Mar 11, 2004 08:05 PM
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(Updated Mar 11, 2004 08:05 PM)
You don't have to be a fan of Sci fi books to enjoy Sagan's CONTACT. For one thing, it's so much more than those aliens, UFOs associated with Sci fi. The novel deals with matters that are worth pondering.
The tale revolves around a young girl whose quest for answers to life's big questions launches her on a traditionally male dominated science career. Her father, a prof. of physics, urges her that ''it will not catch her a husband'' but she follows her ambitions.
At high sch. her ambition to talk to ''voices out there'' propels her to invent radios and even an encrypting machine. And this is despite the restrictions on her use of facilities at the sch. workshop. Companions can't understand her interests and she is ultimately isolated.
It's while working as a grad. Student and apprentice to a brilliant physicist that she decided to adopt the search for intelligent extraterrestrial messages as her discipline.
After she gets her doctorate, she subsequently becomes the director of a research project devoted to SETI. Against great odds, and the scorn from pessimistic fellow scientists, she is given some satellite time every week to search the planets on a million distant stars for evidence of the intelligent life.
One fine day she and team receive a message from a distant star, Vega, confirming her conviction that there is intelligence out there. This brings the scientists, religious leaders, and all nations to bury their differences as they unite to decode the message. Meanwhile, the message resists decoding as all Earth debate passionately the implications of the message. Fear as well as hope grips the whole globe! Religions and sects examine their eschatological doctrines. Could this mean Armageddon. Where has this message come from and what does it mean.
Amidst all this frenzy, Ellie volunteers to represent the Earth on the galaxies, to seek the message source, and she becomes the first human to make contact.
Have the courage to read this book!
