"Orbital" is the kind of novel that changes how you see the world, literally. Samantha Harvey's Booker Prize winner follows six astronauts aboard the International Space Station over the course of a single day: 16 orbits, 16 sunrises, 16 sunsets.
The plot, such as it is, consists of routine. The astronauts exercise, eat rehydrated food, run experiments, take photographs of Earth, and talk. A typhoon gathers force below them. They miss their families. They marvel at the planet.
Harvey's prose does the heavy lifting. Her descriptions of Earth from orbit are genuinely transcendent, shifting between scientific precision and lyric wonder. She captures the strange psychology of seeing your entire species from 250 miles up: the borders invisible, the wars invisible, the beauty unbearable.
At 272 pages, it's brief and intentionally paced. Some readers will find it plotless. That's the point. Harvey is asking what happens when you strip away every terrestrial distraction and force six people to simply look at the world. The answer is something close to awe.
A meditative, quietly radical novel. Not for everyone. Absolutely essential for anyone who wants to feel, for a few hours, what it might be like to float above it all.