EXAMPLE 1: Carolyn Mills

Homecoming: Volume 1, "The Memory of Earth"

Orson Scott Card

Tom Doherty Associates, Inc., 1992

330 pages, U.S. $5.99

If you enjoy good science fiction, Homecoming: Volume 1 "The Memory of Earth", by Orson Scott Card is a "must-read". The story begins in a town named Basilica, on the planet Harmony. The women run the schools and are the government. They are the only ones permitted to own anything in the town. There is a lake in the center of town that the men are not allowed to look at upon penalty of death. The women go there to receive communication from the Oversoul.

The Oversoul is in trouble. She (it) is losing control. The task she

was created to perform is slipping away from her. In other words, the

planet Harmony is in trouble. People are beginning to remember the old ways, the ways of war. The Oversoul is really only an artificial

intelligence that draws its power from the sun. But the Oversoul is

beginning to wear and it senses its end.

What follows is truly a quest, a struggle for truth and rightfulness, of

duty and honor and decency and morality. The Oversoul has weakened but it has not completely lost its power. It sensed that it was losing

control of the harmony it had brought to the people and it needed the

people to help regain peace. It needed the aid of the Wetchik family,

for they were to be crucial in regaining the harmony of the planet.

Volemak Wetchik's sons must come together as true brothers and friends if they are to overcome the evil that is beginning to prevail. The

Wetchik family is tested and how they complete their mission is both

interesting and entertaining.

After getting used to the many characters and their roles, the story is

quite interesting. But it is hard work familiarizing oneself with the

different personalities and even harder keeping all the family

relationships straight. Perhaps this adds to the story, but it makes it

harder to understand and follow the plot when attempting to remember who is related to whom.

The planet Harmony could easily be a future Earth. The fact that a

computer controls everything could be meaningful in that we are on the

leading edge of the Computer Age. Earth is in constant conflict and

peace is hard to acquire.

Harmony is a planet that is futuristic while being lodged in the past.

Things like sleeping on straw mats to prove manhood and showers outside in cold water may be backward. Other things like retina scanners and floating chair devices with controls that assist the user in doing things like dressing and eating are definitely revolutionary.

The Oversoul on Harmony is a computer, but it is like no computer that I know of in operation today. When a computer takes over to the extent that the Oversoul has done, it is mind control. It is all right to want peace, but not peace at the price of memory. Would anyone give up any of his or her freedom if given a choice? The planet Harmony is not one of mindless creatures waiting for their next instruction from the

Oversoul, but neither is it a people who are making daily choices. If

man is to find a way to make peace, should it be by controlling one

another or through free choice? Obviously, at one time someone

programmed the "Oversoul" to perform its function, but in the time of

the book, no one even remembers that it is a computer.

Another thing that Mr. Card is showing us in The Memory of Earth is

brotherhood. In the story, all of the family members argue constantly.

There is no violence, but there is constant bickering. Mr. Card brings

to us the importance of family, of loving one another. Each of the boys

is tested, and what they find is a respect for each other they never

had.

There are so many things that do not work in our system of democracy,

but we have nothing better so we muddle along with what we have and hope that someday someone will enlighten the rest of us. We desire a system of harmony, but we don't know how. Perhaps in the next book,

Homecoming: Volume 2, Orson Scott Card will give us some of those

answers, but I don't think so. I do think that we will meet some new

people and adventure into some new lands. I think that the quest will

continue. I do hope that Mr. Card will give the people of Harmony their

freedom of choice and the ability to use that choice wisely.

EXAMPLE 2: Janet R. Schofding

A Thief Of Time

Tony Hillerman

New York, NY: Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc., 1990

209 pp., US $6.99

A Dark Wind led me to A Thief Of Time. Both of these are titles

of mystery novels written by author Tony Hillerman. A Dark Wind was

recently made into a movie and aired on national TV. Upon watching A Dark

Wind I was immediately struck by how Hillerman combined a twisting plot,

the pace of events, and characterizations to create a unique style of

storytelling. On my next visit to the library I decided to look Hillerman

up. I was surprised at how many titles Hillerman had to his name. They

all appeared in the same genre, and from the titles and book jacket

designs, it was easy to deduce that they were all written with the American

Southwest as a backdrop. The few books I skimmed through even had the same

lead characters in them. Immediate visions of novels featuring the

characters Sherlock Holmes and Inspector Hercule Poirot came to mind.

