I was hooked from the very first words! Samantha Harvey writes in an elegant and clean prose throughout this book. She writes as if she is in love with the Earth and this is her love letter. We got to know a handful of characters residing in space in such depth and tenderness. The characters brought to life here are definitely the star of the show. This is a very slow paced book, portraying the characters mundaneness and smallness in the expanse. Little plot allows us to meditate rather than be pulled through to the finish line. Knowing this before going in made all the difference for my reading experience. I love a gripping sci fi but once my expectations had changed, this is no longer is being held up to standards it won't meet. This is an art piece, a literary experience.

Reminds me of Lydia Millet, potentially what I wanted Dinosaurs to be. I loved the way space travel was made everyday. I loved the small plot movements. I loved the language. This would be a great bedtime book and for me was almost a little book of meditations on what it means to be an inhabitant of earth. A great slow read, probably not a great speed read.

What a puzzle of a book this was for me. If it had been exactly the same book and labeled "creative non-fiction" I would have been bowled-over-amazed by it. Its lack of plot would have been no impediment--because life doesn't come with a plot. To have been aware, as I read, that I was reading the meditations and wonderings of a real person in space would have been captivating.

But it's fiction. and I can't seem to give these fictional meditations, made by fictional people, the weight they deserve, without there also being a plot or some kind of forward momentum to give these fictional lives meaning.

I'm not sure this is a defensible position to take. Why the same words work as one thing, and not another. I'm reporting an actual subjective experience of reading this novel and being very aware it fails for me as fiction, and as some other thing it would have soared.

🌟 REVIEW 🌟

#OrbitalANovel by Samantha Harvey

Thank you to @netgalley and Grove Atlantic for allowing me to read Orbital as an eARC. The book will be published on November 5th, so be sure to pick up you copy!

⭐️ Rating: 4/5 ⭐️

Orbital caught my interest from the beginning.

The novel details life aboard a spacecraft for six astronauts, as they orbit the earth across one day aboard (multiple days across the earth), 16 orbits.

The concept for this novel is one i have Not yet encountered as a reader, and I loved the rich detailed descriptions that samantha harvey provides us readers with throughout the novel.

The small tidbits about the lives of each of the characters left me wishing for more. I do wish the characters were a bit more developed, and that there was a bit more action in the plot. However, the argument can be made that the lack of action in the plot actually highlights the monotony of the days in space as a member of the crew.

the commentary about life On earth, and view of civilization and the environment from afar makes us reflect upon our lives on earth, the impact we have, and the powerful forces of nature that impact our lives.

Overall, this book held my attention from start to end. I enjoyed the concepts and characters, and after this read, I would read other works by Samantha Harvey.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Grove Atlantic for this advanced reader copy to review.

I was intrigued by the concept of this book: the meditative observations and memories of a crew of astronauts orbiting the Earth. The writing was lovely but the execution felt like an infinite loop of not so interesting musings. There really wasn’t any sort of plot or character development. I might have enjoyed this sort of book if the introspection by each character generated any sort of emotion, but it really fell flat for me.

This was exactly my sort of Sci Fi!
Astronauts in space, no evil enemy or attack, just daily life and their thoughts.
"Do you know what I'll look forward to getting back to, when the time comes? He says. Things I don't need, that's what. Pointlessness. Some pointless ornament on a shelf. A rug."
I found it extremely fascinating but one has to be in the mood for this sort of story.
The writing felt a bit pretentious. This was my first book from this author, but the last.
Thanks so much for the approval.
"They look down and they understand why it's called Mother earth. They all feel it from time to time. They all make an association between the earth and a mother, and this in turn makes them feel like children."

Well, I was hoping (very excited) to read a novel, set in space as the genre mentioned is fiction (which is misleading). However, it doesn't seem like fiction or a novel. There's no plot or story to be honest. There are six astronauts in the space station in the name of characters. And the narrative is an informative commentary from their points of view.

The writing is beautiful. If you find space fascinating (who doesn't?) and okay with non fiction kind of informative narration, go for it. But, if you are looking for a novel or a character driven story, you might feel disappointed.

Thank you for the copy.

This brief novel follows the musings, casual observations, grief and conflict of six astronauts as they complete sixteen orbits around the earth. I requested the book on NetGalley. Thanks to Grove Press for approving my electronic ARC. I can’t resist a space story and I was immediately drawn to Orbital’s title and cover art. A quick skim of the description sealed the deal.

