Book Review: Dark Orbit by Carolyn Ives Gilman

A review copy was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Dark Orbit by Carolyn Ives Gilman

Genre: Science Fiction

Series: Stand Alone

Publisher: Tor (July 14, 2015)

Author Information: Bio

Mogsy’s Rating: 4 of 5 stars

Dark Orbit is a fascinating novel and I enjoyed it a lot, but the book description is misleading, making it sound like it is a murder mystery (it’s really not), as well as a first contact with an alien species is involved (well, only sort of). However, I was hooked by the idea of an interdisciplinary team of scientists going on a research expedition to study a strange new planet, and as an Anthropology nerd, I was especially intrigued that an “exoethnologist” would be one of the main protagonists.

Said exoethnologist is Saraswati Callicot, who is also known as a Waster – someone who spends her life traveling to study worlds that can be light-years away, using wayport technology. Even though leaping across those great distances feel almost instantaneous to her, decades could have passed by in the normal flow of time. Sara is no stranger to leaving family, friends, and homes behind, not knowing if they will still be there when she emerges on the other side.

Her latest mission takes her farther than she has ever been, 58 light-years away to a newly discovered planet surrounded by dark matter, believed to be uninhabited. Sara’s official role on the ship is to study the interactions of the science team, even though that is only a cover for her real assignment to keep an eye on a fellow crewmate, a mystic named Thora Lassiter. Once a member of the elite, Thora has since fallen from grace due to her involvement in an uprising on the planet Orem, and the experience has left her somewhat unstable. This has also made Thora a political target, which makes Sara’s protection all the more important. However, not long after their arrival at the new planet dubbed Iris, a dead body of a crew member is found brutally decapitated, and on the landing crew’s first venture onto the planet surface, Thora disappears. The scientists also discover that Iris is in fact home to a civilization of people who are unable to see but have instead developed extrasensory perceptions to help them adapt perfectly to their lightless environment.

Nothing is as it seems in this story about facing an uncanny new world and being presented with the bizarre and unexplained. Dark Orbit explores important questions about human reactions to never-before-seen experiences, like encountering unknown alien societies and cultures. Unlike a lot of other narratives in this vein, the scientists in this book actually take a benevolent and holistic approach to the task, combining knowledge from their respective areas of expertise to solve the mystery of Iris while trying (as best they can) to follow all the interplanetary rules of establishing first contact. I found all this rather unique. I also think Anthropology enthusiasts will get a kick out of ideas presented in this novel which combines a variety of concepts from the study of humankind, and at the center of everything are the issues of cultural relativism and cultural preservation.

Newly discovered cultures are treated as a valuable resource, a font of information to learn from. Even an experienced and well-traveled exoethnologist like Sara starts to see things differently when she comes in contact with the blind society of Iris. Of all our senses, sight is perhaps the one we most take for granted, and this book definitely puts it in a whole new light. Carolyn Ives Gilman shows how important context is when looking at the way traditions develop, presenting it as a process that involves biological and environmental factors. In a less direct manner, the story also provides fascinating commentary into the nature of disability and the idea that it is relative, both physically and culturally. For instance, Thora is as helpless as a baby in the caverns of Torobe where the darkness is absolute, and multiple attempts to “teach” a local girl Moth how to see are met with failure because it was never an adaptation she needed in the first place.

Though I found Dark Orbit utterly engrossing, it’s also probably safe to say I enjoyed the book’s ideas more than the actual story. The plot itself is somewhat disjointed and hard to make sense of, and I did not much care for Thora’s point-of-view being told through the format of a transcribed audio diary, or her character herself that matter. In sum, this reads more like a philosophical piece than a mystery or a traditional tale of first contact, very different from the kind of story indicated by the novel’s blurb.

However, I was won over by Gilman’s deft handling of subjects that I have a deep interest in, even though this normally wouldn’t be my type of book. If you enjoy thought-provoking science-fiction, this might just work well for you too.