Orbitsville

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Orbit Ville is a science fiction - novel by British writer Bob Shaw . The story first appeared as a sequel story from June to August 1974 in Galaxy Science Fiction magazineand waspublished in book formby Gollancz in1975.

The story describes the discovery and exploration of a huge, artificially created spherical shell that envelops a complete star and the inside of which is habitable (see Dyson sphere ), as well as its importance as a habitat for mankind.

action

Mankind has the superluminal discovered spacecraft and explore the surrounding interstellar environment of the Earth, but it discovered in 100 years only one other habitable planets. Both worlds are de facto ruled by the huge Starflight corporation and its president Elizabeth Lindstrom, as all spaceships are in their possession.

The captain of one of these ships, Vance Garamond, witnessed the death of Lindstrom's son through no fault of his own and fears that she will blame him for the incident and that this will mean death for him and his family because of Lindstrom's known vengeance. Together with his wife Alice and his son, he manages to escape into space on board his expedition ship Bissendorf . He doesn't have many options, however, as the ship only carries provisions for a year and Terranova, the only other known habitable planet to date, is controlled by Starflight.

Garamond decides to pursue an ancient theory as a last hope. The records of a long-lost civilization about a star that is no longer recorded on current maps lead him to the assumption that the star was artificially veiled. To their surprise, they find a gigantic, artificially created sphere that completely surrounds the star they are looking for and thus makes it invisible. It consists of an unknown, indestructible material. The sphere is hollow and its huge inside is habitable. You will find only one entrance, near which several thousand ancient spaceship wrecks are floating. The sphere offers a habitat approximately 625 million times larger than the habitable surface of the earth. The inner surface is covered with fertile soil and vegetation, there are mountains and rivers. The hemispherical sun in the center is in rotation, which creates a change of day and night. Ancient ruins are also found.

The crew of the Bissendorf explored both the exterior of the spherical shell and the vicinity of the entrance. For unknown reasons, radio communication is impossible inside. Finally the Bissendorf notifies the earth, whereupon Lindstrom reaches the sphere with a small fleet soon afterwards and takes possession of it for Starflight. To Garamond's relief, his discovery seems to have made him famous enough at home that Lindstrom cannot harm him. But even if she seems to have forgiven him, she still hates Garamond for the death of her son.

The small town of Brückenstadt is quickly built at the entrance to the sphere. At a short distance one discovers a rather primitive civilization of strange beings. They are dumb and they react cautiously to the people they call clowns. It doesn't take long before people attack the clowns, compounded by negative moods in the Starflight-controlled media. Garamond is critical of Lindstrom, who only wants to transport small numbers of settlers here for high payment. Garamond, on the other hand, would make the vast sphere freely available to all humanity as a living space.

Shortly afterwards, the spaceship Bissendorf is sabotaged. Garamond and his crew lose control, crash through the entrance to the interior of the sphere and crash land more than 15 million kilometers from the entrance. Garamond and others set off back to the entrance in aircraft made from the materials of the wreck; the journey time is estimated at three to four years. In the course of time, the journey becomes more and more monotonous, the travelers become visibly dulled by the recurring impressions of the vast world. Garamond is slowly getting used to the idea that a woman and his son were most likely killed by Lindstrom.

After almost a year of monotonous flight, Garamont and his companions finally find another entrance that was closed long ago by an unknown people. He contacted Brückenstadt by radio and was picked up by a transport ship. He also learns that his family is still alive. But Lindstrom has also received the radio message and is also hurrying back to the bridge city. Once there, Garamond is welcomed like a hero. He manages to find his family just in time and free them from Lindstrom's violence before they can kill his son in revenge.

Lindstrom is subsequently discontinued. A new government decides to lift Lindstrom's artificial restrictions on settlers from Earth, and large crowds of people build settlements around numerous other discovered entrances. But as Garamond foresaw, the vast sphere is leading to an end to human evolution. People are engaged in agriculture and strive to build their own little life there. Gradually, however, in the absence of differences between the various colonies, people lose interest in traveling between the various distant places. Space travel and further exploration of the universe finally come to a complete standstill, and the sphere will probably become the final resting place of mankind.

Sequels

Shaw wrote two sequels:

  • Orbitsville Departure (1983)
  • Orbitsville Judgment (1990)

reception

In 1976 the novel received a British Science Fiction Association Award from the British Science Fiction Association for best novel of 1975. It was also orbit Ville for a John W. Campbell Memorial Award nominated

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ BSFA Awards. British Science Fiction Association , accessed January 23, 2016 .
  2. ^ The John W. Campbell Memorial Award. In: Gunn Center for the Study of Science Fiction. Retrieved January 23, 2016 .

Web links