Having pigeonholed Hillerman, I proceeded to read A Thief Of Time solely

for my own pleasure.

A Thief Of Time is about locating the whereabouts of anthropologist

Dr. Friedman-Bernal. It is while following up on an anonymous tip, that Dr.

Friedman-Bernal has been looting Anasazi ruin sites of valuable pottery,

that Lt. Leaphorn discovers that Dr. Friedman-Bernal's associates had

reported her missing over two weeks ago. Two brutal murders discovered at

nearby archeological digs places jurisdiction of both mysteries to be

solved in the hands of the Navajo Tribal Police headed by Lt. Joe Leaphorn

and Officer Jim Chee. Their independent investigations get woven together

to unearth the whereabouts of Dr. Friedman-Bernal, and help to decide the

fate of the person responsible for a series of rash murders. With a unique

twist of plot Hillerman is successful in keeping his reader guessing "who

did it?" till the very end. If you are successful in guessing who did it,

Hillerman keeps you guessing as to how, and why!

I believe it's the intention of the author to not only tell a good

tale of mystery, but to also give the reader a glimpse into the myths and

legends that make up Native American folklore. Hillerman accomplishes this

by incorporating ancient Anasazi and Navajo folklore into the storytelling

process. The readers become thieves of time as they are transported back

through the pages of the book to meet Kokopelli, the Humpbacked Flute

Player who turns out to be the rowdy Anasazi god of fertility. Hillerman

also gets his readers involved in solving the mystery behind the sudden

disappearance of the Anasazi people. Soon the reader can't decide what is

more interesting, the mystery of the missing anthropologist, or the mystery

behind finding out what killed off the ancient Anasazi populations? The

reader is suddenly dealing with ancient mysteries still unsolved. The

reader gets torn between the present and the past, ever hopeful that

Hillerman will explain both mysteries. Hillerman blends this with his

ability to vividly describe the country that is the American Southwest to

create a backdrop for what has become his signature style of storytelling.

Hillerman's ability to craft his characters brings them to life for

the reader. The characterizations of Lt. Joe Leaphorn and Officer Jim

Chee come across as being believable and endearing. One can easily

identify with their personal and professional problems, making them more

realistic to the reader. The rest of the characters easily come to life

making it easy for the reader to remember who-is-who. The only character

that came off as being unbelievable and phony is the bad guy. Fortunately

for me, this wasn't apparent till the end of the book.

Hillerman keeps his story moving with every spiral and twist of his

plot. The reader is led back-and-forth along the plot-line through time

and back again in order to investigate every new piece of information

leading to Dr. Friedman-Bernal's whereabouts. The plot twists back on

itself as a series of murders, old and new, are discovered. It is in Lt.

Leaphorn's retelling of a 25 year old murder investigation, in which he

played an integral part, that a door to solving the mysterious

disappearance of Dr. Friedman-Bernal is opened. It is this pace of the

plot that makes A Thief Of Time a good-read.

I found A Thief Of Time to be exactly what I was looking for, and

then some. My intention was to read the book for pleasure, and yet I came

away with a yearning to learn more about the ancient Anasazi Indians. I

want to learn about why the Anasazi did disappear so suddenly, as suddenly

as Dr. Friedman-Bernal seemed to. I also now have a craving to visit the

Southwest and to actually visit a ruin site. My interest in Native

American anthropology and culture has been piqued. Thanks to Tony

Hillerman's synthesis of Anasazi and Navajo myth and legend with his unique

storytelling style, characterization, and plot against the backdrop of the

American Southwest I got hours of reading pleasure.

Book Review

Golding, William. "Lord of the Flies"

London: Faber and Faber, 1958

While looking for a good book to write a review for the on-line course, I came across

an old book in my dad's shelf. It was Golding's "Lord of the Flies". I had seen a movie

of this novel and liked it very much. I was also a bit frightened by the dreadful

events that happened in the book. When I reread it for the review, I found this book

even better than before. It seemed to show a mirror to our nature. I

think it is a book that defines man and shows man's fate in this world.

