Contact is not only one of the most religious science fiction books Ive ever read but also one of the most religious books Ive ever read, period. In Carl Sagans only work of fiction, the story is a mere backbone, a structure upon which Sagan can explore what he truly wants to explore, that is, the deepest questions of our existence.What is our purpose here?Can humans live without institutionalized religion?What are the dangers of extraterrestrial contact?How did we come to exist?Can science and religion be reconciled?Some questions remain unanswered, but Sagan provides fascinating solutions to some. He suggests that the Universe should be our religion. And even though I disagree with some of his conclusions, I appreciate such a philosophical investigation into these questions. Even better, the story and the characters behind these questions are fantastic. Sagan includes actual scientific explanations for the events, meaning you actually learn a bit about astronomy and physics while reading. His characters are among the most realistic Ive ever seen. I have no doubt many of them were based on his own colleagues because only true people could inspire such realism. The protagonist, Ellie Arroway, is so impressive. Shes a wonderfully feminist character written by a man in 1985. As she struggles in the aftermath of discovering extraterrestrial intelligence, my love for her grew denser than a black hole and more infinite than a transcendental number. The plot itself is captivating, because its easily one of the best novel premises ever: what happens when humans realize theyre not alone? We all have a thirst for wonder. Its a deeply human quality. Science and religion are both bound up with it. What Im saying is, you dont have to make stories up, you dont have to exaggerate. Theres wonder and awe enough in the real world. Natures a lot better at inventing wonders than we are.Reading Contact I mostly felt joyous. Because Im sitting here, right now. The most miraculous of miracles. I hear birds, I see the sun. Tonight I will see Venus, the Moon, and the stars. I dont know why Im here. When we marvel at these things, when nature evokes the numinous, lets not fight about why or how or who. Because who cares? We exist.

J.D. Salinger (The Catcher in the Rye), Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird) and Sylvia Plath (The Bell Jar) all published one novel each. Another member of the First Novel/ Last Novel club is astronomer, Pulitzer Prize winning author of Cosmos and science communicator Carl Sagan, whose foray into fiction was Contact, published in 1985. I gave the book a lot of latitude, not only for Sagan's potential shortcomings with character and dialogue, but for hopes that the novel could live up to the engaging 1997 film adaptation starring Jodie Foster. I like the movie a lot more than the book, though the DNA of what made the film so emotionally compelling is still here, hidden like numerals in .In 1999, Dr. Ellie Arroway--graduate Cum Laude from Harvard, with a doctorate in radio astronomy from Cal Tech--is director of Project Argus, an array of 131 radio telescopes in the scrub brush of New Mexico, studying quasar evolution, binary pulsars and the chromospheres of nearby stars by listening to radio emissions. Through public support for SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Life), the facility is also scanning the cosmos for alien civilizations. Ellie's graduate advisor, famed radio astronomer Dr. David Drumlin, lectures Ellie that she should be devoting resources to practical science instead of "pandering to UFO kooks and comic strips and weak-minded adolescents." Inspired by a radio astronomer from Cal Tech named Peter Valerian, Ellie remains fascinated by the challenge of detecting intelligent life beyond the stars. She considers resistance to the possibility of extraterrestrial life to be the domain of kooks. In absence of evidence, she has faith in the unseen.So why had we received no signal? Could Dave possibly be right? No extraterrestrial civilizations anywhere? All those billions of worlds going to waste, lifeless, barren? Intelligent beings growing up only in this obscure corner of an incomprehensibly vast universe? No matter how valiantly she tried, Ellie couldn't make herself take such a possibility seriously. It dovetailed perfectly with human fears and pretensions, with unproved doctrines about life-after-death, with such pseudosciences as astrology. It was the modern incarnation of the geocentric solipsism, the conceit that had captured our ancestors, the notion that we were the center of the universe. Drumlin's argument was suspect on these grounds alone. We wanted to believe it too badly.Argus receives a set of moving pulses transmitting at 9.2 gigahertz from Vega, a debris strewn system only twenty-six light years from Earth. Ellie and the technicians rule out malfunction, military or commercial interference or a prank. The signal is broken into a series of prime numbers which dramatically rules out celestial phenomenon. Ellie quickly shares her discovery with the world astronomical community, bypassing the National