Contact

How it reads

Contact is science fiction (first-contact science fiction, specifically), and its dominant mood is adventurous. It's driven by momentum, discovery and getting into trouble. The pace is moderate — neither a page-turner nor a slow burn — so it holds up whether you read it in long sittings or short ones.

It's set in several locations, in the recent past, told in the third person, staying close to one character. Its central concerns are faith, identity and power and politics. In weight it's heavy and literary — denser, more serious, and more demanding of you.

It stands alone, so there's nothing else you need to read first or after. The ending is bittersweet: it resolves, but at a price. At 456 pages it's an ordinary novel's length. It's a mega-bestseller — the book everyone seems to have read.