Golding got the Nobel Prize for literature and I am sure this novel must have

helped him to win that great honor.

"Lord of the Flies" is an adventure story. It tells the story of a group of schoolboys

who get stranded on a tropical island. War is going on and the boys were in a plane to go

to a safe place. But the plane crashed on a solitary island and the boys had to survive

there alone. There are no adults. The eldest boys are about twelve, the others are much

younger. They try to set up a democratic community in the hope of

living decently in a civilized manner. They use a conch-shell to keep order in their

meetings. They elect Ralph leader. Another boy, Jack, also wants to

be the leader, but he is voted out.

Both Ralph and Jack are normal boys. They are

neither as intelligent as Piggy, nor as saintly as Simon. But Ralph comes from a

good home where he lived with a loving family among books, while Jack was

a choir leader who believed in discipline and leadership. To Ralph the appropriate

symbol is the conch of conversation, to Jack it is the spear of the hunter. Jack is

aggressive, while Ralph is more peaceful. They both have leadership qualities,

but Jack would be like a dictator whereas Ralph would be like a democrat.

In the end in this book aggression gets the upper hand of peace and fascism

proves to be stronger than democracy because man lives in the

darkness of the spirit. Ralph is a conscientious boy, while Jack is a power seeker.

Jack then leads the former choirboys. They become hunters and hunt wild-pigs.

The boys build small huts to live in. Ralph tells them to burn a fire on a hilltop

all the time. The fire may be seen from a ship and they may be bitter enemies and want

to fight. The smaller boys talk about a dangerous "beast" in the darkness.

One day they see a dead parachutist on the hill. The man looks dreadful. The

boys think it is the Beast. The group breaks up and Jack becomes a

lawless leader of the hunting tribe of boys. They paint their bodies, dance wildly,

and become like primitives or savages. They worship the beast and make

sacrifices to it. Jack stands a pig's head on a spear as an offering.

When Simon, a saintly boy, tries to tell the others of the parachutist the wild dancers

mistake him for the beast and kill him. Civilization snaps and violence rules the island.

This shocks Ralph and Piggy. Jack and his hunters steal Piggy's glasses and Ralph and

Piggy fail to get it back from them. In his efforts to get at them,

Piggy is crushed to death by a falling boulder Jack and his savage tribesmen hunt Ralph.

They want to put his head on a spear. The wounded and desperate Ralph hides in the forest.

Jack and his team set fire to the forest to force him out of the forest. The smoke attracts a

ship and it lands on the island. The captain saves Ralph from Jack and the boys are

taken from the island back to civilization, from a burning island to a war-burnt civilized world.

I think the novel is a dreadful story of man's fallen nature. It can be interpreted in many ways.

It takes a dark view of man's supernatural fears and it shows the violent instincts in man.

The world is an irrational place in which power is a corrupting force. There is darkness in

man's heart. Civilization is not deep enough. Human beings are worse than animals.

Deep in their minds, they are evil. These are the ideas which the book presents.

The novel is, therefore, a study of human nature. In this sense it can be compared with

Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery". In Jackson's story, man is shown as

irrational, savage, and superstitious. Even children throw stones at their mothers to

kill them. Killing is a game, a hunt. The village has the signs of civilization. There are

offices and schools. But the black box of superstition is more powerful than the laws of

civilization. This proves that man is ruled by irrational fears. He is still a victim of unreason. This

idea of "The Lottery" is very similar to Golding's idea in "The Lord of the Flies". Both writers

examine man's nature and find that it is dark within. Man finds pleasure in killing.

"The Lord of the Flies" also examines the differences between anarchy

and rule of law.

In this sense, it is like Richard Connell's story "The Most

Dangerous Game". General Zaroff in the story takes the law in his hands.

He makes his own law. He lives in a solitary island and there he is the lord. He makes

his laws and goes on killing for fun. When there is no law, there is anarchy.

