Orbital

I'm primarily a character-driven reader. I don't require a whole lot of plot. Show me the deep psychology of a character, what they mentally go through when they face some struggle, and I'm happy. To get me really hooked, throw in some metafictional elements or clever wordplay. I can read an entire novel about a man at the grocery store and love it; I can become engrossed with a book about a woman sitting in her living room, drinking coffee, and watching people go by. Plot is nice to have, but it's not a requirement for me.

Orbital essentially has no plot. It's a day in the life of a six-crew space station. Not even an exciting day, just a pretty mundane day. And I could be okay with that–except there's not really much happening with these characters either. The only points of significance is that one of their mothers has recently died, and a ship will be passing their orbit today, making them no longer the humans farthest from the earth, but neither of these really make much of an impact on the novel. We get the characters' thoughts, their interactions with one another, but in a single day without any really defining moments, it's really rather dry.

This is a novel for lovers of language. It reads like a love letter in novel form to space, earth, and humanity. Those who love metaphors and meditations on beauty (but rarely its opposite) will likely bask in the rays of this novel. Some of it might get you thinking about the bigger picture, but some is just meant to sound pretty. If you're a reader who is language-driven, this might be one worth checking out.

Personally, I thought Orbital was rather dry. I didn't dislike it, but I did find it tedious. If this novel had been two or three times the length it was, I probably would've hated it, or even not finished it. Fortunately, it was a very quick read.