The Listeners [Anglais] [Broché]

I can't tell you if James Gunn's `The Listeners' is better than `Contact' simply because I haven't read Carl Sagan's book. But I have read Gunn's, and I can say that Sagan would have to have moved several planets in order to come close to the quality of `The Listeners.'

Scientist Robert MacDonald is the director of "The Project," a study of sounds coming from the stars. MacDonald firmly believes that life is out there and that intelligent beings will eventually communicate with humans. He and others like him have been listening for over 50 years, but they've heard only silence. Until now.

A cryptic message arrives, but what does it mean? With the threat of the project being shut down, MacDonald desperately seeks to keep his vision alive, but the cost is high.

`The Listeners' is much more than just a "first contact" story. The writing is excellent and the drama is far above what you would expect. The more we learn about communicating with other beings, the more we find we don't know about communicating with each other. An excellent read.

240 pages

On a desperate hunt one summer day for that science-fiction rarity -- a sci-fi story that followed actual scientific laws and did not try my intelligence and patience, I accidentally discovered two books at a used book store. One of these books was The Listeners.

I was in heaven that late summer. This was real science fiction. This book was fantastic! There were no "starships" or "Deathstars." There were only well-drawn, complex, and brilliant characters using their scientific and technical gifts.Obviously, as one reviewer had already observed, this "first contact" novel was the inspiration for Carl Sagan's work "Contact." In my opinion, "The Listeners" is the better-written book, even though I will always remain a huge fan of the late - and forever great - Carl Sagan.

This book stands on its own in the crowded works of first contact stories. It begins in the year 2025, when the first radio signals from another world are discovered. The nature of the signals is slowly revealed, as a sort of mystery is investigated. The message contained in the signals is subject to some interpretation, and the sorting out of it all is enjoyable to read. The eventual answers are surprisingly moving. Earth resolves to send a response, but the distances involved will take decades to arrive, and any return response decades more. Will humans still be interested then? Will the Project, as the SETI-like organization is called, still exist?

The emphasis of this book is not on the aliens. It is firmly on the people of the Project. They are scientists and dreamers, who so firmly believe in their cause that they are willing to concede that their own mortalities will never allow them to know the success or failure of their endeavors. Yet they persist. The director we meet at the beginning is Robert MacDonald, who is mostly unaware of his influential nature with others. He is a genuine character. As the story is told, years pass and involvement passes from Robert to several grandchildren, who follow in his footsteps. Political and religious issues are briefly introduced, and add to the story. Characters do not receive a lot of individual attention, due to the short length of the book. But their natures and passions are apparent, and despite brevity, Gunn still manages to develop them sufficiently to elicit interest and empathy from the reader. Gunn's writing is superb. He chooses the right moments to display poetic writing, but still manages an effective conciseness as an overall tone.

There are plentiful quotations from various people and sources, some interesting, some not. There are excerpts of fictional news accounts of the time, which again work with varying degrees of success. Interestingly, for a book published in 1972, an african-american President has reached office for the first time in 2025. Racism still persists, however. That aspect of the story is brief, but memorable. Memorable is the right word for the book. It is well worth the read. It is a thoughtful and genuine study of the human need for companionship, and the lengths that some are willing to go to find it.