General Zaroff is a great anarchist and anarchy takes the form of murdering innocent people in

the story. To him as for Jack or the villagers in "The Lottery", killing human beings is not a dreadful

thing. It is an adventure. This shows the blackness in man. With all his civilization, man is still in

the darkness of superstition, fear, and irrationality. Science and human nature are poles apart. This

is a real tragedy. Science delights in law, anarchy in lawlessness.

We read the story of Adam and Eve in "The Bible". They fall because they

disobey God. They have to leave the happy life of Paradise and come to the sorrows of the

world. "The Lord of the Flies" tells us why they fell down from Paradise. They fall down because there

was evil in their mind. They are like the boys in the book. There is darkness in their minds and hearts.

The novel also has some good characters like Ralph, Simon, and Piggy.

This shows that good and bad can exist side by side in the darkness of the human mind. So, it

is necessary to have discipline, control, and reason. These qualities can bring back principle to an

unprincipled world, faith to a world of the unfaithful, civilization to barbarism. Only this can save mankind. This is, I believe, the message of the book. Follow this message and live, or ignore this and perish. The choice is wholly ours.

New York: Simon & Schuster, 1985

434 pp., US $4.95

Congratulations,

You are about to embark on a journey through time and space, and get the

opportunity to observe and evaluate the very thoughts of the author and

appreciate the author's scientific intuition. You will assimilate the

moral, ethical, and philosophical issues that arise from the discovery of

the "Message" and the building of the "Machine." Most importantly, you

will discover that a relationship exists between scientific and

philosophical disciplines, and enjoy some good old fashion story telling

mixed in just for fun.

PRELIMINARY

To understand the book is to understand the man. Our distinguished

author has many credits to his name. He was the Director of the

Laboratory for Planetary Studies and David Duncan Professor of Astronomy

and Space Sciences at Cornell University. He was part of the team

responsible for the Viking, Mariner, and Voyager Expeditions. He

received NASA medals for Exceptional Scientific Achievement and for

Distinguished Public Service. He was past chairman of the Division for

Planetary Sciences and the Astronomy Section of the American Association

for the Advancement of Science. Four hundred of his scientific and

popular articles have been published. Additionally, he was the author

and co-author of several other books including : "Intelligent Life in the

Universe," "The Cosmic Connection," "The Dragons of Eden," "Murmurs of

Earth," "Broca's Brain," "Comet," his most famous - "Cosmos," "A Path

Where No Man Thought," an expose' of the nuclear winter scenario, and his

last - "Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors." He was awarded the Pulitzer

Prize in literature in 1978; he was also a champion of both human and

Earth rights.

But for all his brilliance, intuitiveness, and achievement, Carl Sagan

recognized his own mortality and insignificance in the Universe.

Contact. Only Carl Sagan could devise this simple, one word name for his

first fiction novel; the title so eloquently and completely describes the

central plot of his story - contact with an advanced galactic

civilization and, perhaps, more - the identity of which is: to be

announced!

Given his credentials, it is not surprising to me that Carl Sagan chose

the subject of extraterrestrial contact for his first fiction novel; it

so perfectly reflects his own interests: Cosmology, SETI, and CETI

activities; SETI and CETI, incidently, refer to 'Search for

Extraterrestrial Intelligence' and 'Contact with Extraterrestrial

Intelligence' respectively. His novel names real places, among them: the

Arecibo facility in Puerto Rico and the Argus Array in Socorro, New

Mexico. He conducted SETI activities at both these facilities. Indeed,

his first fiction novel is a reflection of his own fantasies and

ambitions of locating alien intelligence. With his collaborator and

colleague, Ann Druyan, he achieved excellent results with "Contact."

STORY SYNOPSIS

In the late 1980's, an intelligent radio source (a message) in received

from the vicinity of the Vega star system in the constellation of Lyra.

The signal contained many levels of information encoded by various

modulation methods and astronomers found: a re-broadcast of the 1936

Berlin Olympic Games, a set of prime numbers, and finally, elaborate

instructions to build a machine. It's the "Machine." Extraterrestrials

are telling us they know we're here. Several years were needed to decode

the instructions and build the Machine. During this time, great

political, philosophical, religious, and scientific debates took place to

determine the purpose, implications, and ramifications of the now

controversial Machine.

