Rating: 
Summary: Thought provoking issues for the 21st century
Review: "Billions and Billions" is another literary winner from Carl Sagan. He stresses the importance of such issues as global warming and the depletion of the ozone and he warns us all of the grave consequences in store for our planet if we do not take quick action. Sagan makes a good scientific debate of abortion and , as always, he is very careful not to offend anyone (although I'm sure that there are extremists on this issue who will be offended anyway). Because "Billions and Billions" is written using articles from magazines and newspapers, it has a somewhat choppy feel. But it is still good reading material. Many may not appreciate Sagan's loyal adherence to the scientific method. But, like it or not, everything that he says makes good sense. If you like this book, then you should read Sagan's "The Demon Haunted World" which is even better.
Rating: 
Summary: Intriguing, Easy Read
Review: After reading his two best known works, "Cosmos" and "Contact" and receiving a suggestion to read this, I ordered Billions and Billions off the internet. After the first two chapters, I was confused. They had the same heart-felt, easy-to-read style Sagan is known for, but this book seemed more private and passionate. Unlike his other works, this seems to peer into his soul much more than other stuff I've read.
The book is broken up into three parts. The first part is basically an introduction. It consists of a few chapters that educate you on such subjects as the importance of exponentials, the connection between hunting and football, and the true size and scope of the known universe. Like always, if the readers happens to already know a subject, it is still not painful to read through it. Sagan has a way with words that I can only describe as elegant. It is elementary enough to understand and yet intriguing enough to keep your interest.
The second section I would consider the "Warning Section". Pretty much the entire thing is a giant speech on the horrible things we are doing to our planet. It touches on CFC's, CO2 poisoning, and the greenhouse effect. While 100 pages of this can take it's toll on your patience every once in a while, I never trully lost interest. Right when you can consider it boring it switchs subjects just enough to keep you reading. This is definetely the section when you realize this must be Sagan's last work. The true opinion and passion that comes out out in his writing is so unlike his other books that I forgot I was reading the author of "Cosmos".
But right as I was about to get tired of hearing about the atmosphere and it's decline, the third section of the book came. I can't give this part a title because there are so many elements he touches on. Some of them being government tyranny, weapons of mass destruction, and abortion. The short essay on the latter subject was easily the most perfect example of Sagan's genius I have ever read. In a short writing he used facts, religion, philosophy, and opinion to give a perfectly unbiased view on a serious subject.
But even through all his thoughts and theories, the last two chapters of the book stick in your head the most. "In the Valley of the Shadow" recounts his repeated problems with the illness that eventually took his life in 1996. All I can say is you have to read it. The term "heroic" is thrown around way too often in our society, but the word could not be better used than to describe Sagan's final years. And finally, the epilogue was written by his wife right after Carl's passing. Her look into the man beyond the scientist is something to be cherished.
It is rare, nowadays, to find a person who is simultaneously intelligent, caring, and human at the same time. And even though it is a fairly known fact that Carl Sagan was in fact human, reading this final masterpiece makes one wonder whether he was truly part of our self-proclaimed "flawed species" known as man.
Rating:
Summary: A book with perspective
Review: Carl Sagan was surely a man with perspective. He was involved in great scientific teams and proyects, but he was not only a Scientist doing science in isolation, he had deep concerns in the world he was leaving. Being this his posthumous book (he was actually dying, and died without finishing it, his widow ,Chemist by the way, Ann Druyan finished it for him) he shows his concerns on ecology, politics, wars, to name a few. You should read this book if you share his concerns, it gives you perspective on this issues and helps you make judgements based on evidence.
Rating:
Summary: Carl Sagan's last book: A fitting finalle
Review: Carl's latest book is much the same in format and tone as ``Demon-Haunted World,'' both collections of articles taken almost verbatum from his weekly Parade magazine articles. The tone is the same in both books as well. In DHW, Sagan urges an abandoment of pseudoscientific thinking, in ``Billions'' he urges that we consider the lessons of the past century and we must undertake forward-thinking views. The opinions are strong, but forwarded in an entertaining and non-threatening way.In this book, Sagan tackles a wider range of subjects than DHW. The first section talks about the magic of quantification, understanding light's wave/particle duality, and plots the direction of science in the future. The second section is sure to be controversial, as Carl examines current environmental problems and what we can do about them. He tries not to scare, while stating the facts bluntly. This is a refreshing pace from many other books on environmental issues in that it tries to convey a sense of hope and optimism. The final section seems to be a miscellaneous collection of chapters, covering politics, abortion, a recap of the most meaningful accomplishments of the twentieth century, and finally, Carl's own ruminations on his brushes with death. The main problem with B&B is that the chapters are pulled from Parade magazine articles, which means that the book doesn't seem to be a coherent whole. It feels like a collection of chapters and doesn't hold together that well thematically. Also, repetition is rampant, and by the end we can almost guess what Carl is about to say before we read it. However, it is a good read. Carl is a wonderful author and one of the few with the talent to entertain and teach at the same time. It is a good antedote to the end of the millenium pessimsm of books like ``The End of Science.'' The lesson Carl tries to teach us is that with war, hunger, pollution, and ignorance we still have long strides to go, difficult decisions to make, new discoveries to acheive. And he expresses it through the eyes of a child, wonderous and enthralled.