Orbital has no plot to speak of. It is a sketch, or maybe a snapshot of a relatively short period of time in the tight confines of an orbiting space station, moving through an infinite landscape. It’s narration is almost completely internal, from the point of view of the astronauts of widely differing backgrounds. While each character gives the reader a peek behind the curtain of their individual experiences and what those experiences look and feel like against the backdrop of space and the the rest of humanity a distant concept through a space-station viewing porthole, some observations are common to each astronaut.

To a person, the astronauts struggle to both describe and to conceptualize the scope of their personal griefs, hopes, ambitions, and failings in comparison to the tiny blur of humanity as it passes by every few hours in orbit. In vivid vignettes they share a new understanding of the earth as “mother”, death as merely a thin sheet of metal away, and their own insignificance—even as the high-achieving leaders in their field of study.

In the end, the novel leaves the reader with an understanding of an overarching paradox infusing life as a human, illustrated through ego versus insignificance, closeness versus distance, and the mundane versus the astonishing.

This short novel is very much worth your time.

I had to go back and re-read a lot of this book because the prose was so dense and repetitive that I felt like I kept missing things. It’s a third-person point of view that switches perspective so often that it was easy to get lost. There were some beautifully written parts but I spent most of it frustrated and uninterested. The structure was interesting because the plot and prose itself both felt very circular and meditative. There were highs and lows — long sentences and very short ones, a lack of an intensive plot, and a strong centre — that made it feel like a looping, slow roller coaster you can’t escape. The idea of it is compelling, but the execution didn’t land for me. The sense of characterization was strong once everyone is introduced and it felt like everything was meant to be a metaphor for something, however vague. Overall, I struggled with it but I can see how someone else might love it.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5689700343

Thanks to Netgalley and Grove Atlantic for an advanced reader copy.

I'm always on the lookout for works that blur the lines between literary and science fiction. Orbital is the first literary work I've found that is focused on today. The international space station is real while the crew is fictional.

I thought it was a fascinating blend of science and philosophy. What I found most fascinating is that even though the astronauts are in space, much of their field of view is of the earth and not the rest of the galaxy. I hadn't clued into that fact previously and while reading, I felt true awe just like when I was a kid learning about space for the first time. I'm looking forward to reading interviews with Harvey about her research, especially since her background is in creative writing and philosophy, not science. It must have required an immense amount of research.

Style wise, it felt like a meditative circular poem that mirrors the unique fast/slow experience of the crew. They slowly swim around the station in low gravity while travelling a discombobulating 17,000 km per hour, fully orbiting the earth every 90 minutes(!) I admired the writing, but as a more visual person, I found the many geographical descriptions of earth quite dense and repetitive. However, I found if I slowed down my reading and took longer than normal breaks between chapters, I could better appreciate Harvey's prose and immerse myself in the experience. I also liked Harvey's brief forays into the work and personal lives of the crew and how she wove our climate crisis short-sightedness into the narrative.

This isn't a literary scifi book I'd recommend to fans of plot driven science fiction. However, I
do recommend it to those in the mood for something languid and meditative, or anyone who likes the idea of learning about science through literature rather than a PBS documentary.

Thanks to NetGalley and the author/publisher for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book is unusual in a lot of ways. It's written in third person omniscient perspective that switches perspective so often, mostly between paragraphs, but sometimes even in the middle of one.

This book also didn't really have much of a plot, it's just about astronauts and cosmonauts in the International Space Station doing their thing, not a lot of things happened to them. And thiss means there wasn't much character development. However it still worked and it was still very much readable.

The reasons for that are the prose and the characters. For the prose, it's really dense but in a beautiful way, not in a frustrating-to-read way. The sentences are crafted with a lot of care and precision, making the readers slow down and appreciate it. That means it doesn't really matter (at least for me) if there's no plot.

As for the characters, even though they didn't go through significant developments, they're still compelling because it felt like we get to know so much about each of them. Why they're there and why they're doing this. And the author managed to make them distinct and memorable even without much space and/or developments.

Overall, it's really good but I don't think it's for everyone, if you're looking for thrilling plot or character developments, you're gonna be disappointed. If you enjoy writers like Becky Chambers, but you want something even more philosophically dense, then this book is for you.

