[NOVEL] Orbital (2024)
Orbital is a lovely, poetic novel about the smallness of mankind in the face of infinite space. It's just over 100 pages long and reads more like an extended prose poem than a novel. There is little in the way of character development, but that's not necessarily a problem - the individuals here, each from a different part of Earth now living on the International Space Station, all seem to merge into one. They are a human blob, full of imperfections and peculiarities that seem unique on the backdrop of a monolithic Earth.
The writing is exceptional, but my main two criticisms are that it gets a little bit repetitive, especially towards the end, and the fact that none of this seems necessarily new. Classic science fiction has always displayed a sense of awe towards humanity's place in the universe, and while reading this novel at times I felt that I had seen similar sentiment displayed in a better way before. It's still a very well done work, and I completely understand why it awarded the Booker prize.