Orbital Decay

By: Allen Steele

Narrated by: Jonathan Yen

The award-winning, bestselling author's first novel. The beamjacks work in zero-gravity constructing satellites in the vacuum of deepest space. And they're not going to let the military control them anymore.

©1990 Allen M. Steele (P)2013 Audible, Inc.

This Review Needs a Title...So, I....

The story of blue collar misfit workers in space building an electricity generating satellite while led by a whacko. There are several characters who are developed very well and the reader gets to know them. The plot is cold war-ish but somehow did not hold my interest and I almost put it down in the middle. Additionally, the book contained long winded technical discussions of stuff that isn't yet built and made a few technical errors. The theme--big government is watching--is either prescient or ripped from Orwell's 1984. Overall..OK for Steele's first effort but not up to the Coyote series quality.

Hard to follow

Lots of extra material, missed some section here and there, story difficult to follow. Wish it was more succinct.

Obviously his first book

I wouldn’t recommend this as the first Steele book people read. It is interesting as a fan to see how he progressed, but otherwise it was pretty weak.

so good

I had a blast listening to this one. it was a tiny bit cliché 70s 80s feeling with the lingo and references, bit you just dive into that mindset and you are there in space with these characters that were all very interesting and enjoyable. the plot was exciting and kept me engaged.

Simply not good

This just doesn’t work very well at all . It starts with some promise then goes off course early. By midpoint I was increasingly irritated & uninterested. So much time wasted trying to build certain backstories & earth bound scenes bounced between that it loses its space station elements, & when it returns to station it mucks about in rather simplistic & mundane scenes & dialogue. There are moments of promise but for something post Star Wars/Trek; 2001, etc., it seems so dated & not of the late 80s but more like 50s or 60s. You will get a good over-dose of song references. Rather poorly written & I’m very disappointed it strayed so far from what it looks like it will be. Also, the reader is rather slow (I increased to 1.5 to get through it & it was totally fine), & he mispronounced several words. I’ll be returning this for a credit, & I don’t do that often at all, maybe 10 times in 20 + years covering @ 4000 books.