Rating:
Summary: Open Minds... READ IT.
Review: I think Brett Williams felt attacked by this book. It is certainly true that it challenges a lot of modern ideas about the world and how we all fit into it. It is jam packed with facts to back up his thoughts. This is not a book I would reccommend for my parents generation- the sixty something's and up- but I wish that GW Bush would take a good hard look at it someday really soon before it's too late.
Rating: 
Summary: A duff note to go out on...
Review: I'm a big fan of Carl Sagan. I loved the 'Cosmos' series, I thought 'The Demon Haunted World' was an outstanding treatise on really important subject, and I really dug the movie 'Contact'. I have only respect for his views the role and value of science and rational thought in everyone's daily life. So I looked forward to 'Billions and Billions', his last work before his sad death a couple of years ago. Well, while much of the book is true to form, in parts I was a little disappointed. For the first time, and maybe exactly because of his own dreadful circumstances, Sagan allows himself to stray from his stock material, - matters scientific and logical, where he's pretty unarguably right - to matters where, to my mind, he isn't - matters moral and political. So his chapters on the crises facing the world, all of which start out nicely enough, start introducing solutions which have a cloying, left wing, aroma to them. To my reading of it, Sagan's basic thesis is that we (the proles) can't sort out the world's problems by ourselves, so we need a panel of wise men to legislate them away for us. That's a pile of old rope. Frankly, I have yards more confidence in the judgment (collectively) of the "man on the Clapham omnibus" than of any politicians (and I don't think the latter in any meaningful way represents the former), so I don't buy Sagan's argument at all. But what bugs me is the unspoken intellectual imperialism of it. "Not only are there Wise Men who must make critical decisions for you", implies Sagan, "but they are people like Me." Well, sorry, but as anyone who has done a Bachelor's degree will know, the only people worse equipped than politicians to make judgments on behalf of the rest of us are people who spend their lives hanging out at places like Cornell University. As a result Sagan starts sounding less like the completely dispassionate scientist and more like your common or garden sci-fi writer - his conceptions of how useful an idea government is aren't far off the loopy ones Arthur C Clark used to trundle out in his potboilers: you know, where, in five hundred years, finally the human race will Get It Right and we'll all live happily ever after. Call me cynical, but it don't work like that. Given the history of science, a scientist of Sagan's calibre ought to know that.
Rating:
Summary: Useful and readable.
Review: I've used this book in a unique way, being able to site it in just about every paper I wrote for a science class this year. Sagan covers many of the pressing environmental and ethical dilemmas facing us in the modern world. It's a very readable book that makes the case for being an environmentalist without becoming dogmatic. Sagan also outlines the significance of exponential numbers in the universe and everyday life, with fun and interesting examples. A very useful book to have on your shelf.
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Summary: on a more philosophical note...
Review: In this work Carl Sagan approaches many of the more philisophical questions that are begged by pondering the nature of the cosmos and the human condidtion. Although the topics vary a bit, given Sagan's body of work and knowlege, this book gives us a peek at what Sagan only previously suggests in his other works - what it feels like to be human. The final chapter is written just at the conclusion of Sagan's life, and is as powerful an account of what it is like to be staring down death as you're likely ever find - powerful beyond words.
Rating: 
Summary: Environmental eloquence, mediocre musings.
Review: Modesty was a bit difficult for Sagan. The first we learn of the author is that he was a celebrity. Witness the Tonight Show appearances and the Parade Magazine articles (and Sagan makes sure we do). There surfaces a certain immodesty of words as well. Words such as 'geosynchronous' are procured and proliferated (and anthropocentrically so, I might add).
In some ways the book is better than I anticipated and is pellucid and even [modestly] eloquent in the consideration of ozone-depleting ("greenhouse") gases and the cost of environmental irresponsibility. As I have chided Sagan for his immodesty, I must also note that he is humble indeed compared to the swaggering, blustering, anti-environmentalist loudmouths with which we are too familiar. Says Sagan: "It's hard to understand how 'conservatives' could oppose safeguarding the environment that all of us -- including conservatives and their children -- depend on for our very lives. What exactly is it conservatives are conserving?" Had the scope of the book been more modest, i.e., had it stayed closer to environmental issues, it would have been better. But the author intended this volume to be something of a 'summa saganii' (Saganites will love it).
