Carl Sagan Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Publication Order of Anthologies

Carl Sagan was a prominent astronomer, astrophysicist, science communicator, author, cosmologist, astrobiologist, and science popularizer in astronomy and natural sciences, hailing from America. He was born on November 9, 1934, in Brooklyn, New York, United States; and died on December 20, 1996. Author Sagan was popular for his contributions in the research works of the extraterrestrial life. One of his important research work includes the experiment involving the amino acid production from the basic chemicals through radiation. He was even involved in the assembling of the first messages that were sent into the space: the Voyager Golden Record and he Pioneer Plaque. These were the universal messages which had the potential of being understood if found by any extraterrestrial intelligence. During his time, author Sagan continuously argued on the topic of the hypothesis that the Venus’s surface temperature can be calculated with the help of the greenhouse effect.

It has now been accepted after many years of his death. Being an astronomer, author Sagan has published around six hundred articles and scientific papers. He has even authored, co-authored, edited more than twenty books in his career. His literary career includes a number of popular scientific novels, including Broca’s Brain, The Dragon of Eden, and the Pale Blue Dot. Author Sagan has even co-written and narrated the award winning television series of 1980 called Cosmos : A Personal Voyage. This series was considered to be the most widely seen series in the American television history and has been watched for around 500 million times across sixty different countries all over the world. After the success of the television series, author Sagan accompanied it with the Cosmos novel. After that, he wrote a science fiction book called as Contact, which became the basis of the 1997 movie of the same name. Almost all the papers written by author Sagan are archived at The Congress Library, which contain around 595,000 items.

Throughout his scientific career, author Sagan advocated the skeptical inquiry of science with the help of scientific methods and pioneered exobiology. He even promoted the program called Search for the Extra Terrestrial Intelligence or SETI. During most of the later phase of his career, author Sagan served as an astronomy professor at the Cornell University. There, he was the director of he Planetary Studies Library. Author Sagan has won numerous honors and awards for his extensive works throughout his career. For his scientific career, he received the Distinguished Service Medal from NASA and Public Welfare Medal from the National Academy of Sciences. As far as his literary career is concerned, he won the Pulitzer Prize in the General Non-Fiction category, as well as a couple of Emmy Awards, a Peabody Award, and a Hugo Award. In his personal life, author Carl Sagan had married for 3 three times and had a total 5 children among them. After reaching the age of 62, he was diagnosed with myelodysplasia and soon died due to pneumonia on December 20, 1996, in Seattle, Washington, United States.

One among the initial novels written by author Carl Sagan was published under the title ‘Cosmos’. This book was released by the Random House publishers in the year 2002. It was first released in the year 1980. The story of this novel was very much liked by the readers all over the world and this helped it to win the Hugo Award in the category of the Best Nonfiction Book in the year 1981. The book also became a finalist for the National Book Award in the same year. Actually, the Cosmos book has heavy illustrations of 13 different chapters. Each of the 13 chapters corresponds to the 13 episodes of the television series of the same name. In this book, author Sagan has explored around 15 billion years of the evolution of the cosmos and has very well described the development of the civilization and science.

The plot of the book traces the origins of scientific method and knowledge, by the mixture of philosophy and science. It goes on to speculate about how the future of science is going to turn up. Author Sagan has also discussed in the novel about the underlying premises of the scientific methods by giving illustrations of biographical anecdotes of a number of prominent scientists and physicists throughout history. He has placed the contributions of these prominent scientists in a broader context of the modern science development. The novel is believed to have covered a wide range of topics, including the reflections of author Sagan on the cosmological, anthropological, historical, astronomical, and biological matters, starting from antiquity up to the contemporary times. Also, he mentioned again and again in the book that the universe’s magnitude allows the existence of hundreds and thousands of civilizations of the aliens. However, he has not been able to provide any credible proof to demonstrate the existence of such life forms in the universe or their visit on earth.

One of the other successful novels written by author Carl Sagan was titled as ‘Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors’. This book was published by the Ballantine Book publishers in the year 1993. Author Sagan had described in the Cosmos book about where we stand in the vast time and space. Now in this novel, he has given the exploration about who we really are and how were our lives shaped under the adventures of the planet earth. He has given the description of the mysterious past of the human life that seems to have just begun to piece together. Author Sagan has collaborated with Ann Druyan in writing this novel and has said that the humans are similar to the newly born babies who are left on the doorstep with no information about who they are and where they came from. Also, there is no information about their hereditary attributes’ cargo, the disabilities that they might have, and their antecedents. With the help of this novel, authors Sagan and Druyan take the readers to the origin of the Sun and the planets and the first forms of life that emerged on earth. They have also described the origin of traits of the current predicament like violence, sex, altruism, consciousness, love, technology, hierarchy, language, and morality. In the end, the book provides important information related to the clarity about the origin of the human life form on earth. It appears to be a quest to look for a new perspective, which integrates the scientific methods in knowing who we are, where have we come from, and how our fate is going to turn out.