The Listeners (novel)
Encyclopedia
The Listeners is a science fiction novel by American
author James Gunn
. It centers on the search for interstellar communication
and the effect that receipt of a message has. Although the search and the message are the unifying background of the novel, the chapters explore the personal effect of these events have on the lives of the characters.
novel with a nonlinear narrative. The novel contains 12 chapters. Unlike traditional book formatting (which usually starts a chapter by using the word "chapter," starts a chapter on a new page, and perhaps numbers the chapters), the chapters in The Listeners are simply listed in bold, and many begin in the middle of the page (as if a continuation of the previous chapter). Chapters vary in length, from barely a page to about 30 pages. The chapters are:
Linear narrative and dialogue are often interspersed with quotations from real authors and their works, fragments of fictional news reports, and snippets of thought and dialogue from named and unnamed sources (including a supercomputer). Italic type
is often used. Among the more notable individuals quoted in the novel are scientist Giuseppe Cocconi
, poet Kirby Congdon, Walter de la Mare
, scientist Freeman J. Dyson, futurist and economist Herman Kahn
, poet Alice Meynell
, scientist and author Carl Sagan
, and poet William Butler Yeats
. Many quotations and some of the text are in Spanish
(as the first Robert MacDonald's wife is Hispanic
, and both characters speak the language). Each of the "Computer" chapters represents material the supercomputer collects in its attempts to better translate and understand the alien message it is receiving. These chapters use a historiographic
approach which combines elements of futurology
, literature, and science, and strongly resemble similar segments and elements in Isaac Asimov
's Foundation series and A. E. van Vogt
's The Voyage of the Space Beagle
.
The final chapter, "Translations," translates many of the foreign language quotations into English for readers.
It is the year 2025, and many world problems (such as overpopulation, economic depression, resource depletion, racism, and crime) are on the verge of being solved. Robert MacDonald is a 47-year-old linguist
and electrical engineer
who is director of The Project, an attempt to listen for attempts at interstellar communication
. For 20 years, he has been married to Maria, a Hispanic woman from Puerto Rico
. MacDonald is obsessed with his job, which places strains on his marriage. His wife, who has previously attempted suicide
by taking an overdose of sleeping pills
, slashes her wrists in a second attempt. Although MacDonald almost resigns to care for his wife, he does not.
Two years later, MacDonald and his wife have had a child, Robert MacDonald, Jr. (known as "Bobby"). MacDonald is interviewed by a journalist, George Thomas. Thomas is skeptical of The Project's cost. He also confronts MacDonald with the views of a new Christian
sect, the Solitarians, led by the elderly preacher Jeremiah Jones. Jeremiah (he prefers to use only his first name) believes that humanity is alone in the universe, and that the search for extraterrestrial intelligence borders on heresy
. That night, as Thomas visits the MacDonald household, The Project receives a message from the region of the star
Capella
in the constellation
Auriga
. The message is badly degraded by static, but appears to be early radio
and audio-only television
signals beamed back at the Earth from an alien race. MacDonald releases the news to the entire world.
A year later, in 2028, Jeremiah's movement has gained vast numbers of new followers. One of The Project's scientists, William Mitchell, is engaged to be married to Jeremiah's daughter, Judith. MacDonald meets with Jeremiah, who believes the repeated radio transmissions are a message from God that humanity is, indeed, alone. MacDonald reveals to Jeremiah that the static noise in the message included short bursts of pure sound ("dots"), similar to Morse code
, but no "dashes." He believes Jeremiah is not just a fanatic but also an "honest man" who might change his views once he sees what The Project is doing. MacDonald tells Jeremiah that once the message in the static is decoded, he wants Jeremiah to come to The Project's headquarters in Puerto Rico to see the message first-hand. Jeremiah agrees. After his arrival back in Puerto Rico, MacDonald has a revelation that leads to translation of the message. He urges Jeremiah to come, and the preacher does so the next day. MacDonald translates the encoded message for the first time in front of the Solitarian minister: The dots and silences are meant to be printed out. When they do so, they form an image of a multi-armed bird-like creature with wings. A circle envelops its head. Jeremiah initially believes the image represents an angel
with a halo around its head. MacDonald and the scientists see it is an avian humanoid with vestigial wings and a space helmet around its head.
