Yeah was this a psychological experiment on the reader? Sure feels like it. - I just realized I never wanted to be an astronaut as a kid. I wanted to be one of the techies in the room, the girl in the chair plotting trajectories and making the big rocket zoom through the atmosphere. Or the girl in the chair in a massive floating non-claustrophobic space station with ample space to walk around. And then I turned 10 and my interest veered again. Point being, this book confirms my 8 year old self was right - I'd never have made it as a floating spaceman in a cooped up cabin. More power to those who can.

Plot/Storyline/Themes:
You'd be mistaken for thinking it boring - it perfectly captures the imagined boredom and redundancy astronauts face while in orbit. Day-Night-Day-Night, weird porridge, working out mid float, watch the blue-green planet, Day-Night-Day-Night , maybe communicate with base station on the ground, hear good news, hear bad news, hear news of your inevitable obsoleteness. >Day-Night-Day-Night orbit again and again.

How very cyclical, habitual, bang your head across the wall if you could just stop floating kind of experience.

Character Development/Favorite Character:
The slow descent to whatever version of "wits end" for each character was magnificent.

Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Scene::
The first peak at a day in the life of the crew.
"They will: change the smoke detectors, change out the Water Resupply Tank in slot 2 and install a new tank in slot 3 of the Water Storage System, clean the bathroom and kitchen, fix the toilet-that-always-breaks. Their day is mapped by acronyms, MOP, MPC, PGP, RR, MRI, CEO, OESI, WRT for WSS, T-T-A-B."

Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Quotes:
🖤“Up here, nice feels such an alien word. It’s brutal, inhuman, overwhelming, lonely, extraordinary and magnificent. There isn’t one single thing that is nice.,” (Nell on space)
🖤“Don’t encroach, is their unspoken rule. [...] Don’t cross the rubicon into one another’s internal lives.,” (Tips and "Tricks" to a pleasant space-stay)
🖤“They have talked before about a feeling they often have, a feeling of merging. [...] Whatever they were before they came here, [...] they are equalised here by the delicate might of their spaceship.” (The floating family)

Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Concepts:
Watching weather patterns from high up in space sounds like a real treat. A typhoon probably looks like dark cotton candy twirling in a force of unruly energy.

StoryGraph Challenge: 1800 Books by 2025
Challenge Prompt: 150 Science Fiction Books by 2025