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Contact (Movie Tie-in) Cassette |  | Author: Carl Sagan
Creator: Jodie Foster
Publisher: Audioworks
Category: Book
List Price: $24.00
Buy Used: $0.18
as of 2/10/2010 02:10 EST details
You Save: $23.82 (99%)
New (10) Used (46) from $0.18
Seller: betterworldbooks_
Rating:  320 reviews
Sales Rank: 1309159
Format: Abridged, Audiobook
Media: Audio Cassette
Edition: Abridged
Number Of Items: 4
Shipping Weight (lbs): 3.6
Dimensions (in): 7.3 x 5.1 x 1.5
ISBN: 0671570439
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780671570439
ASIN: 0671570439
Publication Date: July 1, 1997
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Amazon.com Review
It is December 1999, the dawn of the millennium, and a team of international scientists is poised for the most fantastic adventure in human history. After years of scanning the galaxy for signs of somebody or something else, this team believes they've found a message from an intelligent source--and they travel deep into space to meet it. Pulitzer Prize winner Carl Sagan injects Contact, his prophetic adventure story, with scientific details that make it utterly believable. It is a Cold War era novel that parlays the nuclear paranoia of the time into exquisitely wrought tension among the various countries involved. Sagan meditates on science, religion, and government--the elements that define society--and looks to their impact on and role in the future. His ability to pack an exciting read with such rich content is an unusual talent that makes Contact a modern sci-fi classic.
Product Description
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.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 320
 Prescience October 3, 2009
The Hegemon (Springfield, MO)
While I have read hundreds of books, I can count one hand the books I have re-read. After recently watching the movie Contact again (one of my favorites!), I went to my library and grabbed the book (first edition) which I hadn't read since I originally bought it. I won't go into detail on the book because many other reviews have performed that function, but I did want to point out a couple of prescient things that Mr. Sagan wrote in the book which was published in 1985.
At the start of chapter 8, Ellie is channel surfing and two shows are mentioned, Lifestyles of the Mass Murderers and You Bet Your Ass. Now, while Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous had been on TV a year or so prior to the publication of the book, I thought Mr. Sagan did a great job of predicting the popularity of reality shows and the fact that Ass is no longer a forbidden word on TV. In fact, Wikipedia tells me that there was a show on The Comedy Network in 2005 called You Bet Your Ass.
In chapter 12 there is mention of "robot roving vehicles on Mars". While there had been two failed attempts to land rovers on Mars in 1971, it wasn't until 1997 that there was a successful landing. Given the success of the Spirit and Opportunity rovers, this comment struck me as much more apropos for 2009 than 1985. Good job Mr. Sagan!
Yet another lesson August 9, 2009
Avals Sher (FL, USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
As most everyone agrees, the movie is never as good as the book. The better the book, the more disapointing the movie seems to be. Perhaps this is why it's my opinion that Contact movie is one of the worst adaptations of the book given all the changes made from the book to the movie. Spoilers to come. One of the key changes in the movie is Ellie's relationships - one of the key relationships in the book was her relationship with the preacher and the whole message of the book became acceptance between faith and science and even a bit of merging of the two. The movie radicallized both sides and made it about the battle between the faith and science - the book's point was entirely different. In the book, the clash led to acceptance, while in the movie the clash led to Ellie not being selected as the sole person to go (antoher change from the book, given that a team got to go in the book) and the first device being destroyed by religious extremists. While the destruction of one of the devices was in the book, there was an entirely different reason for it. So, all in all, given the content of the book, which I recommend, the movie was totally disappointing and diparts from the book to the extent rarely seen in recent years.
 One of Sagan's best books April 28, 2009
M. panah (Orange County, CA USA)
Contact is one of the most realistically written books of its kind. A young scientist finds a signal from outer space that appears to be the first "contact" with an extraterrestrial species. I won't give any "spoilers" but the story becomes very political, and dramatic as we see the way the Earth's governments and general population react to this unprecedented discovery. Everything that happens after the mysterious signal is discovered is very likely what "would actually" happen in modern day society. Sagan's writing style is special because he finds ways to give you a history and science lesson as he tells the story. But he does go into tangents quite a bit, for example he will go off topic to discuss Russian politics for and extended period, but it's still relevent to the overall story. The Movie is very similar, but the book of course has the wisdom of Sagan's tangents woven into it.
Jackson D. Contact Review April 14, 2009
J. Dougherty
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
J. Dougherty
April 14, 2009
Amazon.com Book Review
Contact, by Carl Sagan, is about Ellie Arroway, a scientist with an interest in extraterrestrials. While working at Argus, the first astronomical station just for the search for extraterrestrials, Ellie discovers a code of prime numbers in a radio frequency from the planet Vega. This brings the world together to complete an objective of deciphering the code. Ellie finds the primer deeper in the message and it contains the blueprints to build a machine. Without the world unity, however, the message would have probably been lost.
The U.S. is well on its way to building the machine when a bomb destroys it. Mr. Hadden, a wealthy eccentric, finances and builds the machine in Japan. Ellie and four other people go to Vega on the machine through black holes which are used as portals to a huge landing platform. Once they arrive in Vega, the aliens read their minds to get questions answered on the human species. Then the aliens say they will leave Earth alone.
When the space travelers get back, people think the trip to Vega was a hoax because the journey only took twenty-five minutes. The U.S. government tells Ellie if she ever gets proof about the aliens, she can come out with what she saw. In the meantime, the government is going to say the machine failed.
I think Contact accurately portrayed human nature as people have always been initially uneasy with new ideas and ways of life. I thought the book was insightful in how an extraterrestrial encounter could really happen. However, I thought there should have been some action in Contact because there was virtually none. In addition, the transitions between the main points to the story, such as finding the message and building the machine, took too long and were a bit boring. All in all I thought it was a good book and I would recommend it to anyone looking for a book that makes you think.
My Review Of Contact By Carl Sagan... March 17, 2009
Jose R. Gomez (Southern Cali)
Well, I am positive it has all been said before but I loved this book. Sci-Fi isn't really my thing, I usually prefer autobiographies and real life stories but the movie version of this book with Jodie Foster blew me away. I saw it years ago, and I just picked up this book 2 weeks ago. I just finished reading it earlier today... Jesus, where should I start? The character of Ellie Arroway was amazing... So many things about this book are just so great. Gilgamesh, chapter 22 is in my opinion the best chapter of the book... I won't give it away, but I will say that I would love to do what Hadden did lol BUY THIS BOOK!!! you will not be disappointed, I promise...
I will say this though, it isn't perfect. It had some dull parts like when Carl decided it was a good idea to go pages describing in great detail the history of a minor character or two, but don't let that turn you off, it is a great book.... I didn't understand alot of the math though, but I loved it anyway... lol
Showing reviews 1-5 of 320
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