Orbital

Not being a sci-fi fan I didn’t expect to enjoy this as much as I did - in fact, in places I was delighted. The writing is sharp and beautiful.
You may know by now the initial premis: 6 astronauts from 5 different countries on a spacecraft that orbits the earth 16 times in 24 hours, with each chapter covering a 90 minute orbit. It touches on the philosophical, scientific, religious and political. Some aspects are confronting.
Astronauts and cosmonauts from 5 different countries constantly mix agreeably despite the Russians’ separate quarters and from the craft the only border visible is the lights between Pakistan and India. All others are blurred. Tellingly, “that’s all civilisation has to show for its divisions” (p72 of this edition).
It forcefully speaks of climate change and the destruction observed from the circling craft. They finally see that “the hand of politics is so visible” and “the planet is shaped by the sheer amazing force of human want” (p75).
On another level, life on an exploratory spacecraft - the resistance trainers, computers, cameras, microscopes, experiments, mice, plants, utensils velcroed to tables, the tears that must be bagged so as not to float about endlessly, relationships in inescapable confined spaces - intrigued me.
The ending is ambiguous and for me contributed little, but this novella is a beautifully written eye-opener. A richly deserving Booker winner.

This is a pretty good read and deserves the Booker Prize, but I’ll only give it 4/5 stars because it was too easy to put down. It is an account of what six different astronauts are thinking and doing over a period of 24 hours on the space station as it hurtles around the earth. It is actually really interesting and well researched, but does not have a plot. It is a short book (~130 pages) and I think a worthwhile read.