[email protected] reviewed Deep Wheel Orcadia by Harry Josephine Giles
Orcadian tour de force
4 stars
The sci-fi draws you in, the prose keep you there
Paperback, 176 pages
English, Scots, Orcadian language
Published Jan. 10, 2021 by Pan Macmillan.
Astrid is returning home from art school on Mars, looking for inspiration. Darling is fleeing a life that never fit, searching for somewhere to hide. They meet on Deep Wheel Orcadia, a distant space station struggling for survival as the pace of change threatens to leave the community behind.
The sci-fi draws you in, the prose keep you there
This is a beautiful book, and as near to perfect as I can imagine a poem or a science fiction story could be. The English translation is a shimmering lens that draws you into the Orkney text but never overwrites it—a tremendous achievement—and the text of the poem itself is a sonic latticework that rolls and ravishes without demanding a close semantic reading. The story is told through many voices, and the focus on everyday interpersonal moments is a welcome change from the bombastic norm in science fiction. This is a work that feels whole, but not closed, and one that I anticipate returning to again and again.