News of the image spreads quickly. MacDonald contacts Andrew White, the first African American
President of the United States, and tells him about the image. White wants to keep the news quiet, but realizes that too many people saw the image and that Jeremiah cannot be silenced. White flies to Puerto Rico with his son, John, an idealistic 20-year-old who believes that racism and the world's problems cannot return. MacDonald reveals that the printed image also shows the twin Capellan suns, reveals information about Capellan biology and reproduction, and points out the Capellan home world (a moon orbiting a gas giant
planet). Solitarian riots break out across the United States over the next several hours as people begin to fear alien invasion. The Chinese
and Russia
n governments demand that President White not respond. White concludes that the only way to prevent further bloodshed is to shut down The Project and issue no reply. But John White realizes that the message reveals something else: One of the Capellan stars is turning into a red giant
, and the Capellan race is dying. The message was not a precursor to invasion; rather, it was an attempt to reach out to other life forms even as the race died. MacDonald tells President White that he can calm the rioters by revealing that the Capellans are dying, and that it will take 90 years for a message to reach Capella and return. White agrees to issue "The Answer" and to begin a propaganda campaign to counter the fear raised by Jeremiah's announcement. John White joins The Project.
Thirty years later, Robert "Bobby" MacDonald, Jr. travels to Puerto Rico after his father's death. Robert MacDonald remained obsessed with his job. Although his son idolized him, Maria could no longer handle the strain and left with Bobby. Bobby blames his father for his mother's death, and refused to communicate with him for decades. A middle-aged John White welcomes Bobby back to The Project. Bobby discovers that The Project's massive computer has been recording all the conversations in the control room for the past 75 years, and White plays snippets of these conversations for Bobby: The reaction to "The Message," President White's discussions with MacDonald, Jeremiah's visit to MacDonald's memorial service, and much more. John White reveals that The Project is adrift without Robert MacDonald to lead it, and might shut down. Their biggest fear is that they might receive "The Reply" but no one would be listening. Bobby, who has earned degrees in electrical engineering and computer programming, comes to terms with his father's absent parenting, and agrees to join The Project as it waits for The Reply.
In the year 2118, the computer which runs The Project is secretly close to gaining sentience
after having accumulated nearly 200 years' worth of knowledge. William MacDonald, Bobby MacDonald's son, is the new director of The Project. As the "Day of Reply" nears, the entire world becomes excited, and musical compositions, motion pictures, plays, and philosophical discussions are presented worldwide. Some in the audience at The Project's headquarters in Puerto Rico believe that the ghosts of Robert and Bobby MacDonald haunt the facility, but these claims are dismissed as holographic projections created by the computer to keep the staff's hopes alives. The Reply arrives, containing a vast encyclopedia of Capellan knowledge and art. But The Reply also reveals that the Capellans died millennia ago and that the message Earth has been receiving is nothing more than an automated response from self-repairing machinery set in motion ages ago by the alien race.
The Project computer slowly begins assimilating the Capellan information, secretly becoming more Capellan-like, as humanity turns inward again and starts to learn about the dead Capellans. The story ends with the revelation that, 50 years later, another message is received from the Crab Nebula
.
Gunn wrote the stories which would become the book in 1966, during a sabbatical from his job as an administrative assistant
to the Chancellor for University Relations at the University of Kansas
. The short stories were inspired by Walter S. Sullivan
's book We Are Not Alone, which documented then-nascent efforts to search for extraterrestrial intelligence
(SETI) using radio telescope
s. The SETI project piqued Gunn's interest: "...what stimulated my writer's instinct was the concept of a project that might have to be pursued for a century without results. What kind of need would produce that kind of dedication, I pondered, and what kind of people would it enlist—and have to enlist if it were to continue?" The story was written as a novelette
, but Gunn agreed to have the chapter then called "The Listeners" published in Galaxy Magazine after editor Frederik Pohl
announced the magazine was returning to a monthly publication schedule and needed a great deal of new material. Most of the rest of the novelette was published as individual short stories over the next few months. Charles Scribner's Sons
, a book publishing house, was developing a new line of science fiction novels, and an editor approached Gunn about collecting the stories and editing them together to fashion a complete novel out of the material. Gunn added the "Computer" chapters as a means of cementing the disparate chapters together and added the final chapter, "Translations," and the novel was published in hard cover in late 1972.
