Warren Ellis -- "The Orbiter"

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Anyone else read this? Set in the near-future, about an American space program that only sends up unmanned vessels, and the reappearance of a shuttle presumably lost after 10 years. Includes the usual Ellis one-liners, and since he's a severe space geek, a lot of technobabble, but even though I'm not even half the space afficionado, I still got teary-eyed at points. Remarkably cynicism-free, with hopeless amounts of optimism.

And the most heartfelt thing Ellis has ever written in the form of the foreword.

― vleeetrmx21 (Leee), Thursday, 10 June 2004 02:38 (twenty-one years ago)

yes, but in 1955 it would have been one story of five in a magazine and you'd have bought it and had change of a quarter and not in a fucking twenty pound fucking hardback -

― tom west (thomp), Thursday, 10 June 2004 02:41 (twenty-one years ago)

(although i got it from the library, so)

(i have a similar problem with morrison's 'sublime' nonsense)

― tom west (thomp), Thursday, 10 June 2004 02:42 (twenty-one years ago)

Nostalgia is indeed dear these days.

I'll note that a slightly cheaper paperback version of Orbiter came out a couple of weeks ago. Oddly, that and Planetary are the only works of Mr. Ellis that I'm really interested in reading at all.

― Matt Maxwell (Matt M.), Thursday, 10 June 2004 02:44 (twenty-one years ago)

It's around the house, I haven't read it yet. That's good to hear though, since his more optimistic and sentimental works tend to be his best from what I've seen. I don't think I can take any more Ellis cynicism and shock-rock (at least Ennis is sometimes funny when he brings on the gore and swearing).

― Jordan (Jordan), Thursday, 10 June 2004 03:59 (twenty-one years ago)

Hey now, Ellis is consistently funny! Not that I think Orbiter is worth hard (or soft for that matter) cover price -- it's good but not top Ellis.

What other sentimental works has he done?

― vleeetrmx21 (Leee), Thursday, 10 June 2004 05:25 (twenty-one years ago)

DV8? (heh)

― VengaDan Perry (Dan Perry), Thursday, 10 June 2004 13:46 (twenty-one years ago)

(I am amazed that my joke answer is actually somewhat serious when I think about it, although I will admit that it does stretch the accepted boundaries of the definition of "sentimental", or at a minimum applies it directly to the characters themselves and not a particular era or story archetype.)

― VengaDan Perry (Dan Perry), Thursday, 10 June 2004 13:48 (twenty-one years ago)

The first couple years (maybe even just the 1st year) of Transmetropolitan are sentimental in a crotchety embittered half-empty-glass-fucking-broke-in-my-hand way. The last issue is probably more traditionally sentimental. _Red_ (recentish 3-issue mini) is sentimental in the same way as the "sentimentality" I described re: Transmetro.

Cynicism is just crusty sentimentality. Yeah.

― David R. (popshots75`), Thursday, 10 June 2004 14:25 (twenty-one years ago)

I think the astonishing thing that he did with DV8 was to take a group of personality-free villains with "kewl" powers and turn them into credible characters whose fates I cared about WHILE KEEPING THEM VILLIANS.

― VengaDan Perry (Dan Perry), Thursday, 10 June 2004 14:47 (twenty-one years ago)

Copycat in particular.

― VengaDan Perry (Dan Perry), Thursday, 10 June 2004 14:48 (twenty-one years ago)

what else did he do pre-transmet? i only know stormwatch, and, uh, he wrote excalibur or something for a while?

(ellis's own rhetoric seemed to obliterate everything he did not creator-owned in the warren ellis forum, and i'm wondering if he did himself less of a favour than he thought)

― tom west (thomp), Thursday, 10 June 2004 15:58 (twenty-one years ago)

Ellis' X-stuff, from what I know, was victimized by the X-editor chief taking certain dictatorial liberties with his (& other writers') works. He also wrote _Hellstorm_, _Thor / Journey Into Mystery_, and _Doom 2099_ prior to becoming WARREN ELLIS, I think. AND he's coming back to Marvel next month as the writer on _Ultimate FF_ and an Ultimate mini-series (called - ugh - _Ultimate Nightmare_) (and, no, nothing to do w/ elven green-tight-wearing heroin addicts) (unfortunately?).

― David R. (popshots75`), Thursday, 10 June 2004 16:02 (twenty-one years ago)

Reading Warren Ellis's livejournal, among other things, have soured me a bit on WARREN ELLIS. If I started reading Transmet again I would probably feel more kindly towards him, I think.

― Jordan (Jordan), Thursday, 10 June 2004 19:16 (twenty-one years ago)

He was going to write some stuff for me, years back, before the company sort of fell apart. I like him.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Thursday, 10 June 2004 20:33 (twenty-one years ago)

Jordan OTM.

I'm on his mailing list and receiving all his daily scribblings makes his talent seem a lot tamer and more limited. Some of his attempts at poetic prose are just embarrassing. Good thing he can write a decent sci-fi/superhero story when he wants to...

― David N (David N.), Thursday, 10 June 2004 22:30 (twenty-one years ago)

i'm of the opinion that the contents of anyone's notebook would be embarrassing, but

― tom west (thomp), Friday, 11 June 2004 11:24 (twenty-one years ago)

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