Contact by Carl Sagan - a scientifically grounded and totally ground-breaking first-contact story!

Hugonauts: The Best Sci-Fi Books of All Time

Ellie is a brilliant radio astronomer who has often felt alone in the world. When she detects an indisputably intelligent signal emanating from the Vega system, that all changes - for her and for the entire human race.

The nations and people of the world begin to come together in the face of the alien intelligence, and humanity faces a simultaneous revival and crisis of faith. Ellie works with an international team of scientists to decode the layers of the Message, and eventually, they realize the Message contains plans for some kind of Machine. Should humanity invest the resources to build the Machine? And if they do, what will happen when they turn it on?

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• Related books we recommend:
  • Cosmos by Carl Sagan
  • Solaris by Stanislaw Lem
  • The Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu

Or you can watch the episode on YouTube if you prefer video (and see the short videos we've started posting every other week).

Hope you love it, keep reading y'all!