Double Contact

{{short description|1999 book by James White}}

{{EngvarB|date=January 2014}}{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2014}}

{{Infobox novel

| isbn = 978-0-312-87041-6

| pub_date = January 1, 1999

| publisher = Tor Books

| author = James White

| image = DoubleContact.jpg

| caption = First edition cover (publ. by Tor Books
Cover art by John Harris

}}

Double Contact is a 1999 science fiction book by Irish writer James White, the last in the Sector General series.{{cite web | url=http://www.sectorgeneral.com/biobiblio.html | accessdate=17 December 2008 | title=A Bio-bibliography of James White | last=Andrews |first=Graham | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090218011203/http://sectorgeneral.com/biobiblio.html | archive-date=18 February 2009 | url-status=dead }}{{Cite book

| first=Brian M. |last=Stableford | contribution=James White | pages=385–386

| title=Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction Literature

| publisher=Scarecrow Press| year=2004 | isbn=0-8108-4938-0

| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nzmIPZg5xicC&dq=%22james+white%22+biography+science+fiction&pg=PA386

| accessdate=18 December 2008

}}{{Cite web |date= |title=Double Contact |url=https://www.booklistonline.com/Double-Contact-James-White/pid=1058757 |url-access=subscription |access-date=2024-08-29 |website=Booklist}}

Clinton Lawrence described Double Contact as "in a very positive way, a throwback to an earlier era in science fiction" since it is optimistic and depicts several advanced species working harmoniously. The struggle to build trust and produce a successful first contact is, he thought, as exciting and suspenseful as one could wish for. However Lawrence also noted that the level of characterisation was the minimum required to support the plot.{{cite web|url=http://www.scifi.com/sfw/issue137/books.html |accessdate=18 December 2008 |title=Double Contact (review) |first=Clinton |last=Lawrence |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20001013084911/http://www.scifi.com/sfw/issue137/books.html |archivedate=13 October 2000 }}

This book has an unusual feature in personal pronoun usage: in most Sector General stories, one human is "he" or "she" (or other grammatical case forms) and one alien is "it". But, in Double Contact, often in the text the character Prilicla is "he" and a human or a member of any other species is "it".