Rating: 
Summary: Challenging and exciting
Review: I recommend Contact by Carl Sagan as a summer reading book for anyone who is looking for an exciting and intellectually stimulating book. The main character, Ellie Arroway, discovers a signal from aliens. After decrypting the message, she and other scientists find that it gives instructions on how to make a spacecraft. The book gives a views of different groups in the world and how they react to the message and building the spacecraft. The way that Sagan writes the book gives the reader the impression that the book is actually about the human race. Carl Sagan's writing is well done and makes the book exciting. He challenges the reader to think and to look at the world from a totally different perspective. He incorporates various intellectual studies, especially philosophy, to give his book power and to make his themes apparent. Because it is well written and incorporated a lot of ideas, this book left me speechless and wanting more.
Rating:
Summary: It captured Carl Sagan's point of view escence
Review: Before you read the novel you should read Sagan's COSMOS in which book Dr. Sagan sets the idea of how human race would be contacted by a civilization form from outter space. Both scopes, scientific and pseudo-religious, are considered by the last minutes of the movie. Even when Dr. Sagan was an atheist he left a margin for a religious explanation of what the heaven is. Altough I do not agree with the believe that humans somehow survive death I just loved how the movie toched so sensitive topic.
Rating:
Summary: What's with you people?!
Review: I have seen many one star ratings to this book, and all those reviewers compare this book to Issac Assimov's job, well i am going to tell something to those guys: THIS IS REALISTIC SCIENCE FICITION!, the book it's long but fun to read, although in the first chapters the descriptions are long and almost without any dialogue, they are interesting, also the book it better than the movie, the movie was boring, but this book it's exciting, also, this book it's better than that "Red, Blue, Green Mars" by Kim Stanley Robinson trash, altough sometimes this book it's unbeliveable, (at the end), but at least it's more realistic and not as dumb and boring as that Mars trash, this is a book that will make you think, it really potrays how religions are like, unlike the movie were it was offensive this book seems a lot more well not offensive, i give the book five stars, while to the film four and a half stars.
Rating:
Summary: The best book by Carl Sagan
Review: Definetly this book proves that Carl Sagan it's better at writing fiction than science, this book it's amazing!, way better than the movie itself, it shows more deepness, altought the descriptions are too long, they are entertaining, there is no much dialouge in the first three or four chapters,but the descriptions are very interesting on the way that Carl Sagan does, this is why this is his best book ever!, also what i loved about this book it hows it describes religion, sexism,well everything, but i don't recommended to a "closed minded" reader and for a very hard scinece one, because when they make contact to alien beings it's on 1999, this book was written in 1985, so please forget the real facts and enjoy this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Carl Sagan is probably rolling in his grave...
Review: I am a fan of Robert Zemeckis, however, I think he did not honor the memory of Carl Sagan when he made this movie. Zemeckis' style is very centered around character relationships development. I think that two of the greatest films that he has made certainly hit upon these points (Forrest Gump and Cast Away). The film version seems to lose the great character development that the book emphasizes. If you are going to buy this, make sure you read the book after you see the movie. This isn't to say that I think you should see anything more than the first scene, of course.
Rating: 
Summary: The book was better
Review: Definetly the book was better, it showed more deepness than the movie, the book was more exciting, the movie was plainly almost very boring, but the acting was great also, the story,but i liked the book better.
Rating:
Summary: An Absolute Classic
Review: There's not really much I can say about this magnificant work other than I've read it close to fifteen times,and I read something new each time.Packed within the thrilling,brisk narrative are amazing passages in which characters argue-intelligently,insightfully-about all the philisophical,theological,and scientific ramafications of actually making contact with another life-from.Protaganist Ellie Arroway is obviously an alter-ego of Carl Sagan,as she shares the same passion for exploration and knowledge as he did.He was one of history's great thinkers,and his influence and boundless enthusiasm for the very fabric of our existance will be sorely missed.Anyway,like I said,there's not much I could say to elucidate this classic story any further,just suffice it to say that if you're a fan of a great read,and enjoy asking questions and actually THINKING about things,then this is highly recommended.
Rating: 
Summary: Dumbed-Down Version Of A Great Book
Review: Having read Carl Sagen's classic original novel several times and ejoyed it thougholy,I was looking forward to this adaptation.Unfortunately,my worst fears were realized,as I saw this was going to be just another glossy,easily-digested,pop-culture overhaul of the rich thematic sorce material.Where Sagan's work was an astonishingly thrilling and inspiring story of questions and searching,and the great wonder of everything we know and have yet to learn about what's way out there and deep inside,the film is simply an over-produced acting vehicle for Jodi Foster,who in my opinion was a poor choice to play the lead character in the first place(for some reason,I always though that Janeane Garafalo would have been ideal;she seems to me to embody both Ellie Arroway's tenacious contrarianism and her genuine passion for knowledge,plus she seems to more closely resemble Sagan's physical descripition of her).And the contrived romance between Foster and Matthew MacConaughey's Palmer Joss smacks of Hollywood interference;in the book the two characters never developed more than a grudging respect for each other.My advice to anyone interested is simple:read the book.
Rating:
Summary: Not what it first appears
Review: I think most people that read this book don't get past it's surface of a search for extra-terrestrial life. Certainly, it's a flashy surface to the story. This book is really more one of faith, and how a faith in science and a faith in God are not necessarily contradictory, and in fact are very much alike. This is NOT a book about little green men, it's book about how different people believe in different things, and how their goals can bring them together to do great things, even when the reasons behind their actions are very different.Worth a read!
Rating:
Summary: IT WAS PRETTY GOOD
Review: Contact is an excellent book! Carl Sagan keeps you wanting to read more, as the Message suddenly streams in. The Message contains plans for an intricate machine, which will take years to build, it took about a year to finish downloading for the plans. After they build it, the have 5 people enter the machine, and they turn it on. The travel through space and time (although they don't know that at the time). They travel through what they can only describe as a Black Hole, and they suddenly pop out at Vega, the system that they were receiving the Message from. As they orbit around the star, they see radio telescopes, and another black hole. They are sucked into the hole, and pop out at another. This goes on for a while, until they arrive at the center of the galaxy. Now this is where it gets a bit confusing. They dock at the massive port, and they are in an area that is exactly like a deserted beach. During the night, the races that are there somehow retrieve all of the information in their brains. Suddenly, it's time to leave, they get back in the machine, and power back to earth. On earth, it has only been 20 minutes, and all video evidence was erased. Nobody believes them. This was an excellent book, but because of the confusing end, I have to give this book four out of five stars.
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