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.
Каким-то образом одновременно написано и лучше и хуже, чем я ожидал.
И во второй половине и разваливается на части и наконец во что-то собирается.
И безнадежный идеализм и нна тебе под дых пока зазевался.
Может быть, многое было б куда более стройно без налёта фикшна (многостраничные exposition dumps "от лица персонажа", объясняющие физику или радиоастрономию, мммм), но многое было бы и невозможно.
I always enjoyed the movie. As usual, I wish I read the book first. But this is a great, fun, fast read written by someone that understands complexities of space which is great. Definitely worth a read. My favorite book in a while.
It started out boring, then it got interesting, then it got boring again. The philosophical ramblings at the end were kind of a little too much for me, and the very end was cliché. I don't know, the overall idea was cool, but I'm not convinced that the execution was great.
Carl Sagan demonstrates mastery of the realms of both science and poetry in this wonderful novel. The minor inaccuracies in his imaginings of future-tech are irrelevant to the story and now just lend it a quasi-nostalgic charm. If you've always meant to get around to reading Contact but haven't yet, don't hesitate a second longer.
A well-crafted novel exploring the (unecessary) rift between science and religion, the possibility of extraterrestrial intelligence, the silliness of politics, our place in the Universe, and the Ultimate Reality. I will never think of transcendental numbers the same.
This is one of the cases where the movie is much better than the book. The movie is among the best SF movies of all time (so far), while the book is mediocre at best. Sagan was a great scientist, even visionary, but a great writer he was not. If you want to read Sagan, I'd recommend Pale Blue Dot.
1) ''She next came upon one of the premier computer channels, dedicated to fantasy role-playing games and now fallen on hard times. Accessed to your home computer, it offered a single entry into a new adventure, today's apparently called Galactic Gilgamesh, in hopes that you would find it sufficiently attractive to order the corresponding floppy disk on one of the vending channels. Proper electronic precautions were taken so you could not record the program during your single play. Most of these video games, she thought, were desperately flawed attempts to prepare adolescents for an unknown future.''
2) ''At a few hundred kilometers altitude, the Earth fills half your sky, and the band of blue that stretches from Mindanao to Bombay, which your eye encompasses in a single glance, can break your heart with its beauty. Home, you think. Home. This is my world. This is where I come from. …
1) ''She next came upon one of the premier computer channels, dedicated to fantasy role-playing games and now fallen on hard times. Accessed to your home computer, it offered a single entry into a new adventure, today's apparently called Galactic Gilgamesh, in hopes that you would find it sufficiently attractive to order the corresponding floppy disk on one of the vending channels. Proper electronic precautions were taken so you could not record the program during your single play. Most of these video games, she thought, were desperately flawed attempts to prepare adolescents for an unknown future.''
2) ''At a few hundred kilometers altitude, the Earth fills half your sky, and the band of blue that stretches from Mindanao to Bombay, which your eye encompasses in a single glance, can break your heart with its beauty. Home, you think. Home. This is my world. This is where I come from. Everyone I know, everyone I ever heard of, grew up down there, under that relentless and exquisite blue.''
3) ''For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.''
Such an amazing book. Much better than the movie, and the movie was great to begin with. I don't want to spoil anything for you, especially if you have seen the movie because there are slight differences that make the book much more entertaining. This is by far, the best book that I have EVER read!
Lu il y a des années, ce roman m'avait fait une forte impression. Les thèmes inusables de l'existence de Dieu, de l'existence d'une autre forme de vie et d'intelligence, le sens de la vie, tout est formidablement bien traité, le personnage d'Ellie est touchant, humain, on suit ses interrogations de scientifique avec intérêt. Un roman qui fait réfléchir sur des sujets fondamentaux, écrit par un scientifique défenseur du scepticisme, tout pour me séduire ! À noter le film de Robert Zemeckis inspiré du roman, avec Jodie Foster, qui passe forcément sur certains détails mais qui m'avait aussi beaucoup marquée.
