Steele- and I'm sure many of you- are space enthusiasts; the NASA administration are not. (Orbital Decay - Allen Steele)

Member Name: jdkane

Product:	Orbital Decay - Allen Steele
Date:	19/03/01 (45 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Science; the Big Ear couldn't possibly work- PGP et al- the non computer science is tomorrow's hardware, hopefully; B

Disadvantages: Characterisation; insufficiently complex to seem part of the real world, simplistic, way too cheerful; D+

I do have several of Allen Steele's novels, but I have to start somewhere. It is in fact rather galling to have to report that this is in fact one of his best.

You have to wonder why that is. It is a noticeable phenomenon, a writer making a splash with the first few novels- something genuinely disturbing and thought provoking- and becoming just another hack by the fourth or fifth, all the distinctiveness gone in a stilted, formulaic, unremarkable read. I'd go so far as to suspect it happens more often than not. I don't think it's a jaded, saturated audience; considering some of the things that people are prepared to read and re- read, I don't think that enters into it. The author running out of ideas? Not really- first of all it's seldom actually the case, and there is always a new twist on an old idea or a story so archetypal as to still be worth hearing to be told; secondly running out of ideas is not necessarily a barrier to success even in science fiction. Two words; Star Trek.

Pigeonholing by the literary establishment? In science fiction? Oh, come on. It is to laugh. If you ever find a coherent set of pigeonholes, let me know. There are instances of railroaded writers- but it has to be remembered that you create your own public. If you start off creating a legend- lying about who you are and what you can do, in other words- then find your "fans' refusing to accept anything else, as is supposed to have happened to Cap'n Bob, then you have been hoist on your own petard and shouldn't have been so damned silly in the first place. It's a trap authors make for themselves; no outside help required. It also underestimates the fan. Don't tell me that the mind capable of keeping up with the plot and the ideas behind, say, Babel- 17 isn't capable of understanding a little publishing history.

So if it's not the reading public, and it's not the publishing establishment, there seem fe
w other elements in the loop other than the man behind the keyboard. Everybody has a book in them- and most have no more than one? No, that would be a more total failure of talent. Many different authors have written the same book- a consequence of overapplication of literary theory- but to write the same book twice yourself takes wilful blindness, if not positive sleazy cynicism; or at any rate unreflectiveness which should prevent you from having done good work in the first place. Familiarity breeding contempt? Well, the experience of trying to be published in the first place should do more harm than that.

I do think that's it, in a way- with the audience, not the process. You lose all sense of wonder in your own skill; you lose all sense of having to push yourself to the limit. You no longer try so hard; you find yourself resorting to things off your own personal back burner; you're just not turned on enough by your own talent to chase it as wildly as you used to. Some writers mature; increasing skill and professionalism balancing decreasing fire. There are a few- how few can be determined by a look at the bookshelves of our nation- addicts who become glued to the writing process and just can't stop, and thank God for them. Steele isn't one. He thinks he is, but on the evidence of the quality of output, I doubt it.

Orbital Decay is set in "Ralph'- Steele's (apocryphal, but worth wishing it was true) response when anyone asked him if he had a name for his set of near future stories of which this is one- on board a privatised space engineering firm's main construction platform, busy building the power satellites that will light America's future. The date is wildly optimistic- 2016; anybody with a notion of official laxity and incompetence should find that the biggest joke of the book. Steele- and I'm sure many of you- are space enthusiasts; the NASA administration are not. So often you see this elementary
, stupid, bone- headed mistake in American science fiction. The tendency to ask "what would make the future a place like we want it to be?' rather than the more responsible British "Given people as we know them, what is the future likely to be like?' Granted, there are elements of dirt and grit about it. Anyone who remembers the crew from the Dark Star should find Virgin Bruce, Popeye, Doc Feelgood and the crew- an essentially sophomoric White- American sense of character, please note- familiar enough.

In theory, the platform is Olympus Station. Everyone calls it Skycan. Refreshing irreverence, the first time. Not the hundredth. Life on board, though...boring beyond belief. No facilities worth the mention. (Worthy of note for utter irresponsible high- spirited lunacy is the short story "Free Beer and the Bill Casey Society" about the party that takes place after the events of Orbital Decay when the construction run is finished.) High risk, high pay, low orbit blue- collar work with a strange collection of characters to do it. One of the characters, who turns out to be pretty much a gosh- darned hero, murdered his wife back on Earth and has been a dramatically unstable introvert ever since. Steele seems to be saying that anything is all right, as long as you atone for it. Fine. Everyone who died, raise your hands in agreement. A marginal advance over "anything is all right' but this is the twentieth century. Let me rephrase that...this is the second, soon -to-be-third millennium. Why do companies and nations not behave in remotely as civilised a manner as individuals? Because they have no sense of guilt, and no-one holds them to account. Granted, Popeye (for it is he)- his wife was a slut, a junkie waster, but then we get into the thing that the world really is better off without some people, which in the hands of the state is at least less questionable than privatised rights to termination. You have to start wondering o
n those grounds if the Big Ear- the civil liberties endangering surveillance platform being installed next orbit over- is actually such a bad idea. When faced with a life like most of the station construction crew apparently have downside, hell yes I want the state to protect me- from them.

The climax of the plot is an attempt to sabotage it. Organised by the replacement hydroponicist- who gets everyone necessary on his side by growing pot for them. I'm sorry but I do not accept the internal dynamic of this scene. Steele's critique of society, like that of Heinlein whom he worships, is based on a notion of human nature that any look at a census- or daytime TV- ought to disprove. Basically, talent- professional competence then- is far too easy to come by, you can safely turn your back on everyone except the bad guys, all decisions offer a clear choice between good and evil when you get down to it, and even the sleazebags have hearts of gold. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Simple- minded twaddle, as you would expect from one of Heinlein's WordStar Troopers. It is a good story; I'm far less fond of the thought that went into it or the implications involved in it.

Imagination; some, mostly concrete, derivative stuff; C+
Science; the Big Ear couldn't possibly work- PGP et al- the non computer science is tomorrow's hardware, hopefully; B
Scene- setting; iffy, far too much a made thing, doesn't follow implications through- C
Characterisation; insufficiently complex to seem part of the real world, simplistic, way too cheerful; D+

Overall; Scientifically hard, sociological blancmange; C-

Summary: