The Listeners

Rating:
Summary: To many quotes not enough story.
Review: After seeing the reviews of this book I was really looking forward to it. In general I love the hard science fiction stories and prefer them overall. I had to struggle to finish this book and did not devour it like I do most novels I read. The reason for this and the reason I rate it so low are all the quotes in the book. You can't go a page without seeing some quote from another source. I really do like that stuff in my stories but my god every other thought in this story they go off and have to have some verse that has some deep inner meaning and importance. If I wanted to read Dante I would read Dante. If you took out all the extra quotes from other books and stories you would have a book half the size.

Again I usually love little tidbits of thought in my stories but moderation is the key, here it goes way overboard to the point I feel like the story itself wasn't fully developed to the level it could have been.

Rating:
Summary: Better than Contact???
Review: I can't tell you if James Gunn's 'The Listeners' is better than 'Contact' simply because I haven't read Carl Sagan's book. But I have read Gunn's, and I can say that Sagan would have to have moved several planets in order to come close to the quality of 'The Listeners.'

Scientist Robert MacDonald is the director of "The Project," a study of sounds coming from the stars. MacDonald firmly believes that life is out there and that intelligent beings will eventually communicate with humans. He and others like him have been listening for over 50 years, but they've heard only silence. Until now.

A cryptic message arrives, but what does it mean? With the threat of the project being shut down, MacDonald desperately seeks to keep his vision alive, but the cost is high.

'The Listeners' is much more than just a "first contact" story. The writing is excellent and the drama is far above what you would expect. The more we learn about communicating with other beings, the more we find we don't know about communicating with each other. An excellent read.

240 pages

Rating:
Summary: Better than Contact???
Review: I can't tell you if James Gunn's `The Listeners' is better than `Contact' simply because I haven't read Carl Sagan's book. But I have read Gunn's, and I can say that Sagan would have to have moved several planets in order to come close to the quality of `The Listeners.'

Scientist Robert MacDonald is the director of "The Project," a study of sounds coming from the stars. MacDonald firmly believes that life is out there and that intelligent beings will eventually communicate with humans. He and others like him have been listening for over 50 years, but they've heard only silence. Until now.

A cryptic message arrives, but what does it mean? With the threat of the project being shut down, MacDonald desperately seeks to keep his vision alive, but the cost is high.

`The Listeners' is much more than just a "first contact" story. The writing is excellent and the drama is far above what you would expect. The more we learn about communicating with other beings, the more we find we don't know about communicating with each other. An excellent read.

240 pages

Rating:
Summary: I Was Always Mad At Sagan
Review: I read the Listeners when I was in college in the 80s. The edition I read had a forward written by Carl Sagan. The book was truly visionary and insightful. Some years later Contact came out and I was amazed at how Sagan had comletely stolen Mr. Gunn's plot. What really purturbed me was that nowhere in the credits did Mr. Sagan even mention James Gunn. It just seemed to me that Sagan just stood by and took credit for the entire story. To Mr. Gunn: The Listeners is a much better story than Contact! Thanks.

Rating:
Summary: I Was Always Mad At Sagan
Review: I read the Listeners when I was in college in the 80s. The edition I read had a forward written by Carl Sagan. The book was truly visionary and insightful. Some years later Contact came out and I was amazed at how Sagan had comletely stolen Mr. Gunn's plot. What really purturbed me was that nowhere in the credits did Mr. Sagan even mention James Gunn. It just seemed to me that Sagan just stood by and took credit for the entire story. To Mr. Gunn: The Listeners is a much better story than Contact! Thanks.

Rating:
Summary: One of the Classic "First Contact" Novels
Review: On a desperate hunt one summer day for that science-fiction rarity -- a sci-fi story that followed actual scientific laws and did not try my intelligence and patience, I accidentally discovered two books at a used book store. One of these books was The Listeners.

I was in heaven that late summer. This was real science fiction. This book was fantastic! There were no "starships" or "Deathstars." There were only well-drawn, complex, and brilliant characters using their scientific and technical gifts.Obviously, as one reviewer had already observed, this "first contact" novel was the inspiration for Carl Sagan's work "Contact." In my opinion, "The Listeners" is the better-written book, even though I will always remain a huge fan of the late - and forever great - Carl Sagan.

Rating:
Summary: Apparently the inspiration for Sagan's "Contact!"
Review: The book centers on the life of Robert MacDonald, an engineer who has spent his life on the Project-a giant listening post in Puerto Rico that scans the heavens for signs of life out there. Just as the project is threatened with demise, a signal is received from the planet Capella. Religious fanatics are convinced that it's a message from God. MacDonald deciphers the message which is a basic primer to their counting system and what appears to be a note that their sun is expanding and killing off their planet. MacDonald gets permission to reply. The catch is that it takes forty five years to reach Capella and then their reply would take forty five more years to get back. At the end of the book, MacDonald's grandson is running the Project to hear the Reply. On that day, ninety years after receiving the message, the Reply comes and the World is listening.