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A review by frakalot
Orbitsville by Bob Shaw
5.0
This is my kind of spopera! I loved the reason for departure, the discovery, the journey and I was even ok with the ending. My first Bob Shaw read and I loved it. Orbitsville is a Dyson sphere and our hero (Garamond) goes through many ordeals before and after its discovery. When we're not exploring there's action aplenty and Garamond makes a lot of tough calls, I thought the race that leads to the ending was very dramatic.
Shaw gives us a fantastically dreamed up world in Orbitsville and on Earth with plenty of detailed thought applied. There's a heap of bunk science referred to (theories of spiders being aliens was silly) but it's all quite wonderful and there's a healthy measure of real science explored in the story too. I was particularly impressed with the attention to scale and unfathomable distances.
The next one titled, Departure from Orbitsville, gives me the impression that we won't get to explore much more of the inner surface of the Dyson sphere which would be a shame. We have had some fascinating discoveries and left a few tiny pockets of humanity sprinkled about the place but there's an enormous amount thus far unseen. There's also a few open ends from book one that I'd like to see followed.
Shaw gives us a fantastically dreamed up world in Orbitsville and on Earth with plenty of detailed thought applied. There's a heap of bunk science referred to (theories of spiders being aliens was silly) but it's all quite wonderful and there's a healthy measure of real science explored in the story too. I was particularly impressed with the attention to scale and unfathomable distances.
The next one titled, Departure from Orbitsville, gives me the impression that we won't get to explore much more of the inner surface of the Dyson sphere which would be a shame. We have had some fascinating discoveries and left a few tiny pockets of humanity sprinkled about the place but there's an enormous amount thus far unseen. There's also a few open ends from book one that I'd like to see followed.