The Machine is eventually determined to be a vehicle by which five Earth

travelers would be able to journey to Vega and be greeted by the Message

senders. The Machine, do decahedron in shape, is completed and, on New

Year's Eve - 1999, it is activated with 5 selected travelers on board.

Within a matter of minutes, the travelers visit several spectacularly

beautiful star systems before finally reaching their destination and

meeting the Message senders, the "Caretakers." The travelers find that

the Caretakers are a conglomeration of cultures that have been around for

half a billion years. After determining that the expanding Universe will

eventually spread itself too thin to allow for the formation of new stars

and galaxies, the Caretakers decided they would harness and corral

extraneous matter using the gravity effects of black holes and other

devices, and cause a sufficient concentration of the matter to insure the

continued rebirth of new stars and galaxies. At times, they "closed off"

sections of the Universe until needed.

Does Dr. Sagan have an imagination, or doesn't he?! The Caretakers are

certainly the ultimate ecologists. Like a galactic version of Johnny

Appleseed, they have taken the task of re-planting the Universe!

The Caretakers' true appearance is never revealed because they appear to

each of the Earth travelers as the travelers' loved ones. Dr. Ellie

Arroway, our heroine and main character, talks with her dead "father" and

learns that the Caretakers have an "emerging civilization division" that

makes contact with cultures such as Earth, and invites them for a visit

and tour. The Caretakers have watched many civilizations come and go but

believe the Earth has hope for survival.

Dr. Arroway's assigned host, her "father," talks with her about the

possibility of a hidden message buried deep with the value of "Pi,"

perhaps 10 to the 20th power digits beyond the decimal point. Dr. Arroway

ponders the idea. But visit time is almost up! The Caretakers escort the

travelers back to their craft and, without proof of their visit, send

them home. Ellie later investigates the properties of Pi and makes a

gargantuan discovery!

A WORD ABOUT STORY ACCURACY

Above all, Carl Sagan is a scientist. Based on what I know about him

from his previous works, he apparently assumes nothing and questions

everything. He is a stickler for detail. He retains that child-like

wonder and imagination of the world around him - and of the Universe in

which we reside. Accordingly, he left little to chance while weaving his

story.

A transmission emanates from the Vega star system. Vega is about the

right age, the right size, and the right spectral range to spawn a

planetary system conducive to supporting an advanced civilization. It is

also 26 light years away. The transmission, received about 1988,

contained an encoded re-broadcast of the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games. The

period between 1936 and 1988 is 52 years; a round-trip radio transmission

from Earth to Vega and back would take 52 years. Dr. Sagan later weaves

the speed of light limit into his story when the Earth travelers are

accused of perpetrating a hoax by government officials. The travelers

are informed that the Message stopped at the moment the Machine was

activated. With their limited minds, the government officials "know"

that it should take 26 years for news of Machine activation to reach

Vega. They refuse to believe that the Vegans could have broken the speed

of light barrier. Dr. Sagan shrewdly used his "writer's license" with

respect to the speed of light issue. As Isaac Asimov put it in his book

The Roving Mind: "What do science fiction writers do?......better writers

know of the speed of light limit and get around it by assuming that in

the future, new technologies will be available. They talk about moving

through 'hyperspace,' or through 'subspace'; they make use of a

'subetheric drive' or a 'space warp'.

But let's get back on track. Our distinguished author's work is more

accurately described as a science and philosophy text book with a story

woven in to connect these things. I estimate that 65 percent of the book

would remain if the story were removed. Among the multitude of

scientific notions "Contact" explores are the descriptions of various

radio transmission modulation methods and the properties of exponential

growth. Through his Ellie Arroway character, Dr. Sagan points out that

one cubic centimeter of water (about one thimble full) contains 3 x 10 to

the 19th power molecules whereas the entire Universe contains 1 x 10 to

the 80th power elementary particles. A numerical difference of only 61

(in terms of powers of ten) is the difference between a few drops of

water and all the matter in the entire Universe! In addition, the reader

learns about worm holes, black holes, the birth and death of stars,

bright infrared and x-ray emission sources, precession of the Earth's

axis, Keppler's three laws, and much more.

