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The future is here...in an adventure of cosmic dimension.

In December, 1999, a multinational team journeys out to the stars, to the most awesome encounter in human history. Who -- or what -- is out there? In Cosmos, Carl Sagan explained the universe. In Contact, he predicts its future -- and our own.Amazon.com Review
It is December 1999, the dawn of the millennium, and a team ofinternational scientists is poised for the most fantastic adventure inhuman history. After years of scanning the galaxy for signs ofsomebody or something else, this team believes they've found a messagefrom an intelligent source--and they travel deep into space to meetit. Pulitzer Prize winner Carl Sagan injects Contact, hisprophetic adventure story, with scientific details that make itutterly believable. It is a Cold War era novel that parlays thenuclear paranoia of the time into exquisitely wrought tension amongthe various countries involved. Sagan meditates on science, religion,and government--the elements that define society--and looks to theirimpact on and role in the future. His ability to pack an exciting readwith such rich content is an unusual talent that makes Contacta modern sci-fi classic. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (323)

Carl Sagan great fiction .Be careful you might learn a tidbit of radio astronomy too.
Another great book by Carl Sagan. I expected a great book by the Pulitzer Prize winner author of Cosmos... Carl Sagan ( see my review 5 stars) and I was not disappointed.

As an amateur astronomer of 40 years I knew of the famous distinguished astronomer Carl Sagan. All of the basic astronomy used in this great Sci Fi I knew about but I know very little of Radio Astronomy. By reading this book I learned a few tidbits about Radio Astronomy. To me this book was fascinating.

We see the central character Ellie Arroway growing up and eventually getting a PHD and becoming a world class astronomer in charge of a huge radio telescope... project Argus. Dr. Arroway leads a team and finds an ET signal originating from near the star Vega beaming to Earth. Project Argus receives a signal of prime numbers and then the The ETs beam back a radio signal received from us of Hitler and the Olympic games in the late 30s. Embedded in the signal is a message of instructions for us to build a 2 trillion dollar machine but there is problems getting the "primer" message to understand it. Eventually we get the "primer" and build the machine in the US, Russia and Japan. 5 people are selected to go into the machine ( Dr. Arroway is one of them) and using wormhole technology on double black holes are.....that's enough I wont ruin the book for you. Just to say the famous 5 are threatened to not say what they discovered and let the world think the machine did not work. But it did....! At the end of the book we learn the final message.

Carl Sagan was a world class astronomer and scientist that also worked as part of the Viking Mars spacecraft team. One of the things I liked about Carl was his seemingly effortless way of making complex problems in astronomy and science understandable to the general public. That is a rare gift. Many times brilliant men/women can not write to the average laymen complex thoughts in a way for the less educated to understand. Carl was a master at this.

This is excellent Sci Fi. Also some real Astronomy and some Radio Astronomy is used. The book reads very well. A fast read. The characters are well established and there is good interaction. As a novice to Radio Astronomy it was great learning a few very, very basic tidbits of Radio Astronomy.

Also Contact was a major motion picture from Warner Brothers. I remember seeing the movie and liked it too. The book was just as good.5 stars for a very enjoyable book.

Sadly Carl Sagan passed away in 1996. The world misses a great astronomer, scientist and a great man. Even though he never knew of me I considered Carl Sagan a friend who I respected very much.

One of my favorite Sci-Fi books
I thought this book was excellent.Sagan does a wonderful job of predicting the reactions of various people --given their occupations, ideologies, worldviews, etc.---were contact with extraterrestrial civilizations ever to be made.Sagan's insight into Ellie's character is understandably, considering his own work as a scientist, apt and in depth --in my opinion.
The debates between the scientists and ecclesiastics were something all too real for me, and I thought the interactions between different governments, and their marked suspicion of each other, was both appalling and accurate.One of the hallmarks of GOOD science fiction, in my opinion, is the ability to use real science within the story (of course the occasional divergence into the purely theoretical is sometimes necessary for things such as interstellar travel) and in this respect Sagan hits the mark head on.Definitely one of my favorite science fiction books, apart from the works of Adams and Asimov.I will be giving this book as a gift to a few choice friends.

A Scientific Explanation, Perhaps, of Religion
I truly enjoyed the book--and would have enjoyed it more, I'm sure if I had not seen the movie first.So with that caveat, let me proceed....

Sagan has truly done a good job of showing how it COULD happen.It makes sense...though at places it can drag just a bit.The large passage of time (the main part of the story takes place over 12 years) is not readily apparent to the reader.Is it weeks, months, a year, or years that have gone by?

