Contact - Carl Sagan

Well, I'm sure we've all seen the Film Based On The Book featuring the delightful Jodie Foster (mrrrroow), and - first and foremost - I must admit I myself saw the film first. Indeed, it's one of my favourite films of all time, hence my decision to purchase the novel. As with all books later translated into cinematic form, it varies in several minor and one or two major ways from the movie's plot. In short, the novel charts the experiences of our protagonist - Ellie - a radio-astronomer, as she discovers a Message apparently from an alien star. It later transpires this Message contains instructions to build a Machine (Get used to these words ...  Read the complete review

I bought a copy of this recently, and I have to say that it was a major disappointment. Clarke is at least partially wrong. You can read everything, at least everything of sufficient quality to be worth reading - provided you do apply fairly rigorous standards and freely available semiotic technique to evaluate the story. Which, oops, means reading it, or having some damnfool journalist do it for you. This is not among that number. Clarke is particularly important here, because Contact can be summarised in one number; 2001. It is a clone, pure and simple, and what is left over when you subtract everything that Clarke said with greater fluency and efficiency, and far ...  Read the complete review