The Listeners had a substantial impact on the field of the science fiction novel. National Aeronautics and Space Administration Chief Historian Steven J. Dick
has called the novel the "classic expression" of contact with extraterrestrial life in fiction. Along with such writers as Pulitzer Prize
-winner Carl Sagan, Gunn has been called one of the chief contributors to the sub-genre of science fiction which deals with alien first contact. According to Gunn, scientist and author Carl Sagan
told Gunn that The Listeners was the inspiration for his own novel, Contact
. In 2010, the novel was nominated by a group of scientists and writers (assembled by New Scientist
magazine) as one of the science fiction novels of the 20th century which is an unrecognized classic in the field.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
author James Gunn
James Gunn (author)
- Further reading :James E. Gunn The Listeners, BenBella Books, ISBN 1-932100-12-1 -External links:*...
. It centers on the search for interstellar communication
Interstellar communication
Interstellar communication is the transmission of signals between planetary systems. Sending Interstellar messages is potentially much easier than interstellar travel, being possible with technologies and equipment which are currently available...
and the effect that receipt of a message has. Although the search and the message are the unifying background of the novel, the chapters explore the personal effect of these events have on the lives of the characters.
Style
The Listeners is a modernistModernism
Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...
novel with a nonlinear narrative. The novel contains 12 chapters. Unlike traditional book formatting (which usually starts a chapter by using the word "chapter," starts a chapter on a new page, and perhaps numbers the chapters), the chapters in The Listeners are simply listed in bold, and many begin in the middle of the page (as if a continuation of the previous chapter). Chapters vary in length, from barely a page to about 30 pages. The chapters are:
- The Listeners
- Robert MacDonald—2025
- Computer Run
- George Thomas—2027
- Computer Run
- William Mitchell—2028
- COMPUTER RUN
- Andrew White—2028
- Computer Run
- Robert MacDonald—2058
- The Computer—2118
- Translations
Linear narrative and dialogue are often interspersed with quotations from real authors and their works, fragments of fictional news reports, and snippets of thought and dialogue from named and unnamed sources (including a supercomputer). Italic type
Italic type
In typography, italic type is a cursive typeface based on a stylized form of calligraphic handwriting. Owing to the influence from calligraphy, such typefaces often slant slightly to the right. Different glyph shapes from roman type are also usually used—another influence from calligraphy...
is often used. Among the more notable individuals quoted in the novel are scientist Giuseppe Cocconi
Giuseppe Cocconi
Giuseppe Cocconi was a former director of the Proton Synchrotron at CERN in Geneva. He is known for is work in particle physics and for his involvement with SETI.-Life:...
, poet Kirby Congdon, Walter de la Mare
Walter de la Mare
Walter John de la Mare , OM CH was an English poet, short story writer and novelist, probably best remembered for his works for children and the poem "The Listeners"....
, scientist Freeman J. Dyson, futurist and economist Herman Kahn
Herman Kahn
Herman Kahn was one of the preeminent futurists of the latter third of the twentieth century. In the early 1970s he predicted the rise of Japan as a major world power. He was a founder of the Hudson Institute think tank and originally came to prominence as a military strategist and systems...
, poet Alice Meynell
Alice Meynell
Alice Christiana Gertrude Thompson Meynell was an English writer, editor, critic, and suffragist, now remembered mainly as a poet.-Biography:...
, scientist and author Carl Sagan
Carl Sagan
Carl Edward Sagan was an American astronomer, astrophysicist, cosmologist, author, science popularizer and science communicator in astronomy and natural sciences. He published more than 600 scientific papers and articles and was author, co-author or editor of more than 20 books...
