Contact, by Carl Sagan

This week, the crew tackles Contact by Carl Sagan, a science fiction novel written by an actual scientist, and boy, you can tell. The science is fascinating, the ideas are enormous, and the exposition is delivered with all the subtlety of a university lecture.Sarah, Tommy, Rick, and Andrew dive into humanity's search for extraterrestrial life, the tension between science and religion, and a book that asks the big question: is science God? And then doesn't really answer it?We debate whether a book can have too many explanations (spoiler: yes), and whether brilliant ideas can make up for some truly aggressive exposition. It's ambitious, thoughtful, and very likely the intellectual grandfather of some of our favourites, like The Three-Body Problem. Some of us will allow it (not Andrew).A big shoutout to our friends at Book Outlet / Book Depot for sponsoring this episode! They do sell out so if you see a good deal, nab it! You can find some incredible Pagenerd books at Book Outlet, here are some of my recs:The Dispossessed by Ursula Le GuinWild Seed by Octavia ButlerSpace Oddity (the sequel to Space Opera) by Cathrynne M Valente  Pagenerd is Sarah Stockdale, Tommy Guy, Richard Vieweg and Andrew Corway. Jay Cockburn is the producer. New episodes launch every two weeks. If you want to read along with future episodes then you'll find a full list of what we're reading next at pagenerd.com, and support us at patreon.com/pagenerd.You can reach the nerds at Pagenerdhq@gmail.com — tell us about your local library or favourite indie book store!