Book Review: Orbit 11

Book Review: 'Orbit 11' edited by Damon Knight

3  / 5 Stars

Well, here we go with another review of another installment in the 'Orbit' franchise, the franchise that delivers pure and unadulterated New Wave sci-fi. Or 'Speculative Fiction', as they were fond of saying back in those New Wave days. Editor Damon Knight always was receptive to stories that pushed the boundaries of the genre, which sometimes worked, but more often, didn't. Anyways.........

'Orbit 11' was issued in hardcover (216 pp.) in 1972 by G. P. Putnam, and in paperback, from Berkley Books, in March 1973. The cover art is by Paul Lehr.

The cover blurb tells us that Orbit 11 offers 'The Most Exciting Fiction of Our Time !'. Does it really ?

Well...............no. It's just another 'Orbit' volume. A few good stories, and some bad ones. Many stories have no sci-fi content. All exclusively were written for this anthology.

My capsule summary of the contents:

Alien Stones, by Gene Wolfe: a miles-long Terran spaceship, the Gladiator, meets up in deep space with an alien ship that is also miles long. Are the aliens friendly or not ? How do you find out ? This novelette stakes a claim to the Giant Spaceship theme a year before Arthur C. Clarke and his 'Rendevous with Rama', which I guess is to author Wolfe's credit. It's a hard sci-fi story, competently written, so it's one of the better entries in 'Orbit 11'.

Spectra, by Vonda N. McIntyre: the first-person narrator endures a dystopian future where dissent is punished by messing with your eyesight. This story is more horror than sci-fi, and is effective.

I Remember A Winter, by Fredrik Pohl: a middle-aged man ponders the choices he made in life and wonders how things could have, and would have, been different...... had he not made those choices. There is no sci-fi content.

Doucement, S'il Vous Plait (Gently, if it pleases you), by James Sallis: I challenge anyone to dispute my contention that James Sallis was the most pretentious of New Wave authors. And yet, the editors of New Wave anthologies never could turn down a Sallis submission. This story is the first-person narrative of a letter, experiencing the process of being delivered. Is such a concept the apogee of Speculative Fiction, or what ?!

The Summer of the Irish Sea, by Charles L. Grant: clad only in a loincloth, a feral man navigates the terrain of a near-future United Kingdom. This early-career story from Grant is quite untoward, reading more as a Harlan Ellison tale than the kind of overwritten, decorative fiction that would come to represent Grant's literary style. Because it emulates Ellison, it's a good story and one of the standouts in the anthology. 

Good-Bye, Shelley, Shirley, Charlotte, Charlene, by Robert Thurston: this tale opens with an allegorical scene of the narrator playing cards with God. I sighed and prepared for metaphysical, artsy-fartsy bullshit in that inimitable New Wave style. But after the prologue, 'Good-Bye' settles into more conventional storytelling, about a man whose girlfriends are so similar in looks and temperament as to suggest otherworldly forces at work. There's little sci-fi content, but it's a readable story.

Father's in the Basement, by Philip Jose Farmer: Millie's father is busy writing the Great American Novel, and he must not be disturbed. A subdued horror tale from Farmer, one that would have been more at home in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine than 'Orbit'.

Down by the Old Maelstrom, by Edward Wellen: some people in a research laboratory have dreams, which are related to the reader in surrealistic prose. The verbs 'amoebaed', 'alligatored', and 'depontiated' are encountered. This easily is the worst story in the anthology.

Things Go Better, by George Alec Effinger: allegory about a nice Jewish Boy named Steve Weinraub who decides to hitchhike across Pennsylvania, to 'find' both himself, and America. It's devoid of sci-fi content.

Dissolve, by Gary K. Wolfe: the author of 'Killerbowl' addresses the philosophies of Marshall McLuhan, who, in 1972, was very much an influential figure in both pop and highbrow culture. The narrative, which is designed to mimic the changing of channels on a TV, is choppy and a bit contrived.

Dune's Edge, by Edward Bryant: some people find themselves in the desert, and compelled to climb a dune. It's all so very existential.

The Drum Lollipop, by Jack C. Dann: Her parents' marital quarrels lead Maureen Harris to project her anxieties onto a toy drum, which in turn leads to all sorts of phantasmagorical phenomena. An exemplar of seventies, New Wave, speculative fiction. I found it boring.

Machines of Loving Grace, by Gardner R. Dozois: in the Future City, machines will do everything for you. And perhaps that can be a bad thing. Sardonic humor makes this one of the standout stories in the anthology.

They Cope, by Dave Skal: in the future, everyone is bipolar, which makes for a complicated society.

Counterpoint, by Joe W. Haldeman: some are born into wealth and privilege, while others, into poverty and misery. This is a very good story, but it's devoid of sci-fi content and would have been more at home in Esquire, Playboy, Penthouse, Cavalier, or any other early seventies 'slick' that published fiction.

Old Soul, by Steve Herbst: a nurse's interactions with a dying elderly man are complicated when his memories of his younger days 'infect' her mind. This story is supposed to say something profound about The Human Condition. I was bored.

New York Times, by Charles Platt: a three-and-a-half page prose poem about the dangers of living in the city. There is no sci-fi content. I was bored.

The Crystallization of the Myth, by John Barfoot: a two-page prose poem about the aftermath of Armageddon. Meh.

To Plant a Seed, by Hank Davis: using something called the 'McJunkins Field', researcher Roy Cullins wants to put a spaceship into suspended animation for billions of years, with the goal of having humans present when a new universe emerges from the old. It's an interesting premise for a sci-fi story but the author's prose veers from the straight-faced, to the awkwardly comedic, even puerile:

Cullins, Cain, and Erika realized simultaneously that the thing looked like an enormous athletic supporter. Looking at it made Erika hornier than ever. 

On the Road to Honeyville, by Kate Wilhelm: Elizabeth and her mom are making the long drive on two-lane blacktop to the town of Salyersville, by way of the town of Honeyville. En route, they enter the Twilight Zone. The story lacks sci-fi content.

The verdict ? As with the other entrants in the 'Orbit' series, Damon Knight's eccentric approach to selecting content meant that the anthology has more than its share of duds. I am comfortable giving 'Orbit 11' a three-star rating based on the contributions from Wolfe,  McIntyre, Grant, Dozois, and Haldeman.