content: Carl Sagan has done a good job of popularizing a sciences such as astronomy and physics and making them accessible to non-scientists like myself. The plot in the book is sort of cool but it just seem overly simplistic.Also, the characters were AWFUL. Just devices to carry the plot. I found myself not caring about a single one of them. Some of them were downright ridiculous. I'm glad that generally, Sagan stuck to non-ficton.There's better stuff out there.