Kokipy wrote:

Polostan is not very long but it is the first in what I understand is to be a trilogy. However, each of the books in the Baroque Cycle is about 2-3 times as long as Polostan.

i did find Orbital on Libby and finished it, and promptly ordered a copy for my cousin, a now retired NASA flight surgeon, who has likely heard many first hand accounts from the astronauts returning from the ISS.  It is a lovely book, but pretty much all description, not so much narrative and basically no plot. But it creates an amazing visual description of what it must be like up there. 

Great - I picked up a copy of Orbital today from our local bookstore. Going on a week's vacation soon and it seemed like a good choice. Might bring Titus Groan as well! 🙏

I got distracted away from Orbital.  A re-watch of all Slow Horses tv series so far sent me back to a re-read of the subsequent Slough House books.  On to Bad Actors now, so should be back to Orbital shortly.

 

Star-nandi:  Well, it was a mix of short stories, a couple of playlets, all sorts of poems and a few philosophical odd bits. The topics were fairly limited: love, death, nature vs modern urban life. From his time of around WW1 Lebanon/Syria area apparently. HIs contrast of Age vs Youth showed Youth being vapid beyond reason. Age was no joy either.  I'm not much for poetry of any sort (I stop at R L Stevensen's Child's Garden of Verses and a scholastic kid's book titled Piper Pipe that Tune Again). I also don't do well with philosophy because it can be portrayed as anything and none of it solid (unlike the laws of physics or chemistry). Can't say as it impressed one way or the other. But, it's something that needed to be looked at and I have now done so.

Star- nandi: I think that you'd be more thrilled with it due to your penchant for philosophy. If you haven't tried it, give it a whiz.

I finished my re-read of the Slough House books that have appeared to date, and am pleased to note a new one is due next year.

Back to Orbital now while also trying to shape/plan a reading list for next year,