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Ocean & Orbiter, both written by Warren Ellis
My exposure to Warren Ellis is pretty shallow. I've read one Stormfront trade, one TransMet trade, most of NextWave (and the theme song is permanently stuck in my head) and a couple random issues of his other work, but I've found his work enjoyable when I did read it, and he was a neat enough guy at the Paradise show. So, when MPL has these two stories available, I picked them up.
They're both straight SF stories, with no superheroics involved. Okay, not totally hard SF since they both involve aliens at least tangentially (trust me, that's not a spoiler for either of them). Ocean involves a scientific research team orbiting Europa (and who doesn't love Europa?), while Orbiter is about the return to Earth of a space shuttle missing for 10 years.
Ocean is more a pure action story. It's the tale of a UN Weapons inspector summoned to Europa after the science team there finds… something (duh duh duuuuuuh). There's corporate shenanigans (via the Doors corporation, ha ha ha that is not supposed to be Microsoft at all ha ha ha) and shocking revelations about humanity (It's a cookbook!). An enjoyable story and well paced, it’s got some Cameron-esque qualities about it.
Orbiter is less peppy than Ocean, dealing more the people who try to solve the mystery of the returned shuttle. It's a more sedate tale, with lots of magic (which is just sufficiently advanced technology) talk going on until the final solution to the mystery is found. And there’s an astronaut who teaches everyone to love again. So it’s more of a Spielberg story, only if that were the case Tom Cruise would be the Colonel. Or Tom Hanks.
They’re both enjoyable, but I preferred Ocean because it took me back to reading 2010 when I as a kid (holy shit. That’s only three years from now!) and was faster paced.
edit: Actually, I do have all three Planetary tpbs to date. So I may have in fact read a few of his works.
edit2: And, fuck, I also have all of Global Frequency. So I guess I'm actually a fan.
My exposure to Warren Ellis is pretty shallow. I've read one Stormfront trade, one TransMet trade, most of NextWave (and the theme song is permanently stuck in my head) and a couple random issues of his other work, but I've found his work enjoyable when I did read it, and he was a neat enough guy at the Paradise show. So, when MPL has these two stories available, I picked them up.
They're both straight SF stories, with no superheroics involved. Okay, not totally hard SF since they both involve aliens at least tangentially (trust me, that's not a spoiler for either of them). Ocean involves a scientific research team orbiting Europa (and who doesn't love Europa?), while Orbiter is about the return to Earth of a space shuttle missing for 10 years.
Ocean is more a pure action story. It's the tale of a UN Weapons inspector summoned to Europa after the science team there finds… something (duh duh duuuuuuh). There's corporate shenanigans (via the Doors corporation, ha ha ha that is not supposed to be Microsoft at all ha ha ha) and shocking revelations about humanity (It's a cookbook!). An enjoyable story and well paced, it’s got some Cameron-esque qualities about it.
Orbiter is less peppy than Ocean, dealing more the people who try to solve the mystery of the returned shuttle. It's a more sedate tale, with lots of magic (which is just sufficiently advanced technology) talk going on until the final solution to the mystery is found. And there’s an astronaut who teaches everyone to love again. So it’s more of a Spielberg story, only if that were the case Tom Cruise would be the Colonel. Or Tom Hanks.
They’re both enjoyable, but I preferred Ocean because it took me back to reading 2010 when I as a kid (holy shit. That’s only three years from now!) and was faster paced.
edit: Actually, I do have all three Planetary tpbs to date. So I may have in fact read a few of his works.
edit2: And, fuck, I also have all of Global Frequency. So I guess I'm actually a fan.
