Orbit: A Novel

exciting thriller

In 2009 private after winning a contest Kip Dawson wins a free seat on an American Space Adventures Spacecraft. He is ecstatic but his wife left him and took the kids with her to her powerful father¿s mansion in Texas. Five passengers were slated to be on board the flight but due to varying reasons, only Kip and the pilot make the voyage. --- Kip is enchanted by the view of Earth from space but a micrometeorite hits the ship killing the pilot before the shell works to close off the hole. Kip expects to die up there because there is no communications from Earth to the ship. The various world space agencies know someone is alive because someone is manually moving the ship but Kip can¿t get the rocket thrusters to work. To pass the time he writes a diary of his life on the hard drive of his computer not knowing that every word he writes is read by the people on Earth. This work makes a profound impact on the people of Earth as billions listen to the thoughts of an everyman who has them rethinking their priorities abut what is important in life even as he rays this is not his epitaph. --- Kip¿s ordeal changes him and makes him realize he has to make some changes in his life if he survives his ordeal. He becomes a man hailed as a hero by billions of people on Earth who expect him to die with grace and courage. Kip Dawson becomes an unforgettable character, one that won¿t be forgotten anytime soon. John J. Nance always writes an exciting thriller and ORBIT is no exception but this time he humanizes the character and lays his soul bare through his writings on the computer. Kip is special because he doesn¿t expect to survive yet refuses to give in to despair. --- Harriet Klausner

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

Exciting thriller with an intriguing aeronautical twist

This book is a masterpiece! Somehow, John Nance manages to get better with every work and this is a crowning achievement: a unique, unprecedented, clever plot, with heart-stopping action and a level of humanity and painful truth about the angst of an ordinary man in an extraordinary circumstance that only a deep humanist could articulate. Kip Dawson is any one of us, male or female. And his thoughts, unwittingly transmitted to the world, are the very thoughts so many men would like to deny or will never face. As one character says, it¿s not the way he¿s lived, but the way he¿s dying that¿s so moving. Most thrillers aren¿t able to get to a depth of more than an inch or so of true characterization, let alone able to plumb the depths of the human psyche as in ORBIT. Kip is an entirely new character for a thriller. And with Kip, John Nance has utterly redefined what a thriller can be. You will love this book. You will cry with this book! You will REMEMBER this book. Having said all this (and meaning every word of it), take a look at the shallow foolishness of the Kirkus review of ORBIT [above]. Yes, it¿s complimentary in many ways. This reviewer is correct in calling this book a ¿guilty pleasure¿. Yet this very limited and highly prejudiced naysayer who wrote it obviously likes neither thrillers nor books with any depth of characterization. In fact, the line about ¿manly men doing manly things...¿ is laughable because ORBIT is an incredibly sensitive story beautifully portrayed and light years from some Neanderthalish tale dripping in testosterone. Kirkus usually does justice to a review however, whoever wrote this one should re-read and re-consider. Read ORBIT. Recommend it to your friends and family. Celebrate the accession of a truly talented writer to an even higher plane (no pun intended). And, email Oprah to get John Nance back on her show to talk about Kip Dawson and ORBIT... the type of breakthrough book she should be championing!

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Disappointing

I expected this to be a blockbuster, after all it was an unusual concept and I was looking forward to a good read. But it suffers from idiotic character names (Diana 'no, I don't sing' Ross is one) too much focus on the main character's life story captivating the world and too much pissing-contest politics overshadow what could have been a gripping story. The ending comes way too fast and too unbelievably. It sounds like a script for a four-hour TV movie seen over two days.

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