Skip to content
TC - heart of the dragon logo

Tonya Cannariato

on Reading and Writing and All the Speculation In Between

  • Home
  • About
    • Privacy Policy
  • Books
    • Red Slaves Trilogy
      • Dust to Blood
      • Blood to Fire
      • Fire to Dragon
      • Hotel Paranormal: Dragon’s Pursuit
      • The Red Slaves Collection
    • Planet Seekers
      • Team Alpha
      • Team TaoRuti
      • Team Shifter
    • The Builders
    • Dementional
    • Shorter-Form Stories
      • A Trick of the Tail
      • Hallow’s Eve Triptych
      • Wytchfire
      • Angel Mine
  • Editor
  • Review Policy
  • podcast
  • Toggle search form

Book and Movie Review: Contact

Posted on September 14, 2012 By tmycann No Comments on Book and Movie Review: Contact

ContactThis is one of the very few books I’ve read, where I saw the movie first, and was moved to read the source material. In fact, it was the first Sagan book I had read–something about reading male scifi authors in High School had turned me off of them and their inclination to make paper cut-out or strangely unlikely female characters, and I hadn’t tested the waters again.

But… the movie Contact… Jodie Foster…Contact (Her Little Man Tate and Nell combine with Contact for a tryptich of my all-time favorites of any movies.) If anyone wanted a book trailer to intrigue a reader into buying the book: Here’s one case where I can tell you definitively that the movie convinced me the book must be brilliant. It’s a movie I will watch every time I catch it on a broadcast channel, and I have the DVD. Its portrayal of the evolution and character of Dr. Ellie Arroway were meaningful and moving to me. Her way of arriving at meaning and context in her life was powerful both on a personal level and a global level: An injunction not to forget the awe and curiosity that drives us forward as a species.

The first time I read the book, then, I had to put it down half a dozen times. The story was only vaguely similar to the movie. There were characters and relationships that weren’t in the movie, and the movie had that overtone of a romantic relationship with Matthew McConaughey’s character that added a different context to the visual story.

For some reason, recently, though, I was moved to pick up the book again. It had been a while since I’d seen the movie and I understood this was a different story anyway, so my old outrage at not being able to revisit favorite scenes from the movie had all drained away.

From that perspective, all of a sudden I was able to see the real parallels between the two versions of the story. I found this passage:

Because of the nature of her work and her comparative eminence, she was constantly thrown into situations where she was the only woman present, except for those serving coffee or making a stenotypic transcript. Despite what seemed like a lifetime of effort on her part, there was still a host of male scientists who only talked to each other, insisted on interrupting her, and ignored, when they could, what she had to say. Occasionally there were those like Drumlin who showed a positive antipathy. But at least he was treating her as he did many men. He was evenhanded in his outbursts, visiting them equally on scientists of both sexes. There were a rare few of her male colleagues who did not exhibit awkward personality changes in her presence. She ought to spend more time with them, she thought. People like Kenneth der Heer, the molecular biologist from the Salk Institute who had recently been appointed Presidential Science Adviser. And Peter Valerian, of course.

All of a sudden I rediscovered the Ellie that Jodie Foster portrayed, and the story grabbed me this time. It’s dense with science in parts–stuff that goes over my head about the specific wavelengths of particular elements, how you tune radio frequencies, and their relative strength. (Even after reading the Wikipedia article on Janskies, I’m still not entirely sure what it means to the story… and have no way of knowing whether the science in the fiction is real.) But it’s real enough that I’ve geeked out on it.

So I had to write a review about Contact, and pushing my understanding of a different area of physics and astronomy to a different place. Sagan’s story is complex, with layers of commentary sometimes obscured by the technical details he’s chosen to incorporate into the story. But for anyone who enjoys the social commentary possible through the lens of science fiction, he’s incorporated some doozies–that will also be familiar to those who’ve watched the movie. There are conversations and interactions in the movie that bear only passing resemblance to the source, but reveal different perspectives when read from a page. I’m glad to have started again from the beginning to have re-read one of scifi’s classics.

Share this:

  • Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn
  • More
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window) Tumblr
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window) Reddit
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window) Pocket

Like this:

Like Loading...

Related

Review Tags:sci fi

Post navigation

Previous Post: Book Review: The Year of the Lucy
Next Post: ROW80 Check-in: Puppy Birthday

Related Posts

Review: Toonopolis – Gemini indie
Book Review: To Katie with Love Review
Review: Four to Score Review
Review: Orchids and Memories indie
Review: The Dark Enquiry Review
Review: The Trouble with Tuck Review

Your Two CentsCancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Email from A Book A Day

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 1,697 other subscribers

New Release Announcement Email List

Subscribe by clicking here

Search A Book A Day

Story Writing Progress

Planet Seekers: Team Shifter
Phase:Writing
19.6%

Tonya Cannariato – Author

Tonya Cannariato – Author

Blogroll

  • A.K. Anderson
  • Dionne Lister
  • Erica Lucke Dean
  • Gayla Drummond
  • Jane Isaac
  • Jennifer James
  • Justin Bog
  • Kait Nolan
  • Katarr Kanticles Press
  • Liana Brooks
  • Millie Taiden
  • Rebecca Clare Smith
  • Sarah Cass
  • Shari Elder

Links

Round of Words in 80 days

Great book deals daily on booktastik.com

Independent Author Network

Picket Fence Blog listing

10 Book Reviews

Virtual Autograph

Get your e-book signed by Tonya Cannariato

Novel Publicity Tour Host

Book Blog Directories

Book Blogger Blog Hop
Book Blogger Directory
Top Books Sites

Copyright © 2025 Tonya Cannariato.

Powered by PressBook Masonry Dark

%d