Orbitsville (SF Collector's Edition) [Paperback]

Bob Shaw (Author)

Book Description

Series: Gollancz Sf Collector's Edition | Publication Date: 2000

When the young son of Elizabeth Lindstrom, the autocratic president of Starflight, falls to his death, Vance Garamond, a flickerwing commander, is the obvious target for Elizabeth's grief and anger. Which, since Elizabeth is not a forgiving employer, leaves Garamond little choice but to flee. And fleeing Elizabeth's wrath means leaving the Solar System far behind, for ever, and hiding somewhere in deep space. Pursued remorselessly by Earth's space fleet, the somewhere that Garamond finds is an unimaginably vast, alien-built, spherical structure which could just change the destiny of the human race...

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.

Product Details

• Paperback: 187 pages
• Publisher: Victor Gollancz Sf (2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0575070986
• ISBN-13: 978-0575070981
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,819,640 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.