Reading: Contact
Contact by Carl Sagan is one of the better works of science fiction dealing with extra terrestrials.
I remember being fascinated reading Sagan’s earlier work Cosmos. Flying past the planets of our solar system, a chapter at a time, had excited me as it did the entire world.
When I noticed another book by Sagan at the local library, my expectation rose instantly. As I read the back cover and learned that the book touched the topic of extra terrestrials, I had a vague feeling that Sagan would do justice to it. I was tired of the worthless depiction of aliens by popular movies. The best I had liked was Robin Cook’s Invasion. Would Contact be even better?
Sagan’s plot starts at a facility of SETI project Argus. The radio telescopes at Argus — in their attempt to scan the skies for non-random radio sources — hit upon a signal from the star Vega purely by chance. An international consortium is created so that the continuing Message from Vega could be received round the clock. After years of dedicated work, scientists manage to decode the Message: the Message is a manual with the blueprints of a Machine. Despite scores of hurdles and sabotage, the Machine is eventually built. Sagan’s description of the eventual tête-à -tête of a selected few humans with the extra terrestrials shines in its elegance and disarming simplicity.
For a fiction debut, Contact is not bad at all. The plot is good. Sagan’s arguments are balanced. But the thing I liked the most was the way he intertwines religion in the storyline. The only complaint I have about the book has to do with Sagan’s writing style; it seems strained, and the effort to add “difficult” words is plainly visible. It is not difficult to see Norman Lewis in the book.
