Book Review: Orbital

Orbital
By Samantha Harvey
Review by Josh

The winner of the 2024 Booker Prize!

A contemplative and awe-inspiring novella on the wonder and profundity of space travel. Set on the International Space Station, this book tells the story of six astronauts and their experiences as they orbit the earth. With 16 sunrises and 16 sunsets in 24 hours, the daily orbit of an ISS astronaut is as bizarre as it is inspiring. It’s this interplay of ineffability and enlightenment that Orbital gracefully explores.

The book focuses less on heavy plot beats and more on the quiet moments of space exploration. The floating around in your sleeping bag dreaming of earth, the daily analysis of a typhoon as seen from orbit, the experience of seeing your home, and the home of all life from a wholly new perspective. It’s these moments that are less common in books on space, not the science and grandness of what we as a species are accomplishing but the more subtle effects on the human psyche, how such an experience alters one’s perception of life on our planet. A remarkable book. Moving, fascinating, thought-provoking and short enough you’ll want to read it again the moment you finish.

For fans of nature writing, Anne Carson’s poetic prose, This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone, and Audition by Pip Adam.