Science Foundation. In addition to Drumlin, who goes from skeptic to true believer, the multitudes who descend on New Mexico include the President's Science Advisor Kenneth der Heer and Assistant Secretary of Defense Michael Kitz.While Kitz remains wary of sharing the discovery with the rest of the world, Ken is supportive of Ellie. Working closely together, Ellie and Ken ultimately develop a romantic relationship. Drumlin decrypts enough of the signal to determine there's a picture there. The facility breaks down the signal and to their shock, find a television broadcast of Adolph Hitler speaking at the opening ceremonies of the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. Summoned to the White House to debrief the (female) president, Ken explains that the German signal was the first television broadcast of moderate power transmitted from Earth and that the Vegans are simply acknowledging us back.Ellie advises the president that she's discovered blocks of non-repeating information coming in under the signal that might take decades to process. Due to Vega setting in other countries throughout the day, partnership with the world community--Australia, China, India, the Soviet Union, the Middle East, Western Europe--is vital. Arriving at New Mexico is Soviet astrophysicist Vasily Lunacharsky ("Vaygay"), a colleague of Ellie's. Also striking camp in the desert are the press and hundreds of spectators, hucksters and religious nuts, each with their own theories and expectations of what contact from extraterrestrials will portend for humanity. Zealotry, fanaticism, fear, hope, fervent debate, quiet prayer, agonizing reappraisal, exemplary selflessness, close-minded bigotry, and a zest for dramatically new ideas were epidemic, rushing feverishly over the surface of the tiny planet Earth. Slowly emerging from this mighty ferment, Ellie thought she could see, was a dawning recognition of the world as one thread in a vast cosmic tapestry. Meanwhile, the Message itself continued to resist attempts at decryption. On the vilification channels, protected by the First Amendment, she, Vaygay, der Heer and to a lesser extent Peter Valerian were being castigated for a variety of offenses, including atheism, communism, and hoarding the Message for themselves.While preliminary findings suggest that the Message may be instructions for Earth to build some sort of Machine and debate ensues on whether or not to build it, Ellie is contacted by Palmer Joss, spiritual advisor to several presidents, a populist theologian less interested in control of the Message than he is in the moral development of the scientists speaking on behalf of mankind. Young and charismatic, Palmer questions both religious doctrine and scientific research equally, but resists any attempt by Ellie to pry him from his belief in the existence of God, a belief Palmer can't possibly prove but accepts as an article of faith. As main characters go, Ellie Arroway can't help but be one of my favorites. With so much science fiction focused on the "hassles" of the WASP male, Ellie tackles challenges not only as a woman in a male-dominated field, but as her peer circle expands to include most of humanity, an atheist in a God-worshiping population. Her femininity and atheism are constants throughout. She's an astronomer that would make Carl Sagan proud, and while the novel doesn't pivot on personal confrontation in as dramatic a fashion as the movie, the author never disrespects Ellie by jettisoning her training or principles in the race to decode the Message. This character is a role model.There's a lot of philosophical conversation in the novel. They were adequately well written and provide "equal time" for a variety of scientific and theological beliefs, but very little of it was integrated into an exciting story. These scenes play like coffeetalk and in fact, most of the dialogue takes place on walks or excursions Ellie goes on between symposiums or meetings. There's an academic sensibility to much of the book, with elements like political machination, religious nuts or sabotage inserted in a way that seems like it was against the author's wishes. At best, the novel is resistant to corny thriller tropes. At worst, it's plodding.While the intellectual exchanges between highly skilled academics grounds Sagan's story in reality to a degree, the novel features a couple of stabs at futurism that feel unnecessary, some plausible (a female president), some less so (a no holds barred Babylonian pleasure theme park in New York). I think I'll take Prince's speculations on the year 1999 from the year 1983. The movie--adapted by Jim V. Hart and Michael Goldenberg and directed by Robert Zemeckis--would pare that away to take place during the Clinton administration, as well as bolster Palmer Joss' role and the threats to Ellie's work. It's a better science fiction film than the book is a science fiction novel, but this will do.With his novel, Sagan has turned me away from atheism and toward agnosticism. Contrary to what others might suggest, I find that "I don't know" can be as definitive a religious position as anything.

