Contact

Just started meeting with the newly hired RAs for 2014-15 and finished my first book from the group called Contact by Carl Sagan.  Yes, it is time to enter the world of sci-fi, a very popular read when it was published in 1985.  Set in the late twentieth century, prior to the millennium, Ellie Arroway’s story begins when in elementary school where she is noted to have a strong aptitude for science.  After the death of her supportive father, her mother remarries a man (John Straughton) who is not fond of Ellie’s strong ties to science.  The “external” negative influence of family only propels Ellie to persevere and excel, first at Harvard for undergraduate and then to Caltech where she meets her faculty mentor, David Drumlin, an expert radio astronomer.  To his surprise after she finishes her degree, Ellie is hired to be in charge of "Project Argus," a telescope system that is focused on communication and detection of extra-terrestrial intelligence around the atmosphere (the program is called “SETI”).  All things begin to get really interesting when communication is heard from space… it is revealed that the message appears to be a re-transmission from Adolf Hitler’s opening speech of the 1936 Olympic games in Berlin! To make things more complicated, there is a repeating series of 26 Prime numbers coming from the 25 light years away re-transmission in space.  Could it be associated with pi – 3.14…?  With 30,000 pages to decode and limited time, Ellie needs assistance.  The President of the US and other noted international astronomers get involved in the mystery.  Ellie gets involved with religious leaders and also an international debate between US and Russia (was the big story in the Cold War days) on how to move forward and whether we should make “contact” by going into space with the help of building a machine that would bring humans to “space life.”  Of course there is a love triangle, family drama with Ellie and her ailing mother and creepy step-father.  Eventually Ellie and a few other colleagues get to make “contact” or do they?  With all good sci-fi stories there is a race to the finish and identifying the mystery.  I won’t reveal what happens as to not ruin the ending.  There is more intrigue than the extra-terrestrial messages.  The intrigue is there, the characters are interesting, and the story moves quickly.  I never warmed up to Ellie too much or her lack of “soft-side” as she unravels mystery.  Reads quick, so sci-fi lovers may enjoy.  For me, it was ok, but didn’t hold me at the edge of my seat.