An Overgrown Bush That Could Use Some Judicious Pruning - A Review of Dark Orbit

Dark Orbit by Carolyn Ives Gilman

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


The question of whether or not we are the only intelligent life in the universe is something that has intrigued humanity for almost as long as our species has contemplated the idea of some other intelligent entity being out there in the great black void of space. Many scientists have done their level best to find out the answer through rigorous research and by encouraging the creation of technology that will allow us to detect life elsewhere, no matter how remote that “elsewhere” might be. They have not found anything yet, but hopes continue to remain high that one day, some day, they will find life (intelligent or otherwise) elsewhere aside from our planet.

Science fiction writers, on the other hand, have explored the idea of alien life in their own way - one of those ways being through the “First Contact” story. Essentially, a First Contact story is about what happens when humanity meets a new alien intelligence for the first time, whether deliberately or accidentally. Many interesting questions can arise in such stories - for instance, how does one accurately portray the reactions of a human being to something he or she has absolutely no knowledge of? How “human” could something from elsewhere in the universe be? Would we even recognise an alien intelligence as “intelligent”, whatever that means? Will we repeat the mistakes of our past, and let our history of colonialism and imperialism win out?

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