, and poet William Butler Yeats
William Butler Yeats
William Butler Yeats was an Irish poet and playwright, and one of the foremost figures of 20th century literature. A pillar of both the Irish and British literary establishments, in his later years he served as an Irish Senator for two terms...
. Many quotations and some of the text are in Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
(as the first Robert MacDonald's wife is Hispanic
Hispanic
Hispanic is a term that originally denoted a relationship to Hispania, which is to say the Iberian Peninsula: Andorra, Gibraltar, Portugal and Spain. During the Modern Era, Hispanic sometimes takes on a more limited meaning, particularly in the United States, where the term means a person of ...
, and both characters speak the language). Each of the "Computer" chapters represents material the supercomputer collects in its attempts to better translate and understand the alien message it is receiving. These chapters use a historiographic
Historiography
Historiography refers either to the study of the history and methodology of history as a discipline, or to a body of historical work on a specialized topic...
approach which combines elements of futurology
Futurology
Futures studies is the study of postulating possible, probable, and preferable futures and the worldviews and myths that underlie them. There is a debate as to whether this discipline is an art or science. In general, it can be considered as a branch under the more general scope of the field of...
, literature, and science, and strongly resemble similar segments and elements in Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov was an American author and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, best known for his works of science fiction and for his popular science books. Asimov was one of the most prolific writers of all time, having written or edited more than 500 books and an estimated 90,000...
's Foundation series and A. E. van Vogt
A. E. van Vogt
Alfred Elton van Vogt was a Canadian-born science fiction author regarded by some as one of the most popular and complex science fiction writers of the mid-twentieth century: the "Golden Age" of the genre....
's The Voyage of the Space Beagle
The Voyage of the Space Beagle
The Voyage of the Space Beagle is a classic novel of science fiction by A. E. van Vogt in the space opera subgenre.The novel is a "fix-up" compilation of four previously published SF stories:...
.
The final chapter, "Translations," translates many of the foreign language quotations into English for readers.
Plot synopsis
The following is synopsis is presented in chronological order, although it is not presented that way in the novel.It is the year 2025, and many world problems (such as overpopulation, economic depression, resource depletion, racism, and crime) are on the verge of being solved. Robert MacDonald is a 47-year-old linguist
Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....
and electrical engineer
Electrical engineering
Electrical engineering is a field of engineering that generally deals with the study and application of electricity, electronics and electromagnetism. The field first became an identifiable occupation in the late nineteenth century after commercialization of the electric telegraph and electrical...
who is director of The Project, an attempt to listen for attempts at interstellar communication
Interstellar communication
Interstellar communication is the transmission of signals between planetary systems. Sending Interstellar messages is potentially much easier than interstellar travel, being possible with technologies and equipment which are currently available...
. For 20 years, he has been married to Maria, a Hispanic woman from Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico , officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico , is an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic and west of both the United States Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands.Puerto Rico comprises an...
. MacDonald is obsessed with his job, which places strains on his marriage. His wife, who has previously attempted suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
by taking an overdose of sleeping pills
Hypnotic
Hypnotic drugs are a class of psychoactives whose primary function is to induce sleep and to be used in the treatment of insomnia and in surgical anesthesia...
, slashes her wrists in a second attempt. Although MacDonald almost resigns to care for his wife, he does not.
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
sect, the Solitarians, led by the elderly preacher Jeremiah Jones. Jeremiah (he prefers to use only his first name) believes that humanity is alone in the universe, and that the search for extraterrestrial intelligence borders on heresy
Heresy
Heresy is a controversial or novel change to a system of beliefs, especially a religion, that conflicts with established dogma. It is distinct from apostasy, which is the formal denunciation of one's religion, principles or cause, and blasphemy, which is irreverence toward religion...
. That night, as Thomas visits the MacDonald household, The Project receives a message from the region of the star
Star
A star is a massive, luminous sphere of plasma held together by gravity. At the end of its lifetime, a star can also contain a proportion of degenerate matter. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun, which is the source of most of the energy on Earth...
