Contact, by Carl Sagen

This book is about how the world would react if evidence of extra-terrestrial life was actually found. The story is told through the eyes of the main character Ellie who is a scientist specialized in radio astronomy, and is the first to come across a message emitted from a star called Vega. At first all the signal seems to be is a broadcast of prime numbers, latter the scientists figure out that underneath the layer of prime numbers is a television signal from the 1930s. They know that the star is twenty-five light-years away, meaning that it would take about fifty years to send a radio signal back and forth from the star, so the signal is taken to be a greetings saying that we know you’re out there. Eventually the scientists find another layer of message layered under the transmission in another language that is thought to be the blue-prints to build machine.
Now much of the story is about the characters discussing different theological beliefs, the possible motives of these aliens for sending the message, and how the human species might appear to them. I found the book to be slow going and actually regretted not flipping through many unnecessary parts of the story. In the book Contact only about 15 out of the 434 pages were about actual contact with the alien Vegans.
Although I felt that the book was drawn out, I found some of the author’s thoughts about another world’s perspective of humanity original and interesting, and enjoyed analyzing the poetic quotes of famous authors that were presented at the beginning of each chapter. In the end the way the author reveals his optimism that man-kind will find its place in the universe is moving and inspiring.