By and large I found it a touching and hopeful read, although obviously the subject matter is very sad. I was emotionally invested in the outcome, and found the prose very readable, despite some minor head hopping. Sagan, Carl (May 28, 1978). "Growing up with Science Fiction". The New York Times. p.SM7. ISSN 0362-4331 . Retrieved December 12, 2018.

Contact (novel) - Wikipedia Contact (novel) - Wikipedia

After graduating from Harvard University, Ellie receives a doctorate from Caltech supervised by David Drumlin, a well-known radio astronomer. She becomes the director of "Project Argus", a radio telescope array in New Mexico dedicated to the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). This puts her at odds with most of the scientific community, including Drumlin, who tries to have the funding to SETI cut off. The project eventually discovers a signal containing a series of prime numbers coming from the Vega system, 26 light years away. [a] [b] Further analysis reveals information in the polarization modulation of the signal: a retransmission of Adolf Hitler's opening speech at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, the first television signal powerful enough to escape Earth's ionosphere. [1] Acting on the suggestion of "Ted", Ellie works on a program to compute the digits of π to heretofore-unprecedented lengths. Ellie's mother dies before this project delivers its first result. A final letter from her informs Ellie that John Staughton, not Ted Arroway, is Ellie's biological father. When Ellie looks at what the computer has found, she sees a circle rasterized from 0s and 1s that appear after 10 20 places in the base 11 representation of π. This provides evidence of her journey and suggests intelligence is behind the universe itself. A basic listing is FREEand will get you started but if you want to publish more information and boost your search results then an enhanced listing is for you. How do I update an existing listing? Trigger warnings⚠️ Suicide and suicidal thoughts. Depression and depressive thoughts. Confronting scenes. In alternating chapters we see the reactions of the people who receive James' text at all hours across the globe. Their story as part of his life. The good times, the happy memories, the lifeblood that gives us meaning.This story looks at the implications of our relationships. Family, friends, acquaintances. The reasons we lose touch with each other. Sometimes intentionally, but usually not. Life just happens, it unfolds, and we tend to assume that those we know are ok, unless they are going through a major crisis. But what constitutes one of those? Having reached the age of forty, he's an eeny bit overweight and feeling more than a little disillusioned. His partner has left him, he no longer speaks to his sister or best mate, and he's just lost his job. I do also think that this book could have perhaps been a little shorter, as it was starting to feel somewhat repetitive as we crept towards the end. You end up feeling sorry for James what with each of these people contributing to breaking him. Death by a thousand cuts it seems for the hero. It is not a happy book though it still manages to keep the tone not too serious. Sagan named the novel's protagonist, Eleanor Arroway, after two people: Eleanor Roosevelt, a "personal hero" of Sagan's wife, Ann Druyan, and Voltaire, whose last name was Arouet. [3] The character is based on the real-life SETI researcher Jill Tarter. [6]

Contacts by Mark Watson | Goodreads

What emotions do you think you would feel? Fear? Disbelief? Anger? Incredulity? Horror? You may even wonder if it's a drunken joke. A messy text sent by someone who's had one too many, and will surely feel better in the morning. Sagan's friend physicist Kip Thorne gave Sagan ideas on the nature of wormholes when Sagan was developing the outline of the novel. [5] The reason that James selects an ovenight train to Edinburgh is particularly poignant. Bittersweet. Imagine what your first thought would be when your phone lights up with a new message, and you read the words that someone is saying goodbye to you. Permanently. As in, leaving this mortal coil behind.Content Center Articles and guides about project management, collaboration, automation, and other topics to help you make the most of the Smartsheet platform. Explore the Content Center ENGAGE 2023 Smartsheet ENGAGE brings together our global customers, experts, and partners to share their experiences, ideas, and best practices. Learn more The book did a pretty good job drawing the various characters, switching between following our suicidal main character and some of the recipients of his middle-of-the-night text. There's quite a bit of suicide ideation in the main character's viewpoint, as was to be expected, but I felt like a lot of the other viewpoints nicely balance that out, showing how a message like that would affect the people receiving it. (Though in the mind of someone suicidal, the other viewpoints could also be read as more "that'll teach them, let me get my revenge this way, I want them to feel this scared and guilty" or "that's the way to get people to treat me better/appreciate me more" points in favor of suicide/suicide threats.)