Review:
Orbital follows six astronauts and cosmonauts as they go about one day, 16 orbits of the Earth, in their space station. We get little glimpses of their thoughts and lives, as well as a few glimpses of how things are going on Earth, where a typhoon is developing. The science fiction aspect is very light - as these people on the space station are going about their day, other astronauts are about to land on the Moon a second time (I think? it was either that or a Mars mission - I didn't note down the details).
This book is a poem that was allowed to balloon to 200+ pages. It had occasional nice, lovely moments, and I didn't hate it, but in the end is was a lot of reflection and zero plot. Yes, we got some focus on the characters and their inner lives, but it was all too soft and dreamlike to really stick with me. There were only really six characters, and yet I could just barely keep two or three of them straight in my head - the rest tended to blend together.
I read this in two sittings, mostly because I really needed to get it done in time for my book club meeting. During the first sitting, I nearly fell asleep, which was when it occurred to me that this book was very much like the podcast Nothing Much Happens: Bedtime Stories for Everyone, but in space.
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