Winner of the Booker Prize 2024, Orbital by Samantha Harvey certainly seems to have split opinion. Here’s mine.
This is one of those rare novels where it’s possible to give a synopsis without worrying about spoilers, because there isn’t much of a plot to speak of: six astronauts live a day on the International Space Station, completing sixteen orbits of Earth. That’s it.
It’s a mood-piece more than a story. I didn’t mind that. Some of the description was evocative; some got a little boring and repetitive, essentially long lists of locations to give a sense of the speed they were moving at.
The six characters aren’t easily discernible, with very little personality coming across, and we don’t really get into the heads of any of them. They are sketches more than fleshed out individuals.
Attention is focussed on the Earth below rather than the people we’re spending time with and, whilst I understand that was probably the point, without a story to speak of, or interesting characters, I think it would have become a struggle to read if it was any longer.
I thought there were some odd choices regarding grammar and punctuation. For example, none of the speech is in quotation marks. It often comes across as description of a conversation, rather than an actual conversation that’s taking place. I’m not sure if it was done to intentionally keep the characters at a distance, but it serves that purpose. I suspect it’s most likely to have been done so the dialogue wasn’t too jarring a switch from the description-heavy prose, although there were a couple of instances with semi-naturalistic dialogue that felt clunky as a result.
It was interesting reading some of the most popular reviews on Goodreads. There has been a backlash against what is viewed as a pro-Russian sentiment. I didn’t get that from my first read. There are two Russian astronauts aboard the space craft, and when they reminisce about Earth and home, it makes sense they would remember it fondly. It could be argued there was more from their perspective than the other characters, but I would need to read it again to make a definitive judgement.
Overall, I’m pleased to have read it, as I do like to mix things up and try not to read two consecutive books in the same genre or style. This is certainly a little different, and I’m all for different.
My biggest disappointment was that, for a book that depends almost solely on description, it didn’t feel lyrical enough. I wished it was more poetic. If it had been, the score I gave it would certainly have been higher.
Would I recommend it? If you need action, mystery, or twisty-turny plotting, then this isn’t for you. Otherwise, you might like it, and it’s a relatively short read.
I gave it a week before completing my review, in case I found it stuck with me, but that hasn’t happened. I’ve barely thought about it in that time. So while I quite liked it, it’s not something I’m likely to look back on fondly or revisit.
Final score: 3 out of 5
Arrowmaker Books 