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Orbitsville
Bob Shaw grew up in Northern Ireland and rose from the ranks of fan fiction in the 1950s. His varied career began with structural engineering and aircraft design. As writing became a more significant part of his career, he moved into industrial public relations and journalism. Orbitsville was published in 1975, the year that Shaw finally became a full-time writer. It was later sequelised -- Orbitsville Departure -- and finally became a trilogy with the publication of Orbitsville Judgement in 1990. This review is of the original stand-alone novel but it is worth noting that the second book suffers the common problem of sequels which attempt to reopen the original closure, while the third novel is an excellent conclusion to the story, reinvigorating the themes of both foregoing novels. His other work shows similar creative approaches to ideas from science and a tendency to rework earlier themes, with his characterisation skills becoming stronger as his career continued.
Orbitsville is set in a new Elizabethan Age, and it soon becomes clear that this Elizabeth is a tyrant. She is the president of a monopolistic company which controls interstellar exploration and owns the ships capable of reaching Earth's only extra-solar colony. The novel's protagonist, Garamond, is the captain of one of her faster-than-light "flickerwings," but is soon fleeing her empire in the hope of reaching an almost-mythical refuge. The conveniently discovered system, which soon becomes known as Orbitsville, is utterly unlike anything previously thought possible: a massive Dyson sphere completely enclosing a sun in a shell only centimetres thick. The internal surface area - greater than that of 625 million Earths -- is a vast land of grass-covered hills and valleys which seems perfect for colonisation. It was constructed using methods incomprehensible to its human discoverers and the only access port is surrounded by the remnants of alien fleets.
With a constrictive human society and an mysterious yet invaluable resource under the nominal control of a refugee, the book has the tension and potential to go in any direction. Shaw has difficulty balancing the desire to go exploring in the vast volume of Orbitsville with the need to investigate its human consequences. Garamond is forced to apply all his wit to playing an unfamiliar political game against a resourceful and experienced opponent, and is repeatedly thrown off balance by Elizabeth's manoeuvres. At the same time, he wants to be in the midst of every revelation about Orbitsville. The sphere itself is a classic science fiction 'sense of wonder' trope, perceptible but apparently indefinable. The idea was not new when the book was written -- it invites comparison with Larry Niven's Ringworld -- but the author's attention to physical detail brings an inconceivably large object into telling focus. The novel is strengthened further by going beyond this engineering approach to consider the potential this discovery has to affect the entire human race.
The author's primary concerns in this work are the "big dumb object" and its grand effects. As a result, the characterisation is efficient rather than elaborate -- the personal actions of individuals sometimes seem to follow the requirements of the plot rather than flowing from the nature of the characters. Nevertheless, the large-scale repercussions of strategic decisions by both Garamond and Elizabeth are beautifully played out. The gradual definition of Orbitsville is also well told and the direction of the plot is cleverly perturbed by information gleaned about the structure. Orbitsville is an excellent example of the New Wave approach to classic science fiction, reviving familiar ideas through greater sophistication and new perspectives.
Orbitsville may be out of print, but harrass Fatbrain enough and perhaps they'll demand another printing.
The conveniently discovered system, which soon becomes known as Orbitsville, is utterly unlike anything previously thought possible: a massive Dyson sphere completely enclosing a sun in a shell only centimetres thick. The internal surface area - greater than that of 625 million Earths -- is a vast land of grass-covered hills and valleys which seems perfect for colonisation.
If the enclosure is complete, then how do you get in?
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
Since the sun is inside the sphere, the whole
thing is practically invisible to explorers, until
they bump on it. Might be good idea if there will
be ever need for hideout =).
(too much baaad scifi =)
It sounds like an intersting book. But I wonder which avenue it follows more. Does the book focus more on the interactions between society and this man, or rather his exploration of this new planet for colonization. All in all, it looks to be a good read, now if I could only get my hands on a copy! :-P
Review an old book
Regardless of the story
Dyson Spheres kick ass
Well, it certainly sounds interesting enough, and if I ever get the opportunity I'll give it a go, but in general I'm not a huge fan of older science fiction. Personally I find that a lot of it, although based on intruiging ideas, just puts me off because of a lack of any kind of realism - the original series of Star Trek springs to made as a well known example.
