Orbital

A slender novel of epic power, Orbital deftly snapshots one day in the lives of six women and men hurtling through space—not towards the moon or the vast unknown, but around our planet. Selected for one of the last space station missions of its kind before the program is dismantled, these astronauts and cosmonauts—from America, Russia, Italy, Britain, and Japan—have left their lives behind to travel at a speed of over seventeen thousand miles an hour as the earth reels below. We glimpse moments of their earthly lives through brief communications with family, their photos and talismans; we watch them whip up dehydrated meals, float in gravity-free sleep, and exercise in regimented routines to prevent atrophying muscles; we witness them form bonds that will stand between them and utter solitude. Most of all, we are with them as they behold and record their silent blue planet. Their experiences of sixteen sunrises and sunsets and the bright, blinking constellations of the galaxy are at once breathtakingly awesome and surprisingly intimate. So are the marks of civilization far below, encrusted on the planet on which we live. 


Profound, contemplative and gorgeous, Orbital is an eloquent meditation on space and a moving elegy to our humanity, environment, and planet.

Genre: Science Fiction

"Orbital is a magnificent, thunderous work and yet so brief, so fleeting. It is an elegy to planet Earth in all its splendour and fragility. Exquisitely well-written, it confirms Samantha Harvey as a singular talent." - Nathan Filer

"One of the most beautiful novels I have read in a very long time." - Mark Haddon

"Six astronauts on a space station are working, sleeping, and watching the world go by. They think about typhoons, algal blooms, seascapes, cities at night, Velazquez, frog calls, fried eggs, family. Orbital is a lush description of the gorgeous earth, and a broad-minded, level-headed, affectionate take on what goes on down here." - Daisy Hildyard

"A gorgeous song of praise from on high, a hymn sung in starlight to celebrate mankind's courage and endeavour. And without preaching or speeching it also serves as a lyric reminder of all we might lose if we do not mend our ways." - Mike McCormack

"I admire Orbital even more than the rest of Harvey's work... I don't think I've read anything else with such love for its characters and such clarity about the state of the planet, and I was deeply grateful for the novel's refusal of despair or cynicism." - Sarah Moss

"This is such a beautiful book you have to adjust your readerly heart to take it all in. The plot is simply and extraordinarily our planet, watched by a handful of souls. Orbital wonders what it's like to be a human 'with a godly view' and because Samantha Harvey is such a spectacular prose stylist the wondering takes the form of breathtaking colour storms and brilliant encircling epiphanies of time and scale, technology and love, ambition and faith. It is an awe-inspiring and humbling love letter to Earth and those who reckon with the gift of it." - Max Porter

"A radiant explosion of a novel." - Jamie Quatro