Orbital

This might look like science fiction but really is a literary mood piece. The story of a complete set of ISS orbits over 24 hours exploring the background and thoughts of the crew members along with lyrical descriptions of the earth below them. Seemingly accurate protrayal of the station and the life aboard, including the technology and daily activities so there has been some good research done here.

The story itself is beautifully written prose but ultimately unsatisfying. You could read these chapters in pretty much any order and it would still be the same book, almost the same for the paragraphs. Perhaps this very fact of interchangability of the text is making a profound statement about the mundanity and similarity of each of the orbits but this doesn’t make for a fulfilling read. A literary novel with marvellous descriptive language but ultimately we have to ask whether description without actual narrative is enough? Not in my view, sorry.