Notable for its language and efforts to encompass. But is this a novel? I found it more a kind of litany, a visualization, an agglomeration, with its heart in the right place. A movie with words? A collection of perceptions on the planet, astronomy, the dubious future of earth? Laudable and admirable in many ways. But also repetitive and centre-less. Others will probably love it. I do admire the author, but not this particular offering.

Orbital is a slender literary meditation on a crew of astronauts orbiting the earth. The very fact that it is not science fiction is itself miraculous and implausible. Humanity is in space. That we are in space is not a story about space—it is a story about Earth.

The writing is gorgeous. The novel—if you can call it that—is essentially an obsessive circling around the view of Earth from space. Hold it in your mind, the book demands, this miraculous planet. There is not much character development, no real conflict, little in the way of plot. Just this obsessive circling, an effort to grasp something intangible in the specifics of space travel. To take the knowledge that humans have left earth and repeat it like a mantra; to embellish it with tiny images, like an illuminated manuscript—do these intricate illuminations say more or less than the words they honor, or do they speak together in one voice? Hold them in your mind.

From this particular image, or infinite sequence of images—the earth from orbit—arises a more general interest in images: meditations on Velázquez’s La Meninas, on photographs of Earth taken from the moon. Does a change in perspective change anything? Or is it just human folly and hubris to think that by changing our view of the Earth we change the planet itself?

Was really expecting a different book about space travel rather than a character driven novel with space travel as an add-on. At least it felt that way. Thanks to NetGalley for the eARC.

There needs to be a new genre created for books like this one, a gorgeously written meditation on Earth and space and humanity. I am in awe of Harvey's talent and absolutely obsessed with understanding how she was able to so vividly describe the astronauts and cosmonauts experiences without having gone up there herself. I feel as though I've been on a journey that I never thought I'd take and genuinely feel as though my perspective shifted and some of my long-held beliefs were affected by this moving and brilliant piece of writing. Is it a novel in the traditional sense of the word? I'm not sure. But it sure was a great read and a visually stunning experience, which is a feat in and of itself, given that it was just words on a page. I don't know how she did it, but I'm sure grateful to have gone on this ride. Can't wait to share this one!

You imagine that orbiting the earth must be something akin to watching the world’s greatest, most expansive documentary unfolding before you (narrated, of course, by Sir David Attenborough because who else would work in this, or any, context?) or appreciating natural artwork so big and overwhelmingly brown, blue and green-tinged beautiful that nothing else can even touch you sensorily.

Or perhaps it’s life’s greatest out-of-body experience, an existential trip far from the humdrum surface where gravity usually holds you tight and close, and where the chance to fly free isn’t not even a possibility, making it’s availability in orbit something of a freeing wonder?

Whatever it feels like, and no doubt it can be everything from wondrously escapist to nauseatingly disruptive, there’s no doubt that the person to capture it is Samantha Harvey.

Her newest novel Orbital takes us on a journey into endless navigations of the earth where six astronauts, on board the international space station have to deal with life writ cosmically large and intimately emotional, their lives both as normal as ever in some respects and brilliantly different in ways that reshape perspective and soul in immeasurably life-changing ways.

The thing that you notice first about this gloriously affecting piece of work is how poetic it feels; every single line feel like a work of lyrical art, with Harvey’s descriptions of the planet passing underneath something of transportive beauty and observational lushness.

In fact, if you are a geography nerd or simply someone who loves pouring over atlases with their mountain ridges and large (though sadly shrinking) swathes of forest green, you will find much to love about the descriptive passages which are everywhere in Orbital and which provide a gloriously alive canvas upon which the author tells her nuanced and emotionally intimate story of six astronauts drawn from across the globe.

These people – Roman, Nell, Shaun, Chie, Pietro and Anton – arrive in two groups but quickly become a family of sorts though Harvey is insightfully quick to point out that while they are forced together by circumstance, they have instinctual barriers to too much closeness which might prove emotionally dangerous in a place where family is far away, physically at least, and where too much self-truth might be too much to handle.

Even musical and other preferences are kept closely guarded secrets for the most part.

What unites them beside their daily chores and exercise regimen and their experimental work on a range of scientific endeavours, istheir shared sense that something remarkable is happening to them.

How can you not feel some shared sense of being and purpose when you’re staring down at the rippling mountains of the Caucuses or you’re watching, and photographing, to advance the boundaries of meteorological science, a super typhoon that is growing and growing in size, sweeping up whole countries and oceans in its remorseless race across the Pacific and Southeast Asia.

