Contact

By: Carl Sagan

Narrated by: Laurel Lefkow

Length: 14 hrs and 45 mins

Publisher's summary

The future is here...in an adventure of cosmic dimension. In December, 1999, a multinational team journeys out to the stars, to the most awesome encounter in human history. Who - or what - is out there? In Cosmos, Carl Sagan explained the universe. In Contact, he predicts its future - and our own.

©1997 Carl Sagan (P)1997 Simon & Schuster

Critic reviews

"Contact deals with issues...worth pondering. The range and depth of ideas is quite uncommon." ( New York Times Book Review)

"Like a good mystery, Contact keeps us curious to the end...ingenious and satisfying." (Newsweek)

great story

Although it's a bit dated now but it would be a great television show. Great story.

excellent story, creativity, and characters.

I enjoyed the clash of characters, and blending of science and religion into the story in a kind way.

Totally different than the movie

Yes, the main themes from the book are in the movie but, in my opinion, they are totally different animals. Several reviewers criticized the long drawn out details in the book bordering on monotony. I disagree. The book.is the exact place for the expansion of characters and plot. I have watched the movie several times. I have not read the book itself, just listened to the audio book.

One of my pet peeves is the mispronouncing of words consistently in an audio book. Unfortunately this happens here, at least enough to be distracting.

So much is not in the movie, which is understandable to a point, but the differences are marked.

So if you're interested in reading a different story than the movie read on!

From the mind of a master

An amazing story, an in my opinion one of the most perfect narrations I have listened too in over 30 audio books. Laurel Lefkow has the voice that is near perfect. Laurel's voice adaptations encourages you to want to hear more of this novel by the mind and mastery of Carl Sagan. Dr. Sagan has always been one of my favorite scientist's due to all his truly amazing discoveries over his career. With all his science I have studied, I was unaware of his genius in creative writings. This audio will capture you, and in a very unique way. I highly recommend everything in this novel with 5 stars in all categories. Carl has left us, but through adaptations of his genius his imagination, creativity and especially his thoughts live on. Take a ride with Contact, it's place where dreams come true.

The Best of Sagan

This has been one of my top 10 favorite movies for some time. I finally got around to reading the book. Glad I did not go with the abridged version. I can imagine what it left out, but I may still read it for curiosity sake.

I am a big Sagan Fan. He had a great way of making science interesting and understandable for everyone. This particular story was a superb blend of science and human emotions. Sagan seemed to realize you can not just ram science down the throat of the skeptic, but you must understand their position and persuade rather than argue. This is the best book I have read that shows the often competing science and religion. It was interesting how Sagan could easily take the viewpoint or the religious person, and make an argument in favor, and then taking the opposing view. Without spoiling the ending both viewpoints win in the end.

I thought it was an excellent choice to have a female narrator given the main character is a woman. It lent credibility to the story. The different character accents were spot on and the flow of the story was enhanced by her pace and inflections.

If you want a story that takes you beyond this world and opens your mind to the possibilities of the universe read Contact

flawed but worthwhile

The first one third and last 1/4 or so, and particularly the very ending of this novel, are compelling, even elegant, and sometimes very moving.

There is a chunk of this book toward the beginning of the last one third which includes far too much exposition and not enough plot. there are also significant events that are described as having happened, whereas if they had been narrated as they unfolded, it would have lent more excitement to the novel. The classic piece of novel writing advice is, "Show, done explain," and one of Sagan's flaws as a novelist is that he does the opposite on too many occasions.

that said, the poignant conclusion of the novel for me made up for the flawed section noted above. I also get that this was an extremely ambitious novel, a piece of intellectual and idea driven, thematic science fiction, and not intended I don't think to be a page-turner as such. Judging it on those terms, it's still has those flaws, but is well worth reading as a serious piece of Science Fiction. I'm also impressed at Seguin, who I believe was an avowed atheist, grapples with ideas of human religion and spirituality in a pretty fair-minded way, even up until the end of the book.

Awesome

So much better than the movie. A male voice for some of the characters would have been appreciated,

narration leaves something to be desired

Carl Sagan's Contact is unquestionably a fantastic novel. It's too bad that the narration was whispered half the time as if The narrator was practicing to be an ASMR YouTuber. Additionally she is rather monotone and mono-emotional.

good story, long winded

The story has a great premise and is written well, but the author goes deep on these long winded digressions about anything and everything. I understand thay he seems to be only be trying to get his views on certain subjects like religion and philosophy across. but good God, spending 10 minutes on a subject that has absolutely nothing to do with the plot line is a bit much. his religious rants must've taken up well over an hour all told. I found myself fast forwarding, many times groaning. that being said, it was very informative, at an intermediate level for physics, cosmology and the like. didn't learn anything new, but it will definitely help to at least have a moderate grasp of the sciences before taking this plunge. all in all, was a really good listen, just gotta be ready for some serious digressions, sometimes seemingly random descriptions of a characters thought processes on inconsequential topics

Laurel Lefkow ruins Contact.

She has a good narrator voice. But that being said I'm not a fan of her performing other accents and voices. It is really irritating and distracting from a good novel.