beneath it. The discovery sets off scientific excitement, political maneuvering among nations and religious controversy, and Ellie finds herself at the center of the world's first contact with another intelligence. Carl Sagan, the astronomer and science writer, published the novel in 1985; it began as a screenplay he wrote with Ann Druyan.
- Exploration
- Interplanetary voyages
- Science fiction
- Human-alien encounters
- Life on other planets
- Women scientists
- Extraterrestrial beings
- Astronomers
2 What to expect
Carl Sagan's only novel: a radio astronomer detects a message from another civilization, and the world has to decide what to do about it. It is as interested in how science, politics and religion would react as in the aliens themselves, with long debates between its skeptical heroine and believers. The science is careful and explained at length, the pace is slow for much of the book, and the tone is thoughtful and hopeful.
Good for readers who want: hard science fiction, first contact, and the debate between science and faith.
3 About Carl Sagan
Bio adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
4 More by Carl Sagan
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