Prvo itanje sam smjestio negdje u 1987. obzirom da imam HR izdanje iz 1986.Izvrsno napisan roman, dobro se sjeam velikog uitka pri itanju i zato ista petica.Roman koji je pozitivan i daje nadu ovjeanstvu (a to uvijek volim).Film odlian - pogledao nekoliko puta.Preporuka svima i za knjigu i za film poslije.

As far as I know Contact is Carl Sagan's only novel. This makes him almost the Harper Lee of sci-fi (though he did write boatloads of sci-fact books). Not being much of a nonfiction reader this is my first encounter with Carl Sagan's writing, I already feel like it is a shame that he only wrote the one novel; though I am sure the world is more than compensated by his other output.Contact piqued my interest immediately with a vivid portrayal of Ellie Arrowway, a two years old genius, figuring out how a radio works and fixing a tube by straightening a bent prong. The girls thought processes throughout this scene are very clearly described. From there we follow Ellies growth into adulthood and becoming the director of Project Argus, a radio telescope institute for research into SETI (search for extraterrestrial intelligence). One day a message ostensibly from the Vega system, 25 light-years from Earth is received. Initially, it seems like just a looping series of prime numbers, remarkable in itself but of no practical value. Later a careful analysis of the modulations in the transmission reveals hidden messages, making the broadcast a kind of space palimpsest. One of the hidden messages turns out to be a blueprint for a mysterious machine containing five comfy chairs. Well, nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!I was fascinated by the hard sf aspect of Contact. Sagans popular science writing skills serve the readers well here, the science expositions in this book are generally understandable and often fascinating. I also had a feeling that Sagan is enjoying the relative freedom of writing fiction, even though he clearly seems to have a preference for writing nonfiction. In any case, this novel is partly autobiographical in that SETI was an important part of Sagans career. He has clearly thought out the worldwide implications of humanity receiving a communication from an undisputed extraterrestrial intelligence. The hitherto impossible level of cooperation between unfriendly countries to use their radio telescopes to help pick up and compile parts of The Message received as the Earth rotates. The panic and condemnations from some religious leaders are all too believable. Contact is also a platform for Sagan to explore religion from his agnostic point of view. I really appreciate that he is not overbearing about his agnosticism, and it is just one aspect of this book of many facets. The diametrically different viewpoints between Ellie and a religious figure are articulately argued on both sides, but the agnostic view seems more convincingly presented (Ellie is basically a mouthpiece for the author at this point). It is interesting that Sagan seems to think that both atheists and Christians presume to know too much, taking their conjectures as fact. Agnosticism is presented as the happy medium.Even though I had a sense that Sagan enjoyed writing Contact very much, it does not mean that the novel is a romp or a hoot. It is mostly narrated at a deliberate, thoughtful pace, and only ramps up a bit when the alien designed Machine is activated and weird sci-fi-ness ensues. I thoroughly enjoyed and admire Contact, it is thought provoking, fascinating and even educational. I wish he had written a sequel._______________A word about the 1997 Movie AdaptationI remember quite liking the movie, and Jodie Foster is always great. However, while I enjoyed the movie for what it was, I was disappointed in it as a sci-fi movie. For the longest time, it dissuaded me from picking up the source material. Having just read Sagans novel it seems as if the filmmaker has somehow de-sci-fied it, making the movie rather ambiguous about whether the aliens really did send a message or Ellie is simply off her rocker. In a single brief scene the movie clearly implies that the aliens are indeed real but by then I think the damage is already done. The movie feels more like a fairly decent human drama than an intelligent sci-fi film. Carl Sagan was also not happy about the adaptation, though he passed away before it was finished.The book is overtly, spectacularly, unapologetically sci-fi.

I have always wondered why people say science and faith (or a belief in God or Supreme Creator) have to be two separate things. Everything I learn about the natural world and the universe proves to me that God exists, not the opposite. This book repeats back to me truths that I have I think I have always known. And it does it in the voice of a scientist, as written by the pen of a scientist. It points out the fallacies of religion, but not faith. It points out the weaknesses of government, but not humanity. We lost Carl Sagan far too soon.