What makes Orbital something truly special is the way in which Harvey infuses this expansive wonder with intimacy of experience and thought so that what might appear intimidatingly big becomes accessibly and soul-soothingly small and holdable.

It’s a marvellous balance of the epic and the intimate and Harvey sustains it throughout a novel which finds a thousand ways to say the Earth is beautiful and our lives have meaning without once feeling like it’s repeating itself or being stale in its observances.

The other great gift is taking something very few of us will ever experience and making it feel both extraordinary and ordinary all at once, a tantalising mix of the routine and the unique that reinvigorates any sense we might have that life has run its course in terms of newness and novelness and that we have nothing left to truly discover.

Reading Orbital is to feel like you’re discovering the planet on which you love and the life given to you while you are on it all over again, much like the six astronauts who find themselves granted a whole new way of viewing the Earth and their lives and who are simultaneously changed and confirmed in what they already know about being alive.

Theirs is not an experience unaffected by the travails of life either with one of them grappling with the death of their mother while they are in no position to say any kind of meaningful goodbye while another worries about a friend and his family caught in the path of typhoon they are documenting.

What strikes you about Orbital, quite apart from its luminously beautiful evocations of the planet and humanity’s place upon it, is how much we need our connectedness to others.

Every page is full of each of the astronauts musing on what their loved ones might be doing right now, or thinking back to an email passage from someone they love and knowing that while their lives are wholly different to those of most other people, that it’s those very people that matter to them most.

Yes, they have launched themselves into the atmosphere without hesitation, with one of them happy to send themselves to Mars without thinking about it, and they love what they get to do, but what makes it all worth something, apart from their growing connection with each other as they orbit the earth sixteen times on various trajectories, are the people down below.

They frame and put in emotional context all that beauty and all the terror of weather events out of control and a planet of ridges and oceans and strikingly lit coastlines, and it is those people that make the wholly extraordinary feeling intimately touchingly, welcomingly ordinary.

Orbital is thus a thing of quiet, stunningly enveloping humanity; yes, the experience of orbiting the Earth is without parallel and it can be ignored or dismissed easily, with Harvey’s lucidly beautiful descriptions making that all but impossible anyway, but what anchors it all, what gives it all purpose, meaning and a sense of emotional time and place are the people we are and whom we know, and as the six astronauts race across a globe of endless night and day, that point is driven home in ways that get seared into you and cannot be quickly forgotten or lost.

I had little expectation going in. The premise just sounded interesting. Wow! It’s gorgeously written.

Not much happens in this book. But that’s the point. It’s is a gorgeous ode to otter space. To giving up earthly things to explore unknowns.

Here is an example of one of many passages I highlighted “you could know the earth inside out, in its little hollow of space. You could never really comprehend the starts, but the earth you could know in the way you know another person, in the way he came quite studiedly and determinedly to know his wife. With a yearning that’s hungry and selfish. He wishes to know if, inch by inch.”

This book was admittedly not one of my usual reads. It’s quiet. But it is beautiful and I have no doubt will impact many readers.

This is a beautifully written, incredibly interesting book about life on the international space station, but I would struggle to call it a novel. The characters are sketchily drawn and their interactions are few. A key fictional aspect of the plot, a new moon landing, seems to have little purpose in the story. As an essay about space, the earth's plight and a human quest for knowledge it is outstanding. As a novel, three stars is generous. Sorry! Would love to read a really gripping literary novel set in space. In the meantime, this book is essential reading for anyone wanting to know more about life in orbit.

This thoughtful novel, in which six astronauts circle the Earth, leans more heavily toward existential musings and visually descriptive prose than plot, and I think that some readers will find this quite rewarding. The writing felt lyrical, almost fluid. At times I felt swept up in this style, like I was bobbing peacefully, almost meditatively, along on a sea of words. Eventually, though, my attention started to drift. I actually think it would have been interesting and immersive to have had a globe nearby during the visual descriptions of the planet. My focus was regularly drawn back in by profound passages about humanity, and I highlighted quite a few lovely excerpts that I am sure I will revisit and share with friends once this book is released in December. Thank you to NetGalley and Grove Atlantic for providing a Digital Review Copy of Orbital.

Excellent little gem that will get some readers thinking. This was engaging and unexpected, and tough not to judge it's beautiful cover.

Thanks very much for the free copy for review!