One of my favorite books is The Sparrow, by Mary Doria Russell. The sequel to it is called Children of God. The author spends a great deal of time on alien biology and sociology.
Maisy
Still applies. If were revealed next week that ladybugs were intelligent aliens capable of communication with us, the first conversation we have with them would be our “first contact”. Such is the case with
the trees. Sure, sure, it’s the same species as the piggies, but I think the protocol remains the same. It could also be considered to be the case with the hive queen (since no one had actually communicated with them in the past).
Try out Octavia Butler’s Lillith’s Brood trilogy. Yeah I know, trilogies suck, but this one doesn’t.
The Mote in God’s Eye, by Niven and Pournelle.
My first thought was The Mote (and the most recent one too :rolleyes: ), but I’m surprised no one has mentioned The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin. Yes, long before the book starts we knew ‘aliens’ were out there, but they didn’t, adn we hadn’t met anybody like this before.
If you like humor, try Illegal Aliens by Nick Pollotta and Phil Foglio.
It not only contains first contact, but the worlds longest poker game.
Didn’t he also write The Ethical Equations? That’s another good first-contact short story.
Chad Oliver wrote a number of interesting post-first-contact-but-still-getting-to-know-the-aliens short stories and at least one novel. He was an anthropologist IRL, so his stories have a different take on the situation than most hard SF.
If you’re in the mood for tremendously optimistic first-contact books, James White did a number of novels of that sort; but I’m not sure whether I’d consider them “realistic”.
I’ll second this. Also, John Varley’s “Titan” and the sequel, “Wizard”. Maybe not so much the third book, “Demon”, though it is still one hell of a fun read.
God I love being a doper. Opened this thread wanting to say that you have to read Forever War by Joe Haldeman as it offers a great first contact possibility, realistic space travel and fighting and a great political commentary (that is all too relevant because of iraq). Now I read through the thread and no one even beat me too it. Go me
I third The Sparrow. Hands down one of my top 5 books ever.
The Forever War, though… Good God that book was repetitive! And long. And repetitive. And boring. And repe… You get the idea.
I normally love long, epic Science Fiction stories, but I actually had to skim whole chapters of that book just to finish it.
What sequels?
Bwa ha ha!
You didn’t actually read the OP, did you? 
Stanislaw Lem has written very good first contact stories, right up there with Clarke in terms of realism. Very harsh realism (reality) at that. The Invincible, Solaris and Fiasco are probably the best ones.
Dragon’s Egg by Robert Forward is rather interesting too, it’s about intelligent life on a neutron star. Though contact with humans isn’t a big part of the novel, IIRC.
Does Hitchhiker’s Guide count as a first contact story? 
I liked Sentenced to Prism by Alan Dean Foster.
Some very interesting alien life forms there.
There’s an anthology of short “first contact” stories that came ut in th 1960s. It’s called, not surprisingly, First Contacts.
People mentioned The Tripods, but (unless I missed it), not The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells. Definitely a landmark First Contact story.
If we’re going old school, I’d prefer The Day the Earth Stood Still by Bernard Herrmann (sp?), as we get more of the alien’s psychology in the story.
Herrman did the music for the movie (which I knew); Harry Bates wrote the story the move was based on (which I had to look up), Farewell to the Master.
Not too sure if it is a “first contact” story or not, but you also might want to check out James Blish’s A Case of Conscience.
Does it answer the burning question, “What does God need with a starship?”
Just for fun reading over break.
Thanks to all for the suggestions. There were several books or authors I’ve heard of before, and I’ll start with them.