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erebus53's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
informative
inspiring
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
This is a classic that I read for #FOMO book club. I have seen the cinematic adaption several times and it was interesting to get a comparison of the book version. One of the things that made me laugh really early on in the book is the main character's reminiscence of watching the movie of Pinocchio when she was small. Her impression was that the book was better than the movie, and I think that's been the consensus amongst fans for many decades now, as a general rule of thumb.
Written in the 1980s, this book has a particular flavour that I am not used to reading in science fiction of the time. For starters, though the author is a man, the main character is a woman. She is a scientist and she has to fight to get any respect in a career dominated by men, of various levels of emotional and professional security, and the ingrained sexist nature of a culture that despite having finally voted in a Madam President, still thinks that a woman might want to give up her life goals and settle for being a wife and mother. This is handled really cleverly. To my ear it doesn't come across as outrageous speculative fiction, but then I am reading this book 40 years in Sagan's (then) future, when a lot of the books I read are progressive Intersectional Feminist works, (and the word "Woke" is a thing).
Sagan managed to convey in fairly broad strokes, a BurningMan-esque bunch of religious zealots, hippies, pedlars, and conspiracy theorists who set up camp near the array of dishes that has found a message that originated beyond our solar system. This mass of people are all invested in hope for what might be found out from the message, and though he could be snarky about them, there is really no point. They are people reacting as people do.
Reminding me of SevenEves (I wouldn't be surprised if Neal Stephenson has been inspired by Sagan's work, at least slightly), there is an eccentric gazillionaire who has his own clandestine plans though he seems to be the ultimate libertarian and is a fairly benign actor. It's still scary thinking about all that power and all those resources being in the hands of a Man rather than, say, a Nation. *meaningful look*
The movie simplified Ellie's love-life somewhat, (because Hollywood). The story is fairly sex positive, and Ellie is someone who enjoys her sexuality, though the story is not at all explicit about it. She does let her affections be swayed and it complicates her work life, which I think adds to the story nicely.
In this story there are more characters involved in the end plot. This allows us some tangential nods to their countries of origin, some of their culture and the history, myths and religions of those places. Up to the point where the narrator starts failing to pronounce Chinese and Japanese names I was feeling good about the narration. I grimace and attempt to ignore all comments about the Emperor, Quinn.. as though China was unified by an Irish dude(?!) I like to think that making one of the world's greatest minds (like a new Einstein) come from Lagos in Nigeria, is yet more evidence of Sagan's focus on diverse rep in this book. Other major scientists are a woman from India, some Russian men, a scholar from China, and scientific sites being in Australia, Mexico, USA and Japan (where they arrive just in time for the Tanabata Festival of Stars) allows him to colour in the world a bit and not focus us so much on just USA or Russia. The political jokes between USA and Russia had me laughing out loud.
And! he nearly escaped the pre90s scifi trap of cigarettes, but in the end only 2 people in the entire thing seemed to smoke at all (and they were Russian) so I'll let it slide. Some of his speculative tech was ... not quite right.. but what do you expect when you read something set 20 years after it was written, 40 years after it was written. Although some of the tech was a bit wonky, a lot of the ideas were similar to things that we have developed, even if the execution was better in real life(!) It all flowed nicely.
So yeah, cool story. Can recommend.
Written in the 1980s, this book has a particular flavour that I am not used to reading in science fiction of the time. For starters, though the author is a man, the main character is a woman. She is a scientist and she has to fight to get any respect in a career dominated by men, of various levels of emotional and professional security, and the ingrained sexist nature of a culture that despite having finally voted in a Madam President, still thinks that a woman might want to give up her life goals and settle for being a wife and mother. This is handled really cleverly. To my ear it doesn't come across as outrageous speculative fiction, but then I am reading this book 40 years in Sagan's (then) future, when a lot of the books I read are progressive Intersectional Feminist works, (and the word "Woke" is a thing).
Sagan managed to convey in fairly broad strokes, a BurningMan-esque bunch of religious zealots, hippies, pedlars, and conspiracy theorists who set up camp near the array of dishes that has found a message that originated beyond our solar system. This mass of people are all invested in hope for what might be found out from the message, and though he could be snarky about them, there is really no point. They are people reacting as people do.
Reminding me of SevenEves (I wouldn't be surprised if Neal Stephenson has been inspired by Sagan's work, at least slightly), there is an eccentric gazillionaire who has his own clandestine plans though he seems to be the ultimate libertarian and is a fairly benign actor. It's still scary thinking about all that power and all those resources being in the hands of a Man rather than, say, a Nation. *meaningful look*
The movie simplified Ellie's love-life somewhat, (because Hollywood). The story is fairly sex positive, and Ellie is someone who enjoys her sexuality, though the story is not at all explicit about it. She does let her affections be swayed and it complicates her work life, which I think adds to the story nicely.
In this story there are more characters involved in the end plot. This allows us some tangential nods to their countries of origin, some of their culture and the history, myths and religions of those places. Up to the point where the narrator starts failing to pronounce Chinese and Japanese names I was feeling good about the narration. I grimace and attempt to ignore all comments about the Emperor, Quinn.. as though China was unified by an Irish dude(?!) I like to think that making one of the world's greatest minds (like a new Einstein) come from Lagos in Nigeria, is yet more evidence of Sagan's focus on diverse rep in this book. Other major scientists are a woman from India, some Russian men, a scholar from China, and scientific sites being in Australia, Mexico, USA and Japan (where they arrive just in time for the Tanabata Festival of Stars) allows him to colour in the world a bit and not focus us so much on just USA or Russia. The political jokes between USA and Russia had me laughing out loud.
And! he nearly escaped the pre90s scifi trap of cigarettes, but in the end only 2 people in the entire thing seemed to smoke at all (and they were Russian) so I'll let it slide. Some of his speculative tech was ... not quite right.. but what do you expect when you read something set 20 years after it was written, 40 years after it was written. Although some of the tech was a bit wonky, a lot of the ideas were similar to things that we have developed, even if the execution was better in real life(!) It all flowed nicely.
So yeah, cool story. Can recommend.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Bullying, Death, Gore, Infidelity, Misogyny, Racism, Sexism, Medical content, Grief, Death of parent, and Fire/Fire injury