I'm not saying that all old sci-fi sucks, but it does seem like the genre has had a welcome influence of people who know what they're talking about over the last few decades. I find that a great idea in a story can be devalued when it is expressed in terms of science that a 16 year old could debunk.
Anyway, as for Dyson spheres, has anyone else here read The Ring of Charon and The Shattered Sphere by Roger Macbride Allen? Good books, if a little bit obscure :)
What's this? I'd say that there's a lot of staying power in classic SF, maybe more so than in many other forms of fiction. Heinlein, Asimov, Clarke, etc. still exert a hugeinfluence on SF today. There's no need to apologize for reviewing a classic (note: haven't read the entire review yet.)
"You can never have too many elephants on your team."
After re-reading it, it still struck me as a amazing novel that reads like a novel about now, it's strange and wonderfull novel. It amazes me that someone could see and write about the issues that we are dealing with now. and will be dealing with.
"think of it as evolution in action"
Powell's Bookstore in Portland, OR is the largest new and used bookstore in the US. They link up with smaller bookstores as well, and can often get out of print and rare books with amazing ease. Their website is http://www.powells.com
Happy Reading!
Check out Magic Firesheep!
Dyson spheres and ring worlds, oh my! ?p? I just love stories involving these MASSIVE engineering projects. They evoke a sense of awe and an optimism in our technological future even when they are impractical and/or physically impossible. Niven's ?I?Ringworld?/I? and Clarke's ?i?Renedezvous with Rama?/i? are the most well known examples, but here are a couple of others: ?p? ?i?The Time Ships?/i? by Stephen Baxter - Nobody does engineering like the Morlocks! ?br? ?i?Anvil of the Stars?/i? by Greg Bear - This sequel to ?i?The Forge of God?/i? features manufactured planets, gas giant mining and electro-magnetic fields around a star to control and mine it's energy.
Read a good book lately?
Read a good book lately?
There is more info about the author, Bob Shaw here.
Orbitsville also won 3rd Prize in the 1976 John W. Campbell award for science fiction.
The two Greg Bear books rocked. the idea of using whole solar system as a honey pot, was awsome.
"think of it as evolution in action"
but you used Star Trek as an example of earlier science fiction. Star Trek was a television series with a science fiction bent.
You do seem to know some science fiction, but drawing conclusions about old science fiction by citing Star Trek seems as relevant as drawing conclusions about old computers by citing HAL 9000.
George
"...Since the sun is inside the sphere, the whole thing is practically invisible to explorers..."
The star still radiates the same amount of energy whether or not it is inside a Dyson sphere. With a much greater surface area, you get a much lower surface temperature, but you still must emit that energy (I'll guess much of it as infrared).
How do I order this out of print book from Fatbrain, to keep ./ whoring itself?
Save your rant for something more ontopic.
George
I have to say that this book is well worth reading, balancing both the sense of wonder and the personal. There are some nicely thought out consequences and ideas in the later part of the book. Note, this book is now back in print (at least in UK). Gollanzc has just re-published it here in paperback (along with a number of other SF classics they had previously published in HB).
Agreed, Shockwave Rider is definitely in my top 5 of science fiction books.
/. review, can anyone?
What's it take to write a
George
Each book has a myriad of characters who each have unique personalities. The concept behind the books is entirely plausable. In the near future China becomes the dominant power in the world and in an effort to save humanity from overpopulation two strategies are devised. The first is populating nearby planets and the other, China's solution, is to build huge continent size cities with mant levels to each city. The space program is shot down by China so humanity if forced to live in these huge cities where there is a caste system roughly coresponding to what floor of the city you live on. From royalty living on the upper levels down to "clay" people living in the dark beneath the city off the refuse that works its way down. The plot is so intriguing with so many twists that even after eight novels I'm chomping at the bit for the next one.