Capella
Capella (star)
Capella is the brightest star in the constellation Auriga, the sixth brightest star in the night sky and the third brightest star in the northern celestial hemisphere, after Arcturus and Vega. Although it appears to be a single star to the naked eye, it is actually a star system of four stars in...
in the constellation
Constellation
In modern astronomy, a constellation is an internationally defined area of the celestial sphere. These areas are grouped around asterisms, patterns formed by prominent stars within apparent proximity to one another on Earth's night sky....
Auriga
Auriga (constellation)
Auriga is a constellation in the northern sky. Its name is Latin for 'charioteer' and its stars form a shape that has been associated with the pointed helmet of a charioteer. It was one of the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd century astronomer Ptolemy, and remains among the 88 modern...
. The message is badly degraded by static, but appears to be early radio
Radio
Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...
and audio-only television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
signals beamed back at the Earth from an alien race. MacDonald releases the news to the entire world.
A year later, in 2028, Jeremiah's movement has gained vast numbers of new followers. One of The Project's scientists, William Mitchell, is engaged to be married to Jeremiah's daughter, Judith. MacDonald meets with Jeremiah, who believes the repeated radio transmissions are a message from God that humanity is, indeed, alone. MacDonald reveals to Jeremiah that the static noise in the message included short bursts of pure sound ("dots"), similar to Morse code
Morse code
Morse code is a method of transmitting textual information as a series of on-off tones, lights, or clicks that can be directly understood by a skilled listener or observer without special equipment...
, but no "dashes." He believes Jeremiah is not just a fanatic but also an "honest man" who might change his views once he sees what The Project is doing. MacDonald tells Jeremiah that once the message in the static is decoded, he wants Jeremiah to come to The Project's headquarters in Puerto Rico to see the message first-hand. Jeremiah agrees. After his arrival back in Puerto Rico, MacDonald has a revelation that leads to translation of the message. He urges Jeremiah to come, and the preacher does so the next day. MacDonald translates the encoded message for the first time in front of the Solitarian minister: The dots and silences are meant to be printed out. When they do so, they form an image of a multi-armed bird-like creature with wings. A circle envelops its head. Jeremiah initially believes the image represents an angel
Angel
Angels are mythical beings often depicted as messengers of God in the Hebrew and Christian Bibles along with the Quran. The English word angel is derived from the Greek ἄγγελος, a translation of in the Hebrew Bible ; a similar term, ملائكة , is used in the Qur'an...
with a halo around its head. MacDonald and the scientists see it is an avian humanoid with vestigial wings and a space helmet around its head.
News of the image spreads quickly. MacDonald contacts Andrew White, the first African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
President of the United States, and tells him about the image. White wants to keep the news quiet, but realizes that too many people saw the image and that Jeremiah cannot be silenced. White flies to Puerto Rico with his son, John, an idealistic 20-year-old who believes that racism and the world's problems cannot return. MacDonald reveals that the printed image also shows the twin Capellan suns, reveals information about Capellan biology and reproduction, and points out the Capellan home world (a moon orbiting a gas giant
Gas giant
A gas giant is a large planet that is not primarily composed of rock or other solid matter. There are four gas giants in the Solar System: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune...
planet). Solitarian riots break out across the United States over the next several hours as people begin to fear alien invasion. The Chinese
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
and Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n governments demand that President White not respond. White concludes that the only way to prevent further bloodshed is to shut down The Project and issue no reply. But John White realizes that the message reveals something else: One of the Capellan stars is turning into a red giant
Red giant
A red giant is a luminous giant star of low or intermediate mass in a late phase of stellar evolution. The outer atmosphere is inflated and tenuous, making the radius immense and the surface temperature low, somewhere from 5,000 K and lower...
, and the Capellan race is dying. The message was not a precursor to invasion; rather, it was an attempt to reach out to other life forms even as the race died. MacDonald tells President White that he can calm the rioters by revealing that the Capellans are dying, and that it will take 90 years for a message to reach Capella and return. White agrees to issue "The Answer" and to begin a propaganda campaign to counter the fear raised by Jeremiah's announcement. John White joins The Project.
