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Dark Orbit Paperback – May 10, 2016

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4.2 out of 5 stars 32 customer reviews
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Product Details

  • Paperback: 304 pages
  • Publisher: Tor Books (May 10, 2016)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0765336308
  • ISBN-13: 978-0765336309
  • Product Dimensions: 6.1 x 0.8 x 9.3 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (32 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #840,178 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

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Top Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 starsGravity and Grace in Outer and Inner Space
By Christina Paige on July 19, 2015
Format: Hardcover
In the future DarkOrbit depicts, humanity has colonized many planets, but it hasn't overcome the hard boundary of the speed of light. Oh, sure, you can travel by Star-Trek-like transporter, your body and mind translated to light beams and reconfigured at the other end, but you beam across at the speed of light - no FTL, no warp five, no instantaneous travel of large bodies, so travel between planets divides humanity into those who do and those who don't. If you do, you leave family, friends, history behind - and enemies, if you are lucky. These travelers are called, by those who remain, Wasters; those who never get out of synch with their times are called, by those who skip like stones over time's waters, Planters, and as you can guess, there is more than time's dissonance behind those names. But FTL communications are possible, harnessing quantum states, energies, and uncertainties: messages can be coded along the electron-path's squiggle and resonate to the separated/self electron on a distant planet, allowing explorers to send word back in "real time" to affect decisions, policies, and futures.

Saraswati Callicot is a Waster back from one mission that should have turned her a tidy profit but didn't, on her way to another, this time 58 light years away. It's a newly discovered habitable planet, called Iris, empty of higher life forms by capable of supporting life - an extraordinarily rare and valuable commodity. But it is in a problematic region of space, where dark matter collects and moves oddly, creating even odder gravity fluctuations.Read more ›
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5.0 out of 5 starsI really enjoyed this book
By Tracey Switek on July 14, 2015
Format: Hardcover
I really enjoyed this book. I'm giving it five stars because although the prose isn't spectacular (more serviceable than remarkable), the concepts in the book are like nothing I've seen in a sci-fi novel before. The author weaves a complicated universe and does some truly unique world building that sets this above other books of it's kind. Fans of Ursula K. LeGuin will recognize her influence and most likely enjoy this remarkable book.
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4.0 out of 5 starsExciting First Contact Story
By Mark on August 12, 2015
Format: Hardcover
Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book in a tor.com sweepstakes. This has in no way affected my review.

I had essentially no expectations going into this book–which is unusual for me, these days. Most everything I pick up is either by an author I already know and trust, or upon the recommendation of a large number of friends. My TBR pile is just too big to allow for much else. But I had a review copy of this one, and one of my goals for this year was to start reviewing the books I win in sweepstakes–or why else enter them? So, I read this one.

And I was very pleasantly surprised. The book combines a number of very exciting, interesting elements that I did not expect, and it makes for a quite interesting read. Much of it has some very intriguing scientific basis, and I thoroughly enjoyed the creativity it showed.

The first cool idea is that of the wasters, which grows naturally from the teleportation in the book. The teleportation accepts the limits of lightspeed–but still allows for transportation to seem instantaneous to the user. In essence, to travel 9 light-years away, you also have to travel 9 light-years into the future–and there’s no going back. The explorers of the society have been dubbed wasters, those who travel so often that politics, families, etc. all have little meaning to them. Our main POV character, Sara, is a waster, and the jumps in time that she goes through give her a really cool background–and bring up some questions I’d honestly never asked myself.

But that’s just a small part of it, and almost brushed aside just as a piece of world-building.Read more ›
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4.0 out of 5 starsLeads the reader on a path of cultural exploration and perception!
By Bibliotropic .net on July 16, 2015
Format: Hardcover
First Contact is a tricky situation, no matter the culture. Trickier still when you arrive in a place and don’t expect to actually encounter sentient life at all, so you’re completely unprepared for what awaits you. This is the situation that the crew of the Escher find themselves in when they investigate the newly discovered planet Iris. There are multiple confusing things about the planet: random gravity fluctuations, new species of plants, a pseudo-forest that seems to bend spatial perception. But the real trouble begins when one of the crew disappears, taken by a twist of reality to the underground village of Torobe, where the inhabitants are blind and where the ship’s scanners can’t penetrate to find her and bring her back.

But Dark Orbit is more than just a story of first contact. It forces the characters, and thus the reader, to confront their ideas of normalcy, or perception, of the things that define them. The people living in Torobe are blind; what use do they have for sight when they live in a lightless cave? It isn’t that they have no eyes, or that their eyes don’t function, but rather that their circumstances for forced rewiring of the brain to bypass the need for sight, even when they can respond to visual stimulation. It’s from Thora’s perspective, as someone who is sighted and is trapped in Torobe for over 2 months, that we get a chance to see just what that means, both for the Torobe and their culture, and for someone who doesn’t fit into it.

It’s worth noting that much of how we perceive the world has to do with sight, and Gilman makes mention of this more than once.Read more ›
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 starsGreat read albeit a bit slow in some parts

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This is a great book. Gripping, at times I could't put it down. So many ideas, good philosophical sci fi. My only complaint, it was too short! Read more

Published 2 months ago by feministhousewife
4.0 out of 5 starsFour Stars

Good read.

Published 2 months ago by Barry E. Hawk
5.0 out of 5 starsYou're drawn in quickly; prepare for unexpected depths

It's hard to put this one down- really strong character development, spectacularly realized spacescape, intriguing oscillation of the plot, and written in a voice / tone that... Read more

Published 3 months ago by M. Larsen
4.0 out of 5 starsThought provoking examination of reality and perception

Dark Orbit is set in a distant future with mankind re-exploring the galaxy ages after the collapse of an earlier starfaring civilization. Read more

Published 3 months ago by Hobgoblin
3.0 out of 5 starswith good character development and some strong female leads

Interesting concept, with good character development and some strong female leads. Didn't press all my personal taste buttons, but enjoyable nonetheless.

Published 3 months ago by AOWSteve
3.0 out of 5 starsAn interesting blend of science fiction and a bit of mysticism

I borrowed this book from my local library as the premise sounded interesting.

While it doesn't fit my tastes 100%, it is a very fun and interesting read, asking... Read more

Published 4 months ago by the DragonBard
2.0 out of 5 starsTwo Stars

Some interesting ideas, but the author never goes into much depth. Both plot and characters are a little flat.

Published 4 months ago by G Beams

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