Orbital
Technical:
- ID: 1
- Added: 2025-08-02
- Updated: 2025-09-03
- ISBN: 9781529901795
- Publisher: Random House
- Published: 2023-11-02
- Reviews: 6
**WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE 2024** 'A slim, profound study of intimate human fears set against epic vistas' GUARDIAN 'Stunning... An uplifting book' SUNDAY TIMES Life on our planet as you've never seen it before A team of astronauts in the International Space Station collect meteorological data, conduct scientific experiments and test the limits of the human body. But mostly they observe. Together they watch their silent blue planet, circling it sixteen times, spinning past continents and cycling through seasons, taking in glaciers and deserts, the peaks of mountains and the swells of oceans. Endless shows of spectacular beauty witnessed in a single day. Yet although separated from the world they cannot escape its constant pull. News reaches them of the death of a mother, and with it comes thoughts of returning home. They look on as a typhoon gathers over an island and people they love, in awe of its magnificence and fearful of its destruction. The fragility of human life fills their conversations, their fears, their dreams. So far from earth, they have never felt more part - or protective - of it. They begin to ask, what is life without earth? What is earth without humanity?
Reviews
Pull quotes
- Orbital feels more like a work of non-fiction than a novel.
- We are reminded of how infinitesimally small we are within that planet and on the most superficial level, of how insignificant our births, lives, and deaths are.
- We also come to understand how critical we are to the future survival of our planet.
Pull quotes
- Continents and countries come one after the other and the earth feels – not small, but almost endlessly connected, an epic poem of flowing verses.
- I found myself googling further info on the moon landings and the challengers disaster, learning so much about space travel while reading this.
- The power of what it is to be human: love, family, belief in God, the importance of a soul and then conversely how robots are on track to be the main astronauts but should they be?
Pull quotes
- 'Orbital' was a book to admire rather than love.
- There's a slightly dream-like haziness about the shimmering prose that, ultimately, I enjoyed.
- The shimmering prose evokes a sense of otherworldliness and poetic reflection.
Pull quotes
- This is just one of the stunning sentences that feature in the small but perfectly formed Orbital.
- Viewed by the astronauts as they orbit the Earth, the book is a moving elegy to our environment and planet.
- Orbital took my breath away with some truly illuminating and poetic passages.
Pull quotes
- A choreography of movements and functions, each individual bringing something different to the party.
- Harvey reveals something about each astronaut, their thoughts returning to loved ones on earth, highlighting the need for human connection.
- Chie’s stoic mother – a survivor of the Nagasaki atomic bomb – whose resilience has been a major source of inspiration.
Pull quotes
- A slender novel of epic power and the winner of the Booker Prize 2024.
- We are with them as they behold and record their silent blue planet.
- Profound and contemplative, Orbital is a moving elegy to our environment and planet.