On a completely random note, Togo lost in World Cup play today. My sister lived in Togo for a few years while in the Peace Corps, and, among other accomplishments, oversaw the construction of a beautiful new school. But anyway.
I just finished listening to the Audio version of Orbit, the latest Sci-Fi from John J. Nance, and I must say that I was pleasantly surprised with it. If you liked Apollo 13 or the Ender Wiggin novels, you'll like Orbit: A short, fast-paced thriller that sees a depressed everyman win a lottery that allows him to be a passenger on a privately-funded space flight. As you can probably guess, something goes wrong and this guy finds himself alone and stranded in space, doomed to die when his air runs out while NASA (and many other space agencies) scramble to save him. With his pilot dead and all communications cut off with Earth, Kip Dawson uses an onboard laptop to record his thoughts during his final 5 days.
This seems relatively straight forward, but the real catch of this book is the twist that broadcasts the protagonist's autobiographical journaling on the internet to an astonished worldwide population. Without realizing that he is being read by billions of anxious onlookers, he delves into his fears, regrets and reflections about his failed marriages, estranged children and the state of the world.
The simple concept (doomed man writing his message in a bottle to a rapt world) takes on added flavor in the high-tech confusion, and the result is an extremely hard-to-put-down narrative. I've never read Nance before, but my next stop will be my local library to find other aviation/science-gone-wrong thrillers from the accomplished writer.
Dave's Rating: 4.5 out of 5 Stars. Go read this book.
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