Orbitsville [Hardcover]

Bob Shaw (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 3, 1985

A BSFA Award-winning novel. For centuries the men of Earth had scoured the cosmos for habitable planets, but had found only one. Then Vance Garamond discovered something infinitely better - a Dyson Sphere, the interior of which, surrounding a sun, is larger than five billion earths.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Bob Shaw was born in Northern Ireland in 1931. He worked as a structural engineer, in industrial public relations and journalism before becoming a full-time writer in 1975. His other memorable novels include Other Days, Other Eyes, The Ragged Astronauts and The Wooden Spaceships. He died in 1996. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers (January 3, 1985)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0586062084
• ISBN-13: 978-0586062081
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.3 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,066,691 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Pretty good book, March 29, 2001

By 

Starsiege Tribes (Tribes, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Orbitsville (SF Collector's Edition) (Paperback)

I read this book after reading Shaw's Wooden Spaceships series. Both are fairly good, and I have always wondered why more people don't know about Bob Shaw. Someone above said this book is worse then Ringworld which is totally false. Whatever you do don't read the sequal, Orbitsville Departure, as it was pretty awful.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A typical, competent and interesting Bob Shaw effort, October 18, 2005

By 

Dogman66 "Andrew" (Melbourne, Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Orbitsville (SF Collector's Edition) (Paperback)

I'm yet to read a bad Bob Shaw book, but neither have I read an absolute masterwork by him. He tends to find an idea and sets out to examine it within the plot of a story, 'Orbitsville' is no exception.

The captain of an exploration starship, on the run from a corrupt regime, discovers an enormous hollow sphere. This metallic sphere completely surrounds a sun, with a radius akin to the distance of the earth to the sun. The inside surface of this sphere is billons of times larger than the surface of the earth and is covered with soil, seas, grass, mountains etc and is just ripe for settling on and the perfect escape for the denizens of an overcrowded earth. This is the background of the short novel that Shaw has whipped up.

‘Orbitsville’ will unfortunately draw unfavourable comparisons with Larry Niven’s ‘Ringworld’ and although they are outwardly similar, they principally concern different subjects. Where ‘Ringworld’ is about the exploration of the Ring, Orbitsville is more about size of the object being explored. Regardless, 'Orbitsville’ is still a fine read and Shaw skilfully holds the attention of the reader. 3.5-4/5

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Rural utopia, May 9, 2002

By 

Ahmed Rizk (Alaexandria, Egypt) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Orbitsville (SF Collector's Edition) (Paperback)

Although the idea of a dyson sphere is not new, the author has managed to include in a reasonably interesting story. I do not like , however, that you read half the book before you get to the interesting parts. the ideal of the story, the utopian rural society, has proved to be disastrous when tried in cambodia, I dont think that this should the future of the human race.