Contact (novel)
A 1985 novel about humanity's first contact with extraterrestrial intelligence.
Contact is a 1985 hard science fiction novel written by American scientist Carl Sagan. The story follows humanity's first encounter with a technologically superior alien civilization. It was Sagan's only published work of fiction, beginning as a 1979 screenplay he co-wrote with Ann Druyan, whom he later married. When plans for a film adaptation fell through, Sagan turned the screenplay into a novel. The book was eventually adapted into the 1997 movie *Contact*, starring Jodie Foster.
The novel's protagonist, Eleanor "Ellie" Arroway, shows early talent in math and science. After her father dies when she is in sixth grade, her stepfather discourages her interests. She goes on to earn a doctorate in radio astronomy and directs Project Argus, a SETI program in New Mexico. Her work puts her at odds with much of the scientific community, including her former mentor David Drumlin, who wants to cut SETI funding. Eventually, the project detects a signal from the star Vega, 26 light-years away. The signal contains prime numbers and later includes a retransmission of the 1936 Olympic speech by Adolf Hitler—the first TV signal strong enough to escape Earth's ionosphere.
President Helen Lasker meets with Ellie, who begins a relationship with Presidential Science Advisor Ken der Heer. With Soviet colleague Vaygay Lunacharsky, Ellie ensures the signal is monitored continuously. A third transmission contains plans for an advanced machine, but decoding its 30,000 pages requires a missing primer. At the President's request, Ellie meets religious figures Billy Jo Rankin and Palmer Joss. She dismisses Rankin but finds Joss's views intriguing. Experts later determine the machine is a five-seat dodecahedron. Billionaire S. R. Hadden suggests checking for phase modulation, which reveals the primer.
A race between the U.S. and Soviet Union to build the machine follows, but Soviet design flaws leave only the American version viable. Ellie loses her seat to Drumlin. Extremists bomb the Wyoming facility during testing, killing Drumlin and halting the project. Meanwhile, Ellie's mother suffers a stroke, and her stepfather accuses Ellie of neglecting family. Ellie later learns Hadden has moved to a private space station, where he reveals his company secretly built a third machine in Japan, set for launch on December 31, 1999. Ellie, Vaygay, and Devi Sukhavati secure seats, joined by
- Author
- Carl Sagan
- Published
- 1985
- Genre
- Hard science fiction
- Nationality
- American
- Known for
- Contact between humanity and extraterrestrial life
- Bestseller rank
- Number seven on Publishers Weekly's 1985 bestseller list
- Award
- Locus Award for Best First Novel (1986)
Lore & Background
The novel follows Eleanor 'Ellie' Arroway, who as a child shows a strong aptitude for science and mathematics. After her father's death, she resents her stepfather and pursues a career in radio astronomy. She becomes director of Project Argus, a radio telescope array searching for extraterrestrial intelligence, and detects a signal from Vega transmitting prime numbers. The signal contains plans for an advanced machine, which is eventually built and transports Ellie and four others through wormholes to a station near the Milky Way's center, where each meets an extraterrestrial in the form of a loved one. The travelers return to Earth to find their journey took no time at all and their video recordings erased, leading officials to suspect a hoax. Ellie later finds evidence of her journey hidden in the digits of pi.
Reader's Guide
Contact is significant as the only full work of fiction published by Carl Sagan, a prominent scientist and science communicator. The novel originated from a stalled film project and became a bestseller, ranking number seven on Publishers Weekly's 1985 list. It won the Locus Award for Best First Novel in 1986. The story explores themes of science, faith, and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, drawing on real scientific concepts such as wormholes, which physicist Kip Thorne helped Sagan develop. The protagonist, Ellie Arroway, is based on real-life SETI researcher Jill Tarter. The novel's legacy includes its 1997 film adaptation and its influence on public interest in SETI and the Fermi paradox. The hidden message in pi remains a memorable element of the plot.
Did You Know?
- The novel originated as a 1979 screenplay by Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan, whom Sagan later married.
- Sagan's friend, physicist Kip Thorne, gave Sagan ideas on the nature of wormholes when Sagan was developing the outline of the novel.
- The protagonist, Eleanor Arroway, is named after Eleanor Roosevelt and Voltaire (whose last name was Arouet), and is based on real-life SETI researcher Jill Tarter.
- Simon & Schuster gave Sagan a $2 million advance for the novel, at the time the largest ever made for a book that had not yet been written.
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