Orbital

Although the novel takes place in the low orbit of space, much of it concerns the relationship between the station crew and what is happening on the planet below. A major example of this is the looming threat of the storm that forms at the start of the novel and makes landfall by the end. Inasmuch as the novel is a chronicle of a day in the life of several astronauts, it is also a subtle cautionary tale about the destructive impact of climate change and its inequitable costs.

The typhoon forms over the Pacific Ocean and hurtles rapidly toward Southeast Asia, where it makes landfall over three countries that commonly experience typhoons—the Philippines, Indonesia, and Malaysia. Pietro serves as a lens into the tragedy that this event entails, thanks to his relationship with a fisherman on the island of Samar. Pietro hopes that the fisherman might get out in time before the typhoon strikes, but he also realizes that the fisherman has nowhere to go since his entire life is concentrated on the island. This raises the question of the sustainability of evacuation as a calamity response. If the proper response to a calamity that happens on a regular basis is evacuation, then it suggests that an area is uninhabitable, at least for certain portions of the year.