Word: sagan
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Wilhelm, the assignment was almost like researching a Jules Verne sequel. In addition to interviewing many of the Mariner 9 "investigators" at J.P.L., he talked with Cornell University's Carl Sagan and other experts. Wilhelm's files, together with those of Correspondents Horace Judson and Jerry Hannifin, went to Associate Editor Fred Golden, who wrote the cover story, his third on space...
Photographing Deimos. There was disagreement about the composition of the glaciers. Carl Sagan, director of Cornell University's Planetary Studies Lab, suggested that the glaciers are frozen carbon dioxide (dry ice), the major constituent of the polar cap. Smith felt that dry ice would not flow like a glacier. "The only thing that does," he said, "is water." Mariner's instruments did detect water vapor in the atmosphere above the south polar cap, suggesting that it had risen from the ice below. Those readings encouraged scientists who still hope to find some form of ife, however rudimentary...
...homosexual scandal tells Gilles, the hero: "I've never lost anything I've given. It's what you steal from people that you pay dearly for, my dear boy, remember that." Gilles remembers it all right, but he is never able to act on it. As Sagan's most complete male character to date, Gilles is a sexy, glamorous journalist who is irretrievably light-fingered with other people's emotions and their trust. At 35, Gilles suddenly falls victim to a disease he had thought only struck his friends: a paralyzing "fear of life...
...nearly 200 pages this is a long novel for Sagan, but the impression of swiftness that is her signature is as strong as ever. She is as clear and easy to read as Jane Austen, and though Austen was a genius and Sagan is merely talented, they have other things in common. Both evoke a comfortable trust from the reader because they rarely strike a false note, and both tend to decorate their pages with asides and epigrams. Here, for instance, is Gilles noting Nathalie's bookishness: "A well-read woman is less of a nuisance," he decides...
...knows as well what to expect from Sagan by now, a fact that has led to a certain amount of critical condescension. But what she delivers, though slight, is well made, wise and often funny entertainment, a relatively rare product these days...