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Orbit
John J. Nance Book Review

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Plot Summary of Orbit
"Kip Dawson is a Pharmiculical salesman who is whipped by his domineering wife and estranged from his children. He wins a trip to orbit around the earth from a fairly new-formed private company. He has dreamed of space travel his whole life. He and the pilot begin orbit but the pilot is killed almost immediately and communication equipment and main engines are not working. kip knows that there will be no rescue. NASA administrator is against any mission to save any failed private launch because he dislaikes all privatization of space travel.
Knowing he will die in a few days when carbon minoxide builds up, Kip decides to record his last thoughts on a laptop that he hopes someone will find 60-100 years from now when someone gets around to opening the continuosuly orbiting craft. He shares his most intimate thoughts about his past (including the women he dated and scored with and his marriage), and his current thoughts on a variety of subjects. He does not know that the whole world is watching his every keystroke through an internet download.
Many of his comments are laugh out loud funny while still dealing with serious psychological questions like what does my life mean, do we make the most of what time we have, do we show the people we love that we do love them. The book jumps back and forth from Kip in the orbiting spaceship to many various people on earth."

Deborah Stoops, Resident Scholar

Review Analysis of Orbit
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Ratings are on a 1-10 scale (Low to High)
Plot

Composition of Book
planning/preparing, gather info, debate puzzles/motives - 10%
Feelings, relationships, character bio/development - 80%
Descript. of society, phenomena (tech), places - 10%




Tone of book - very upbeat
FANTASY or SCIENCE FICTION? - fantasy story on current Earth
Explore/1st contact/ enviro story Yes
Plotlets: - primitive/present day space voyage
Inner Struggle Yes
Plotlet: - search for identity/new understanding
Is this an adult or child's book? - Adult or Young Adult Book

Main Character
Identity: - Male
Profession/status: - small businessman
Age: - 40's-50's
Is this an ordinary person caught up in events? Yes
How sensitive is this character? - sensitive to others' feelings
Sense of humor - Strong but gentle sense of humor
Intelligence - Average intelligence
Physique - average physique

Main Adversary
Identity: - none

Setting
Terrain - Space, need spacesuit
Spaceship setting: - primative (present, near future) human spaceship
Takes place in spaceship? Yes

Style
Person? - mostly 3rd
Accounts of torture and death? - explicit references to deaths
scientific jargon? (SF only) - a significant amount of technical jargon
How much dialogue? - roughly even amounts of descript and dialog
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John J. Nance Resident Scholar Profiles

TOP SCHOLAR:
  
Deborah Stoops  

SCHOLARS:


Note: the views expressed here are only those of the reviewer(s).
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