Orbiter

[Themistocles]

Warren Ellis' latest production, and there is little better way to describe it than the blurb's own hyperbole; "both a psychological mystery and a sweeping science fiction story." Brilliant, though it feels perhaps a little rushed towards the end.

Anyone else read it?

 

[direstraits]

I saw it, but didn't pick it up. I thought it was heavily slated towards the American space program, NASA and the sort, and somehow that turned me off.

I was looking for his Transmetropolitan series.

ds

 

[Themistocles]

I'm after Transmetropolitan as well, but Alan Moore's V for Vendetta comes first.

 

[direstraits]

And Watchmen comes before V for Vendetta.

Uhm, come to think of it, Watchmen pretty much comes before anything. If you've read Watchmen, what did you think?

Hey, Themistocles, you didn't say if Orbiter *is* centered around NASA, or am I completely off track?

ds

 

[Themistocles]

Well, naturally Watchmen comes before V; it's read and re-read several times, though, so fresh material is required!

Yes, Orbiter is based on a NASA shuttle, but the setting is essentially an irrelevance; it is more concerned with humanity in any form getting out into space because, as Ellis puts it, "It's where we're supposed to be." As a near-future plot, NASA was simply the most likely vehicle, considering Europe's own abortive, robotic-only space exploration program.

 

[direstraits]

Well, it's looking increasingly less like NASA, now with the success of SpaceShipOne, plus SpaceShipTwo and Virgin Galactic in the horizon...

ds

 

[Themistocles]

Well, it's looking increasingly less like NASA, now with the success of SpaceShipOne, plus SpaceShipTwo and Virgin Galactic in the horizon...

ds

SpaceShipOne may be a start, yes, not to forget the new Ansari-X-prize-but-more-stringent-and-US-only-for-bureaucratic-reasons, whose name I have forgotten, but with the Shuttle fleet to be spacebound once again this summer and NASA pledged to have developed the shuttle's successor, with the ability to carry a human crew as far as Mars and back again, if not actually land on the Red Planet, by 2007 (long before Virgin Galactic ever becomes anything more than a $200,000-a-shot swindle, one imagines), the organisation still leads humanity's efforts in space exploration.