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Contact! Contact? No�

To make a long story short: this is probably an excellent book, but I failed to make contact, to connect to the characters. Feeling sorry about that, I decided to read Sagan’s nonfiction instead, to give him another chance.

The problem I had with the novel was similar to my experience with 2001: A Space Odyssey, but on a bigger scale. I have no doubt that Sagan’s visions and ideas on extraterrestrial lifeforms are much more erudite than other science fiction I have read, where technology and cosmology are (deliberately) left vague. But that was part of the problem. I never once had the impression that he was telling me a story, but rather that he was explaining his (fictional) findings. He even explained the characters� thoughts and actions, rather than letting them act them out. Dialogues (especially the philosophical, scientific and theological discussions) were polite exchanges of positions and information. There was absolutely no sense of humour involved.

What I learned from my most recent science fiction readings are two things: I do not want scientists to “fictionalise� their teaching. Neither historical fiction, nor speculative science fiction interest me as a rule, mainly because I prefer to read the nonfiction they are based on and make up my own mind on the topic. That was something I also experienced in Peter Ackroyd’s The Lambs of London, which I found to be a very weak novel. I have yet to discover his nonfiction, which I have heard is based on solid research and well-written.
The exception to the rule is if science (or historical) fiction is written not with the purpose of explaining science (history), but to show certain character and plot developments that are relevant in our society, to tell me something about human interaction and behaviour, or to poke fun at our way of perceiving the future (or past). I would count Douglas Adams or John Wyndham into that category, for example. Many authors of dystopian fiction appeal to me for that reason as well, such as Margaret Atwood, Kurt Vonnegut, George Orwell and so on.

I have a few science fiction novels waiting. I might change my mind. In the face of new evidence, that is what scientists would do. That much I learned from the novel!