Speaking of Johannes Keppler, Dr. Sagan - the little devil - cleverly and

surreptitiously slipped Keppler's proposed model of the solar system into

his story. Dr. Sagan's Machine took the form of a do decahedron enclosed

by three concentric rotating, mutually perpendicular hemispheres he calls

benzels. In his paper entitled Mysterium Cosmographicum, published in

1596, Keppler borrows the Greek Mathematicians' discovery of the five -

and only five - regular solids. A regular solid is one in which all

sides are the same. In Keppler's model, the five solids are nestled

one-in-the-other, separated by concentric spheres. One of these regular

solids is a do decahedron, formed of twelve pentagons. Is the similarity

between Keppler's model and Dr. Sagan's Machine a coincidence? I don't

think so. Dr. Sagan is not only brilliant, he's sneaky. "Contact" may

someday be used as a textbook.

Speaking of textbooks, consider the following riddle. What does one get

when one combines the fundamental parts of the book "Cosmos" with a

fictional story? Answer: "Contact." As I previously mentioned, "Contact"

IS Dr. Sagan's way of telling us his dreams. Consider the following

examples:

Contact: p.77 - Ellie imagines the Message as the "Encyclopedia

Galactica" when it is first received.

Cosmos: pp.291-315 - An entire chapter is entitled "Encyclopedia

Galactica." This chapter is a speculative accounting of how another

civilization might communicate with us.

Contact: p.100 - Ellie explains to the President that the transmission

from Vega has messages over messages in different levels of modulation -

what she calls a "palimpsest."

Cosmos: p.314 - "But the most likely case is that interstellar

communication will be a kind of palimpsest, like the palimpsests of the

ancient writers short of papyrus or stone who superimposed their messages

on top of preexisting messages."

These are but a few of the many parallels that exist between "Contact"

and "Cosmos." Is there any doubt that Dr. Sagan is telling us his

greatest ambition - his greatest dream?

SCIENTIFIC INSIGHTS EXPLORED

Scientific insight is an understatement in "Contact." Dr. Sagan wasted no

time with the development of his Ellie Arroway main character and our

heroine. As a champion of civil and human rights, he naturally gave us a

female astronomer and a female President. He meticulously describes

Ellie's hard struggle to overcome harsh prejudices and resistance to her

achieving her goal of becoming a radio astronomer and scientist in this

male dominated profession. He also took great care to give her a

perpetually inquisitive mind that questioned everything. She is a master

of "Why?" From child through adulthood, she wondered about everything

from the way vacuum tubes worked to - the Bible's compatibility with

science to - the physical makeup of the Universe. Her curiosity

parallels Albert Einstein's comment that a passion for comprehension is a

necessary component of the scientific mind. Dr. Sagan's Ellie character

also follows in the best traditions of women devoted to space

exploration: Henrietta Leavitt, the Harvard astronomer who devised a

stellar distance measuring method in 1912; Jocelyn Bell, the Cambridge

astronomer who discovered what we now call "pulsars" in 1967; Linda

Morabito, the JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) engineer who discovered

active volcanos on Jupiter's moon, Io in 1988; and, most poignantly,

astronauts Judy Resnik and Christa McAullife who gave their lives in the

pursuit of space exploration.

Through his various characters and situations, Dr. Sagan also poses the

questions of technical civilizations being self limiting through self

destruction; the probable numbers of other cultures in the Universe based

on favorable conditions; are we too dumb for other civilizations to

bother with; are we really fundamentally happier with the benefits of

science - each of these concerns shared by Isaac Asimov, among others.

A religious leader in the book offers these criticisms of scientists:

scientists keep findings to themselves; only share information in bits

and pieces; over-estimate what they know, under-estimate what people

know; taught us how to annihilate ourselves. This same religious leader

attempts to identify God as the source of the Message. He incredibly

points out that Vega was the "North Star" about ten thousand B.C. when

the Earth's axis was at the other side of its precession cycle

(precession is a wobble in the Earth's rotation axis). This era marks

the emergence of civilization and the concept of gods. It is Divine

Providence that the guiding star then is the origin of this message now,

he claims. Does Dr. Sagan dig into the depths of detail, or doesn't he?

