Orbitsville

by Bob Shaw

Published 9 January 1975
When the young son of Elizabeth Lindstrom, the autocratic president of Starflight, falls to his death, Vance Garamond, a flickerwing commander, is the obvious target for Elizabeth's grief and anger. Which, since Elizabeth is not a forgiving employer, leaves Garamond little choice but to flee. And fleeing Elizabeth's wrath means leaving the Solar System far behind, for ever, and hiding somewhere in deep space. Pursued remorselessly by Earth's space fleet, the somewhere that Garamond finds is an unimaginably vast, alien-built, spherical structure which could just change the destiny of the human race...

Orbitsville Judgement

by Bob Shaw

Published 1 September 1990
Orbitsville is the scene of two of Bob Shaw's most successful novels and is possibly the most gigantic artefact ever dreamed up by an SF writer - a vast hollow world completely enclosing its sun, habitable across its entire inner surface. At the end of ORBITSVILLE DEPARTURE the whole world was shifted to an alternative universe. In a conclusion which is both stunning and moving, ORBITSVILLE JUDGEMENT tells what happens next...

Orbitsville Departure

by Bob Shaw

Published 15 September 1983

Two hundred years ago mankind found Orbitsville, a vast sphere whose habitable inner surface comprised living space equivalent to five billion Earths. The resulting migration was enthusiastic - and nearly total.

Earth itself is a backwater now, a place with which the people of Orbitsville maintain only marginal contact. But just because it's backward doesn't mean it isn't dangerous.