Orbit Unlimited

The colonists' ships sped toward the far star. They were free at last from the tyrannical government that had oppressed them from birth. Then came the message from Earth: Return at once, new government guarantees your freedom at home! Was this a reprieve from death, for the perilous ordeal of colonizing an unknown planet would cost many lives, or a trick?

Orbit unlimited was pretty good in terms of sheer science fiction adventure, but at the same time it was such an off-putting right-wing American book. I like it less and less in hindsight.

The heroes of this novel are drawn from a strong-jawed, all-American subculture of a future One World Government that rules iron-fistedly over an enormously overcrowded earth. Earth in general is tired and has become inward-looking; space exploration is all but extinct. The rebellious subculture’s way of life is being eroded intentionally by the Government’s schooling programme. In response, they invoke the US constitution and various American resistance movements against overreaching governments (protestants, Mormons), and they start stockpiling show more weapons and planning their boycotts. That is, until they are offered the opportunity to leave Earth and start afresh on a newly-discovered Earthlike planet, for which they have to sell their Earthly possessions to book passage on a Generation Ship. Once they have arrived on their New World they become egalitarian ranchers who live in log huts and whose wilderness skills are a necessity for survival as they struggle with the unfamiliar native lifeforms. Naturally, they will soon bring forth a new nation, with a new breed of genetically engineered people who will inherit this New World as their birthright.

So yeah: standard but pretty solid SF-adventuring on the one hand, and quite a lot of US self-aggrandisement on the other. show less

Orbit Unlimited is a fixup novel whose short stories are not very closely linked. We get a description of a dystopian Earth that motivates some to look for a planet B. The problem is that those best qualified to pioneer an exoplanet colony are not motivated to take the risk because they are at the top of the dystopian hierarchy. It is up to Libertarians, here called Constitutionalists, to save the day. We do get some of Poul Anderson’s patented planetary adventure in the two stories set in the Epsilon Eridani system. Expect the usual 1960s sexism. 3.5.