Contact
1985
- exploration
- fiction
- human-alien encounters
- life on other planets
- radio astronomy
- women scientists
- interstellar communication
- interplanetary voyages
- long now manual for civilization
- science fiction - general
The story
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.
What it’s like
Measured, wonder-struck and quietly hopeful, Contact reads like a patient walk through observatories, university lecture halls and government briefing rooms, its prose clear and conversational with the easy authority of a scientist who loves explaining things. Long passages of radio-telescope data, signal analysis and orbital mechanics sit beside warm, unhurried scenes of ordinary people at desks, in cramped offices and on dusty desert sites, so the sensory world is mostly fluorescent-lit rooms, the hum of machinery, the vast cold dark of space and the sheer scale of the cosmos. Its vibe is contemplative optimism with a thread of unease about power and belief, best suited to a slow Sunday, a late-night reading session with a mug of tea, or a patient long-haul flight. The pace is deliberate, the intensity low: there is no gore and little physical violence, only a few tense political and emotional confrontations, and the fear is more about the unknown than anything graphic. It suits readers who want big ideas handled with curiosity, a grounded and intelligent heroine's inner life, and a sense of humanity looking outward with awe.
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