Comet

By: Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan

Narrated by: Seth MacFarlane, Bahni Turpin

Comet begins with a breathtaking journey through space astride a comet. Pulitzer Prize-winning astronomer Carl Sagan, author of Cosmos and Contact, and writer Ann Druyan explore the origin, nature, and future of comets, and the exotic myths and portents attached to them. The authors show how comets have spurred some of the great discoveries in the history of science and raise intriguing questions about these brilliant visitors from the interstellar dark.

Were the fates of the dinosaurs and the origins of humans tied to the wanderings of a comet? Are comets the building blocks from which worlds are formed? Comet is an enthralling adventure, indispensable for anyone who has ever gazed up at the heavens and wondered why.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©1997 Ann Druyan and the Estate of Carl Sagan. © 1985 by Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan. (P)2017 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved.

Critic reviews

"Simply the best."—The Times of London

"Fascinating, evocative, inspiring."—The Washington Post

"Comet humanizes science. A beautiful, interesting book."—United Press International

Carl Sagan

An outstanding book, what you’d expect from a story teller like Sagan.
Obviously a bit out of data , still fascinating.

Exceptional

A real gem for the astronomy of our solar system told through a mix of history, mathematics and physics.

Beautifully Written and Very Informative

The science fiction lover in me drives me to read the occasional popular science text such as A Brief History of Time or Comet by Sagan and Druyan. This is an excellent survey of our understanding of comets for the non-specialist. It opens with a long historiography of the ancient, medieval and early modern world’s view of comets as harbingers of disaster. Then moves into the scientists who evolved our current understanding of these fascinating celestial bodies. Halley and Newton stood out most strongly to me, but they were by no means the only ones. The book winds up with explorations of the probable impact (pun intended) of comets on the development of our planet and the life upon it. If you’ve any curiosity about any of these issues, you’re likely to greatly enjoy Comet.

I enjoyed a lot this book

I learned so many new things from this book! It opened my appetite and I look at the Universe in a totally different way now.
It may be boring for some and amazing for others.

Facinating but bad narrator

Interesting and facinating "read". Maybe a bit too long, especially on the history. Narrator is monotonous and unengaging to listen to unfortunately.

Excellent!

Loved it! Amazing book. The writing in this book is beautiful. Thanks to Carl and Ann Druyan.

Enchanting!

I thoroughly enjoy reading anything that Carl Sagan writes, so saying that this book is extraordinarily good is definitely a biased opinion. however, I enjoyed one perk that I didn't expect from this audiobook. I enjoyed the narration very much. The narrator was clear, enunciated very well, and never failed to read with considerable enthusiasm. I highly recommend this book for anyone who is curious, and anyone who enjoys good narration.

The book is NOT read by MacFarlane

The first chapter is read by Seth MacFarlane and he does an amazing job, but that is it. Just one chapter. The rest of the book sounds like it’s read by a computer voice. Definitely not as enjoyable. For the first few chapters I kept waiting for MacFarlane to read another chapter, but no it was just the first. The book is good and I learned some cool things, but the audio performance was bad and I felt lied to about the readers.

Lots of important science and cosmic perspective

This book starts with the quaint musings of ancient Chinese record keepers on the fortune brought by different shapes of comets.

It follows our evolution in thought about comets to the present day, where we recognize them as leftovers from the formation of the solar system. We see in them the building blocks of life. We credit them for the formation of Earth's oceans. Comets are a lot more than bad omens in the sky. Except for that one time 65 million years ago!

I love how much knowledge Sagan was able to connect seemingly effortlessly to these rare visitors.

Great Book! Needs more MacFarlane

I really enjoy Sagan's work, even though some of it is now outdated (which he would love, by the way). But the narrator for the majority of this book doesn't seem to quite click with the material.