Carl Sagan again comes with the old theme of traveling in time and space. This theme made the first book Cosmos an awesome hit and this is the second book in the sequence in which the author has tried to predict the future. The novel is linked to the life of a girl named Ellie whose personal life is a little bit disturbed. Ellie’s mother has a clearer role in her life as compared to her father. The girl completes her education after which she starts working in a lab on some research project.
Her educational career does not get a lot of time from Carl because it was not linked to the basic theme of time traveling. Ellie during her job at the lab forms a relationship with one of the assistants but it does not go well later on.
From time to time she establishes relations with different men but all of it is sidelined when the work of the three machines is described by the author and narrated by Laurel Lefkow. The girl was not alone in all the trips but on those trips when she was traveling alone the story became interesting.
During these solo trips, she gets the chance to meet and talk to the aliens which develops a new concept about another race. Further her learning about “pi” gets more enhanced and has an impact on the final chapters of the story. Written in a travelogue form the book neglects Ellie’s personal life in the second half and it was rightly done by the author because it was impossible to carry both things at the same time.
