A review by foggy_rosamund
Dark Orbit by Carolyn Ives Gilman

4.0

Living in a far future, Sara travels to Iris, an unexplored alien world, among a team of press, scientists, and military men. Part of her mission is to look after Thora, a woman of a politically important family, who is believed to have had a psychotic breakdown. But Thora is not mentally ill, and Sara needs her help far more than Thora needs hers. This is a short novel, and Gilman does not manage to flesh out her characters to any great extent, so the relationship between Thora and Sara, though pivotal, feels underexplored. However, Gilman more than makes up for that in her exploration of the planet Iris. It is thought to be uninhabited, but Thora and the others discover a blind race of people, who have developed a culture entirely devoid of visual stimuli. By writing about these people, Gilman successfully demonstrates the social model of disability, as well as using them as a vehicle for sci-fi ideas about inter-dimensional travel. This is a short novel, and for the most part that is a strength: it leaves the reader satisfied, but wanting more.