Friday, December 22, 2006

Contact, by Carl Sagan

Do you think you know all about the story because you've seen the movie ? Wrong, you're so wrong you can't even begin to imagine. The movie is a more or less loose adaptation, however brilliant it might be, of this fantastic book. The premises are, of course, a first contact between mankind and alien species. The focus is on how the world community deals with this, the ignorance and arrogance our "intelligent" species possesses and the impact on the life on a strong woman in the center of The Event.

The corny romantic stuff you find in the movie did *not* come from this book which takes the story much deeper into the theme and wraps it up in a much better way. You also get a lot more science (and actually some math, hooray for math!) in the book than in the movie, which is clearly geared to the genre buffs while the screen version was supposed to have a broader appeal. And science plus good fiction coming from the great, late Carl Sagan is something you should not pass. Too bad he is not around to write more fiction like this.

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