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''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. ==Style== ''The Listeners'' is a modernist novel with a nonlinear narrative.〔Kilgore, DeWitt Douglas. "C/SETI As Fiction: On James Gunn's ''The Listeners''." In ''Societal Impact of Spaceflight.'' Steven J. Dick and Roger D. Launius, eds. Washington, D.C.: National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 2009, p. 541.〕 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〔This chapter title is entirely capitalized.〕 : *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 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.〔Gunn, "Preface," in ''The Listeners,'' 2003, p. 4.〕 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''.〔Kilgore, "C/SETI As Fiction: On James Gunn's ''The Listeners''," in ''Societal Impact of Spaceflight,'' 2009, p. 543.〕 The final chapter, "Translations," translates many of the foreign language quotations into English for readers. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「The Listeners (novel)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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