Thirty years later, Robert "Bobby" MacDonald, Jr. travels to Puerto Rico after his father's death. Robert MacDonald remained obsessed with his job. Although his son idolized him, Maria could no longer handle the strain and left with Bobby. Bobby blames his father for his mother's death, and refused to communicate with him for decades. A middle-aged John White welcomes Bobby back to The Project. Bobby discovers that The Project's massive computer has been recording all the conversations in the control room for the past 75 years, and White plays snippets of these conversations for Bobby: The reaction to "The Message," President White's discussions with MacDonald, Jeremiah's visit to MacDonald's memorial service, and much more. John White reveals that The Project is adrift without Robert MacDonald to lead it, and might shut down. Their biggest fear is that they might receive "The Reply" but no one would be listening. Bobby, who has earned degrees in electrical engineering and computer programming, comes to terms with his father's absent parenting, and agrees to join The Project as it waits for The Reply.
In the year 2118, the computer which runs The Project is secretly close to gaining sentience
Sentience
Sentience is the ability to feel, perceive or be conscious, or to have subjective experiences. Eighteenth century philosophers used the concept to distinguish the ability to think from the ability to feel . In modern western philosophy, sentience is the ability to have sensations or experiences...
after having accumulated nearly 200 years' worth of knowledge. William MacDonald, Bobby MacDonald's son, is the new director of The Project. As the "Day of Reply" nears, the entire world becomes excited, and musical compositions, motion pictures, plays, and philosophical discussions are presented worldwide. Some in the audience at The Project's headquarters in Puerto Rico believe that the ghosts of Robert and Bobby MacDonald haunt the facility, but these claims are dismissed as holographic projections created by the computer to keep the staff's hopes alives. The Reply arrives, containing a vast encyclopedia of Capellan knowledge and art. But The Reply also reveals that the Capellans died millennia ago and that the message Earth has been receiving is nothing more than an automated response from self-repairing machinery set in motion ages ago by the alien race.
The Project computer slowly begins assimilating the Capellan information, secretly becoming more Capellan-like, as humanity turns inward again and starts to learn about the dead Capellans. The story ends with the revelation that, 50 years later, another message is received from the Crab Nebula
Crab Nebula
The Crab Nebula is a supernova remnant and pulsar wind nebula in the constellation of Taurus...
.
Genesis and assessment
The novel is largely made up of previously published short stories which were adapted to form a coherent novel. These include:- The "Robert MacDonald" chapters previously appeared as the short story "The Listeners" in Galaxy MagazineGalaxy Science FictionGalaxy Science Fiction was an American digest-size science fiction magazine, published from 1950 to 1980. It was founded by an Italian company, World Editions, which was looking to break in to the American market. World Editions hired as editor H. L...
, September 1968. - The chapter "George Thomas—2027" previously appeared as the short story "The Voices" in Fantasy & Science FictionThe Magazine of Fantasy & Science FictionThe Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction is a digest-size American fantasy and science fiction magazine first published in 1949 by Mystery House and then by Fantasy House. Both were subsidiaries of Lawrence Spivak's Mercury Publications, which took over as publisher in 1958. Spilogale, Inc...
, September 1972. - The chapter "William Mitchell—2028" previously appeared as the short story "The Message" in Galaxy Magazine, May–June 1971.
- The chapter "Andrew White—2028" previously appeared as the short story "The Answer" in Galaxy Magazine, January–February 1972.
- The chapter "The Computer—2118" previously appeared as the short story "The Reply" in Galaxy Magazine, May–June 1972.
Gunn wrote the stories which would become the book in 1966, during a sabbatical from his job as an administrative assistant
Administrative Assistant
Administrative Assistant is a broad job category that designates an individual who provides various kinds of administrative support to people and groups in business enterprises.-Kinds of Administrative Assistants:...
to the Chancellor for University Relations at the University of Kansas
University of Kansas
The University of Kansas is a public research university and the largest university in the state of Kansas. KU campuses are located in Lawrence, Wichita, Overland Park, and Kansas City, Kansas with the main campus being located in Lawrence on Mount Oread, the highest point in Lawrence. The...