However, I give great credit to Sagan (of whom I was under the impression was an atheist, certainly an agnostic) for ultimately "playing fair" with religion.In multiple passages he uses his characters to skewer or belittle fundamental Christianity, yet he also displays respect (again, through his characters) for some very intelligent people who are thoughtful and practicing Christians.

Ultimately, we find that the whole alien interaction serves as an analogy to religion.That is, things that are certain on the personal level cannot be "proven" to others' satisfaction.Deep truths and heartfelt emotions are looked upon with great skepticism by others.Just as Ellie, the main character, has done with religion.

It leaves us wondering if perhaps our current religions came about the same way.Or perhaps that there are truths that are not accessible to all...except by believing the report of those who have experienced such things.

And the fact that the "real" builders of the universe are unknown, even to the highly advanced civilizations of other worlds...well, that smacks of "God" in some shape or form.

All in all, a wonderful read (though sometimes it gets a bit bogged down in technical arcana--but that may be because I saw the movie).I recommend it to skeptics and believers alike.

Prescience
While I have read hundreds of books, I can count one hand the books I have re-read. After recently watching the movie Contact again (one of my favorites!), I went to my library and grabbed the book (first edition) which I hadn't read since I originally bought it. I won't go into detail on the book because many other reviews have performed that function, but I did want to point out a couple of prescient things that Mr. Sagan wrote in the book which was published in 1985.

At the start of chapter 8, Ellie is channel surfing and two shows are mentioned, Lifestyles of the Mass Murderers and You Bet Your Ass. Now, while Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous had been on TV a year or so prior to the publication of the book, I thought Mr. Sagan did a great job of predicting the popularity of reality shows and the fact that Ass is no longer a forbidden word on TV. In fact, Wikipedia tells me that there was a show on The Comedy Network in 2005 called You Bet Your Ass.

In chapter 12 there is mention of "robot roving vehicles on Mars". While there had been two failed attempts to land rovers on Mars in 1971, it wasn't until 1997 that there was a successful landing. Given the success of the Spirit and Opportunity rovers, this comment struck me as much more apropos for 2009 than 1985. Good job Mr. Sagan!

Yet another lesson
As most everyone agrees, the movie is never as good as the book. The better the book, the more disapointing the movie seems to be. Perhaps this is why it's my opinion that Contact movie is one of the worst adaptations of the book given all the changes made from the book to the movie. Spoilers to come. One of the key changes in the movie is Ellie's relationships - one of the key relationships in the book was her relationship with the preacher and the whole message of the book became acceptance between faith and science and even a bit of merging of the two. The movie radicallized both sides and made it about the battle between the faith and science - the book's point was entirely different. In the book, the clash led to acceptance, while in the movie the clash led to Ellie not being selected as the sole person to go (antoher change from the book, given that a team got to go in the book) and the first device being destroyed by religious extremists. While the destruction of one of the devices was in the book, there was an entirely different reason for it. So, all in all, given the content of the book, which I recommend, the movie was totally disappointing and diparts from the book to the extent rarely seen in recent years. ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document is an article from Proceso, published by CISA Comunicacion e Informacion, S.A. de C.V. on October 12, 1997. The length of the article is 715 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Contacto.(TT: Contact)
Author: Javier Betancourt
Publication: Proceso (Magazine/Journal)
Date: October 12, 1997
Publisher: CISA Comunicacion e Informacion, S.A. de C.V.
Issue: n1093Page: p68(2)

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This digital document is an article from Siempre!, published by Edicional Siempre on November 6, 1997. The length of the article is 560 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Contacto(TT: Contact)
Publication: Siempre! (Refereed)
Date: November 6, 1997
Publisher: Edicional Siempre
Volume: v44Issue: n2316Page: p79(1)

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This digital document is an article from Siempre!, published by Edicional Siempre on November 20, 1997. The length of the article is 1164 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

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Title: Contacto.(TT: Contact)
Author: Tomás Pérez Turrent
Publication: Siempre! (Refereed)
Date: November 20, 1997
Publisher: Edicional Siempre
Volume: v44Issue: n2318Page: p68(1)

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This digital document is an article from Proceso, published by CISA Comunicacion e Informacion, S.A. de C.V. on January 18, 2004. The length of the article is 668 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Los monaguillos del "heavy metal".(Historias fantásticas; The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys)(Reseña de película)
Author: Javier Betancourt
Publication: Proceso (Magazine/Journal)
Date: January 18, 2004
Publisher: CISA Comunicacion e Informacion, S.A. de C.V.
Issue: 1420Page: 72(2)

Article Type: Reseña de película

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