Sheer poetry, of sorts, wins the day in statements like this: "We used [intelligence and tool-making] to compensate for the paucity of natural gifts -- speed, flight, venom, burrowing, and the rest -- freely distributed to other animals ... and cruelly denied to us." Of course, we don't fly for the same wonderful physical reasons that tree sloths and wallabys don't, and it is hardly "cruel" that humans can't inject their opponents with venom. Had humans venom and speed instead of intelligence and tool-making, Sagan's musings could not happen. I myself am happy to possess intelligence and forgo venom. Of course Sagan is too, he just can't resist waxing poetical.
After the consideration of environmental issues, the text degenerates. The discussion of "Pro-Choice" versus "Pro-Life" starts as if it is leading somewhere but ends in a kind of 'hey, we just do the best we can.' The discussion of "ethics" versus "pragmatism" steps into the void. While it is admitted that subjecting ethics to Game Theory may be dubious (even scientifically), Sagan thinks it's fun and perhaps profitable. This is the domain of men without chests.
The author finally makes a case for disarmament and peace; a case for science as a kind of candle in the dark (which includes a bit of scientism bearing the label of science); and a brief discussion of the conflicts and comforts involved in his approaching death.
In summary: the book contains some strengths, some flaws, some errors, some tedium. Not recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Final thoughts
Review: Published not long after his death, this--Sagan's last book--is a collection of essays on a variety of subjects having in common a palpable urgency traceable to both the state of the planet and the state of Sagan's health, both perceived as perilous. Besides Sagan's distinctive blend of stark optimism and stern alarm, and his splendid rationality, one is struck by a kind of anger in his tone, as though he has grown impatient with the stupidities of humankind. Thus one reads in the essay on abortion these bitter words: "There is no right to life in any society on Earth today... We raise farm animals for slaughter; destroy forests; pollute rivers and lakes until no fish can live there; kill deer and elk for sport, leopards for their pelts, and whales for fertilizer; entrap dolphins, gasping and writhing, in great tuna nets; club seal pups to death... What is (allegedly) protected is not life, but human life." (p. 166) What he is against in these essays, as his widow, Ann Druyan, notes in her Epilogue on page 228, are "the forces of superstition and fundamentalism." Sagan is preeminently the champion of education and reason as the means to better our life, and the implacable enemy of ignorance. (For "superstition and fundamentalism," read "ignorance," plain and simple.) In some respects this book is a continuation of his volume from the year before, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, but the emphasis here is on the problems confronting us and what can be done about them. In particular, Sagan confronts the depletion of the ozone layer, global warming, pollution, the threat of nuclear war, overpopulation, etc. He asks the question (the title of Part II), "What Are Conservatives Conserving?" and gives the answer, their short-sighted bottom line. His arguments are ingenious and interesting to read as one observes how hard he is working to persuade us to take care of ourselves and our planet home. He compares the warnings of modern science with those of Cassandra who had the gift of prophesy but the curse of never being believed, science becoming in this sense both Cassandra and the Oracle at Delphi, misunderstood and misinterpreted by our policy makers, whom he likens to Croesus, the rich king who salivated at the prospect of a mighty empire being destroyed only to find that it was his own. As Pogo observed, "We have met the enemy and he is us." One senses too that Sagan is projecting his concern that he himself is in danger of becoming a Cassandra. Certainly, in reading this book, one senses the personality of Carl Sagan come to life. His wide knowledge as a scientist, and his influence as a public spokesperson for science and for the environment and for all the life on this planet, are manifest. His tendency to preach and guide, his absolute desire to use his celebrity for the common good (and to scold) are evident. He mingles hope with despair; he loves humankind, yet despises what humankind does. He sees our capacity to love and help one another as our saving grace, but cannot help but recall and recount the horrors we have visited upon one another and on our fellow creatures. He sees the planet as one, as Gaia (although he does not use that word) with its organisms cooperating with one another for mutual survival. He writes, "The inclination to cooperate has been painfully extracted through the evolutionary process. Those organisms that did not cooperate, that did not work with one another, died. Cooperation is encoded in the survivors' genes." (p. 67) (Incidentally, this is a clear statement for the idea of group selection in evolution. Dawkins, et al., take note.) His writing reveals a man who always tried to do his best, and was perhaps his own sternest critic. He recalls for all of us, "wincing recollections of past faux pas" in the chapter on the environment where he tries to persuade us to take a stance "Somewhere between cheerful dolts and nervous worrywarts..." (p. 75) I hear the man and identify with his concerns, and I know myself that I cannot make up my mind on whether to be cheerful about our prospects or to despair. I "solve" this problem by realizing that all species eventually go extinct, and that somebody or something "better" than us might follow, or to understand that we are just a tiny phase in the cosmic process of Becoming. More to the point, I would hope to be just one fraction as worthwhile to my fellow humans as was, and is, and will continue to be, Carl Sagan, a brilliant man of great humanity who is sorely missed. To read him is to experience the best of humanity. He, like science, is a candle in the dark.
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