David Wingrove has also written several book adaptations based on the Myst game. Not bad books, but they seem to suffer a little from the constraints of the writer having to follow what has/is happening in the Myst/Riven saga.
And maybe the wrong one at that :) No, I didn't mean to cast TOS as "definitive" early science fiction, I was merely talking about it being an example of a good idea being spoiled for me by very poor realism. The stuff I was actually talking about was a few decades prior to that really, so okay, maybe I should have come up with something else...
Another argument for reviewing old books is that what's old in the US can be a fresh translation in Finland, Indonesia or whatever.
Especially, I think that Eastern Europe has a lot of interesting Western books to discover, don't they?
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Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
As they said in the book, suidac! (sp?)
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Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
What grade school do you go to?
Not to talk about Stanislaw Lem, the über-novelist of science fiction, the Emperor of Visions of Future, Poland's Pet^Hrsonified Wonder of the World. One can not truly claim being a science fiction fan before touching the cover of one of his holy books, Cyberias and Star Diaries being the brightest stars in that multiverse.
Cultural achievements do not one-way stream.
(Sorry about the mandatory Lem praisal, but it is mandatory.)
I think, therefore thoughts exist. Ego is just an impression.
Obvious answer being, "read the book so you'll find out", what values this book quite perfectly is how does the writer keep stuff to the ground inside of a sphere?
- is "Dyson" something special about a sphere that I missed, or
- is there something in real physics making this possible, or
- has the ball been written to be rolling insanely fast, or
- is this yet another "aliens built it" cheapo?
I think, therefore thoughts exist. Ego is just an impression.
In an Afterword for the 10th anniversary edition of Neuromancer, William Gibson talks about one of "the secret adult pleasures of science fiction." Specifically, learning to enjoy the dated aspects of an old science fiction novel, rather than discounting the whole work.
When the Magyar version of Neuromancer was published, he wrote an afterword to Hungarian readers, assuring them that the Soviet presence in Neuromancer was in no way a prediction of some resurgence of a communist government, but rather that Gibson could not, at the time he wrote the novel, imagine a future without the Soviet Union. "This stuff ages fast," he wrote.
Neuromancer does invoke the eighties, strongly. In its presentation of corporate hegemony vs. cowboy outlaws, there is a delineation between the squares and the hipsters which, in the nineties, became increasingly blurred. Nowadays, you can find corporate lawyers who wear little rimless glasses and dress like James Dean, the Gap having made bohemian as easy as Garanimals. Starbuck's represents a late commodification of an older European cultural node, and (wherever you stand on the issue) an anarchic little piece of code called Napster may lead to an IPO.
In Neuromancer, corporate is corporate; dressed-up and buttoned-down, conservative as hell. It even resides in its own separate world, compartmentalized from the retrofitted subcultural outlaw bohemia of Chiba city. Gibson also cites the fact that people in the novel jump into bed at the drop of a hat, and he had to backpedal in subsequent books, with the explosion of AIDS.
The whole point being that if you accept a novel for its dated aspects, you get a snapshot of the era in which it was written. If the novel is really good, the effect is almost impressionist: suggestive, peripheral detail accumulating into a kind of broader meta-landscape which the author may not even have intended.
http://www.farmerbob.org
Yeah, but are there good ones unpublished in English?
I read "It's hard to be a god" from Strugatskis and something from Lem and I don't think of them as so big (And the film Solaris is even more boring than 2001).
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Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
Wise Man! I agree
(Karma troll? You bet)
-- 73 de KG2V For the Children - RKBA! "You are what you do when it counts" - the Masso
I also really enjoyed this book- when I was about 10. It's still a great read, although I agree that some of the characterisations were a little lacking BUT did improve in the sequel- if other aspects didn't. I didn't know there was a part III; I eagerly await the chance to read it.
Thanks for the review, please keep reviewing the old with the new.
Cheers
Julian
Thanks for your answer, it was nice to read. I got an email telling that the book takes the easiest way out. Blah.
I think, therefore thoughts exist. Ego is just an impression.
Info about tha Soviet film "Solyaris" based on Stanislaw Lem's book, from IMDB.
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Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu