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.
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Reviews with images
In order to read all the words on a single page you nearly have to crease over the rest of the book putting great strain on the binding
This is not a review of the content of the book but the item I received itself. This type of copy is very hard to read, by the end of it you will have a book with a broken binding. The inside margins are too tight. The book itself is at least an inch thick and the inside page margins are only about a quarter of an inch. In order to read all the words on a single page you nearly have to crease over the rest of the book putting great strain on the binding.The attached photo is the book folded open on a table. Spend more money don’t get the mass market paperback.
Top reviews from other countries
Juan Carlos Martin
Excelente novela de ciencia ficcion de uno de los mejore divulgadores de los ultimos tiempos
Reviewed in Mexico on August 26, 2022