. The short stories were inspired by Walter S. Sullivan
Walter S. Sullivan
Walter Seager Sullivan, Jr was considered the "dean" of science writers.Sullivan spent most of his career as a science reporter for the New York Times...
's book We Are Not Alone, which documented then-nascent efforts to search for extraterrestrial intelligence
SETI
The search for extraterrestrial intelligence is the collective name for a number of activities people undertake to search for intelligent extraterrestrial life. Some of the most well known projects are run by the SETI Institute. SETI projects use scientific methods to search for intelligent life...
(SETI) using radio telescope
Radio telescope
A radio telescope is a form of directional radio antenna used in radio astronomy. The same types of antennas are also used in tracking and collecting data from satellites and space probes...
s. The SETI project piqued Gunn's interest: "...what stimulated my writer's instinct was the concept of a project that might have to be pursued for a century without results. What kind of need would produce that kind of dedication, I pondered, and what kind of people would it enlist—and have to enlist if it were to continue?" The story was written as a novelette
Novelette
A novelette is a piece of short prose fiction. The distinction between a novelette and other literary forms is usually based upon word count, with a novelette being longer than a short story, but shorter than a novella...
, but Gunn agreed to have the chapter then called "The Listeners" published in Galaxy Magazine after editor Frederik Pohl
Frederik Pohl
Frederik George Pohl, Jr. is an American science fiction writer, editor and fan, with a career spanning over seventy years — from his first published work, "Elegy to a Dead Planet: Luna" , to his most recent novel, All the Lives He Led .He won the National Book Award in 1980 for his novel Jem...
announced the magazine was returning to a monthly publication schedule and needed a great deal of new material. Most of the rest of the novelette was published as individual short stories over the next few months. Charles Scribner's Sons
Charles Scribner's Sons
Charles Scribner's Sons, or simply Scribner, is an American publisher based in New York City, known for publishing a number of American authors including Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Kurt Vonnegut, Stephen King, Robert A. Heinlein, Thomas Wolfe, George Santayana, John Clellon...
, a book publishing house, was developing a new line of science fiction novels, and an editor approached Gunn about collecting the stories and editing them together to fashion a complete novel out of the material. Gunn added the "Computer" chapters as a means of cementing the disparate chapters together and added the final chapter, "Translations," and the novel was published in hard cover in late 1972.
The Listeners had a substantial impact on the field of the science fiction novel. National Aeronautics and Space Administration Chief Historian Steven J. Dick
Steven J. Dick
Steven J. Dick is an American astronomer, author and historian of science most noted for his work in the field of astrobiology. Dick served as the Chief Historian for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration from 2003 to 2009. He is a member of the International Academy of Astronautics and...
has called the novel the "classic expression" of contact with extraterrestrial life in fiction. Along with such writers as Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
-winner Carl Sagan, Gunn has been called one of the chief contributors to the sub-genre of science fiction which deals with alien first contact. According to Gunn, scientist and author Carl Sagan
Carl Sagan
Carl Edward Sagan was an American astronomer, astrophysicist, cosmologist, author, science popularizer and science communicator in astronomy and natural sciences. He published more than 600 scientific papers and articles and was author, co-author or editor of more than 20 books...
told Gunn that The Listeners was the inspiration for his own novel, Contact
Contact (novel)
Contact is a science fiction novel written by Carl Sagan and published in 1985. It deals with the theme of contact between humanity and a more technologically advanced, extraterrestrial life form. It ranked No. 7 on the 1985 U.S. bestseller list....
. In 2010, the novel was nominated by a group of scientists and writers (assembled by New Scientist
New Scientist
New Scientist is a weekly non-peer-reviewed English-language international science magazine, which since 1996 has also run a website, covering recent developments in science and technology for a general audience. Founded in 1956, it is published by Reed Business Information Ltd, a subsidiary of...
magazine) as one of the science fiction novels of the 20th century which is an unrecognized classic in the field.