Dr. Sagan, again through his Ellie character, does not allow the Bible to

escape scrutiny. Ellie, in conference with not one but two prominent

religious leaders, chairs a great marathon debate that scrutinizes

biblical accuracy. Pro Bible arguments from the religious leaders focus

mainly on claims of fulfilled Bible prophesies:

"The coming of the savior is foretold in Isaiah fifty-three, in Zechariah

fourteen, in First Chronicles seventeen. That He would be born in

Bethlehem was prophesied in Micah five. That He would come from the line

of David was foretold in Matthew one.....the Ministry and Suffering of

Jesus are foretold in Isaiah fifty-two and fifty-three, and the

Twenty-second Psalm. That He would be betrayed for thirty pieces of

silver is explicit in Zechariah eleven....and the Bible speaks of our own

time. Israel and the Arabs, Gog and Magog, America and Russia, nuclear

war - it's all there in the Bible." Undaunted, Ellie waits for the

right moment to return fire. Among her first salvo of rebuttals: The

prophecies are often abstract and vague, ambiguous and imprecise - open

to a wide range of interpretations.....even straightforward prophecies

don't seem to jibe - like Jesus' promise that the Kingdom of God would

come within the lifetime of some people in his audience.....passages that

seem fulfilled are highlighted and the rest are ignored.

She continues by asking why God's communication with us in contemporary

times isn't made perfectly clear.

Why doesn't the Bible contain information that no mortal person would

have known at the time - such as the Sun is a star....or Mars is a rusty

place with deserts and volcanos....or a body in motion tends to remain in

motion....or nothing travels faster than the speed of light? Why is there

no mention of such things like "Two strands entwined is the secret of

life"....or why hasn't He put a giant crucifix in orbit around

Earth....or place the Ten Commandments across the face of the moon? Why

no more burning bushes or pillars of fire or a thundering voice from the

sky saying "I am that I am?" Why does He remain so cryptic - why doesn't

He rattle our cages each generation or so?

The marathon philosophical debate ends with all participants adjourning,

satisfied with their respective offerings but not swayed by the others'

positions.

ADDITIONAL COMMENTS

Strikingly, "Contact" contains a table of contents not unlike that of an

omnibus text book. "Contact" takes us on a tour that introduces us to the

unique properties of Pi .. scientific investigation and hypothesis ..

contributions of Greek science and mathematics .. our solar system .. the

known properties of the Universe .. black holes .. do decahedrons ..

exponential powers .. the Milky Way .. stars' life-cycles .. the

Renaissance astronomers .. probability of extraterrestrial intelligence

.. probability of our survival .. our insignificance .. our propensity

toward greed and corruption .. our pollution problems .. our place in the

Universe .. and much more. Science, religion, politics, psychology,

philosophy, and their relationships to each other - it's all there - in

"Contact."

Dr. Sagan's message to his readers is multi-faceted. He tells us who we

are, where we've been, what were doing, and where we're going. He tells

us we need to make the right decisions now if we are to have a desirable

future; he tells to be scientists, to have an open mind; he counsels us

to control our arrogance; he demonstrates the distinct possibility of

life elsewhere in the Cosmos; but most significantly, he tells us WHO HE

IS. Although Dr. Sagan is no longer with us, I feel his message is

still very much alive.

But for all his brilliance, scientific knowledge and intuitiveness,

skepticism, and resourcefulness, Dr. Sagan still held the door open to

the idea that there may be a . . . Hey - read the book!

"Contact" isn't for everybody . . . but . . . it should be.

SOME PERSONAL THOUGHTS

I first enjoyed reading this book several years ago when it was first

published. Reading it again to make this review enhanced my appreciation

of it because I was able to convert my increased knowledge of the

sciences from my schooling into a greater understanding of Dr. Sagan's

"Message."

Dr. Sagan issued a disclaimer at the end of his book, telling the reader

that no character in the book is a close portrait of a real person. I

don't think this is entirely true. I can't help believe that there isn't

at least a smidgeon of similarity between the persona of the Ellie

Arroway character and that of Dr. Sagan or, perhaps, his colleague and

collaborator, Ann Druyan.

Enjoy!