By: Warren Ellis, Colleen Doran Publisher: Vertigo Average Rating: Binding: Paperback Label: Vertigo Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 104 Publication Date: June 01, 2004 Release Date: June 01, 2004
Not as Hard Science Fiction as it Could Have Been Warren Ellis's Orbiter is a graphic novel that hopes to reignite America's imagination with the space program. Though it is an interesting premise and setup, the story is ultimately predictable and more boyhood fantasy than hard science fiction.
Ten years after the Space Shuttle Venture vanished from orbit, the space program is dead and buried. But, when the Venture mysteriously reappears and comes in for a landing, there is a scramble to determine what happened to it and where it has been. A team is assembled of flawed experts, all with some connection or another with the failed space program and a stake in determining what has happened and what it means for mankind - they expect for the positive of course.
With the orbiter returning covered in skin and the inside stuffed with living tissue, and evidence of the Venture having landed on Mars, and only one of its crew returning - near catatonic - the team constructs a myriad of scenarios to explain the unexplainable. But, alas, the ending is pat and full of hope, but without any real payoff.
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A Guide to my Book Rating System:
1 star = The wood pulp would have been better utilized as toilet paper. 2 stars = Don't bother, clean your bathroom instead. 3 stars = Wasn't a waste of time, but it was time wasted. 4 stars = Good book, but not life altering. 5 stars = This book changed my world in at least some small way.
This Sucks Totally Slow & Borringgggggggggggggggggggggg I'm sure I will get "this review didn't help me" comments but this tpb sucks. I usually like Warren Ellis but this book was so slow and boring and had no real punch. No aliens, nada. Thank God I got it cheap here. It was probably sold so cheap because it sucked. Anyway, don't waste your money on this. Totally slow & boring reading.
Graphic SF Reader Orbiter is beautiful to look at. Apart from that, it is both a homage to the space program, and the brave men and women who become astronauts, and a critiscim of the weakness, lack of vision, and cowardice of those currently running the place. Not to mention a big of anger directed at the same thing as well.
A shuttle mission has gone missing, and returns in a very alien state, with a pilot that is very changed, insane, and perhaps now alien himself.
Warren Ellis's love letter to manned space flight Writer Warren Ellis is a space program true believer, a kid who grew up when America flew to the moon, and fervently wishes we'd go much, much farther. This is his love letter to manned space flight - a moody, detailed, futuristic fairy tale about the return of America's final space shuttle, the Venture, which vanished off the radar during a regular flight, never to return. This event essentially ended the space program and when the book begins, Kennedy Space Center has (improbably) devolved into an immense, squalid homeless camp -- the incoming prodigal shuttle squishes innumerable shabby inhabitants. Then the military takes over and assembles a Scooby Gang made of misfits left over from the old space program of a decade earlier, and one manic, anarchistic young propulsion expert.
The mood of the story is evocative, but there are problems, largely due, I think, to its being caught in the confines of DC's Vertigo universe, which means there must be gratuitous, gosh-heck messing with our minds and nose-thumbing towards authority, etc, as well as a touch of graphic violence. Indeed, the one out-of-place plot point is that the lone astronaut who returns from the void inexplicably attacks and mutilates a soldier who enters the returned mystery ship, but then becomes entirely docile and sympathetic -- his violent behavior is never explained or addressed. Other than that, though, this is a captivating story, with some interesting dips into theoretical physics. The story rushes to a halt, though -- a little more finesse at the end would have been nice, but all in all this is a good read for those of us who are into the whole "boldly go where no one has gone before" mentality. Worth checking out!
Decent Comic Not as in-depth as his work on Transmet, Planetary or Hellblazer, but a decent comic. Neat idea, but I would have liked a bit more characterization.
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