Rating: 
Summary: The First of the "Meme Wars".
Review: John Barnes assembles a vision of the future in the best tradition of true science fiction visionaries.
What happens if society decides to experiment on itself by altering the fundamental manner in which it raises its children, with the intent of producing vastly smarter and more responsible youngsters capable of entering the workforce at an earlier age with adult-like attitudes and skill sets that would make a modern college graduate green with envy? What happens to the adults upon whom the responsibility falls to raise the children in such a manner?
Whatever does happen, it had better work, because the Earth is failing rapidly as a result of ecological warfare on an unheard of scale, with the biosphere's state swinging first one way, then another.
Mankind needs new crews to man the great interplanetary transports that are hoped will be able to ship enough people off Earth and enough food back to keep everything from the brink of collapse, and the only way to get enough competent crew, crew who are willing to spend their lives in space and want to stay there, indeed, have every reason to stay there, are to raise them there, so that is their home from the beginning.
And how do you get a crew like that quicker than the 25 to 30 years a typical top-flight astronaut takes to develop? You take a new system of learning that completely revolutionizes the education process. The technical results are impressive, but the social results are interesting, to say the least.
The characters of the novel are the children of the experiment, and a few adults. For the most part, it is a coming of age story told anew, for it is a coming of age to adulthood far earlier than any children in history. It is told with bright-eyed clarity and absolute precision. The author tells of pre-adolescence from the point of view of those going through it.
The technology, its assumptions, and the society built by the expediency of need, and its assumptions, all drive the combination of assertions that create the knitted whole that is Orbital Resonance.
Those who are well-read enough to know of Alexi Panshin's book Rite of Passage (Nebula Award winner for best novel, 1969), will appreciate this book even more.
Orbital Resonance was a Nebula Award nominee for best novel, 1992.
Rating: 
Summary: Shallow Juvenile Story
Review: (...)I like well written stories written from a child's perspective._Orbital Resonance_ is supposed to contain all those elements and more, so what happened? Why did I find this book such a major disappointment? First, all the characters were names attached to concepts rather than people. You the concept called "Bully", "The Reformed Bully", the "Girl Who Is Growing Breasts", the "Shy But Smart Kid" and on and on. Those descriptions basically sum up the whole character development that you get for all the characters introduced in the book. Second, the main cardboard character has empathy for people, and the writer shows by the character continually hugging and kissing everyone, but we don't get to see or hear why this character is empathetic, or what she's thinking, or why. I guess it's "enough" that if a character hugs every other character, this is a wonderful empathic character. Third, the dialog is so shallow in most cases. Here is a typical example: "I'm sorry."
"No, I'm sorry." There was a hushed silence, then a the main character tittered a laugh. "Gosh, um, I'm so embarrassed."
"It's all right. I like you."
"Wow, that's a relief, I really like the fact that you like me."
"Me too." The characters hugged each other and wiped away a few tears. This type of writing that spews from the page, on and on. A few instances of this, I can take, but if the entire book is devoted to scenes like this, it gets real boring and insulting real fast. Fourth, the whole notion of the characters being "smart" doesn't come across well in the writing. All the writer does is spout a lot of titles of subjects that he's familiar with, such as Godel's Incompleteness Theorem (not very well), but the kids' knowledge of anything other than the subject titles or understanding doesn't seem to correlate with the buzzwords that the kids are spouting. As a sharp contrast, in Card's _Ender's Game_, you really did feel that the characters did have a preternatural understanding of the world, and it showed in their actions and thoughts. In _Orbital Resonance_, the kids spout off the buzzwords of the subjects their studying, but their actions are like kids in a kindergarden playground, with no maturity, with no insight to the reader as to why they are supposed to be smart or what they're thinking. This is just lazy writing. Lastly, if you thought the main story was bad, the ending is the worst. (...)
Rating:
Summary: Shallow Juvenile Story
Review: (...)I like well written stories written from a child's perspective. _Orbital Resonance_ is supposed to contain all those elements and more, so what happened? Why did I find this book such a major disappointment? First, all the characters were names attached to concepts rather than people. You the concept called "Bully", "The Reformed Bully", the "Girl Who Is Growing Breasts", the "Shy But Smart Kid" and on and on. Those descriptions basically sum up the whole character development that you get for all the characters introduced in the book. Second, the main cardboard character has empathy for people, and the writer shows by the character continually hugging and kissing everyone, but we don't get to see or hear why this character is empathetic, or what she's thinking, or why. I guess it's "enough" that if a character hugs every other character, this is a wonderful empathic character. Third, the dialog is so shallow in most cases. Here is a typical example: "I'm sorry."
"No, I'm sorry." There was a hushed silence, then a the main character tittered a laugh. "Gosh, um, I'm so embarrassed."
"It's all right. I like you."
"Wow, that's a relief, I really like the fact that you like me."
"Me too." The characters hugged each other and wiped away a few tears. This type of writing that spews from the page, on and on. A few instances of this, I can take, but if the entire book is devoted to scenes like this, it gets real boring and insulting real fast. Fourth, the whole notion of the characters being "smart" doesn't come across well in the writing. All the writer does is spout a lot of titles of subjects that he's familiar with, such as Godel's Incompleteness Theorem (not very well), but the kids' knowledge of anything other than the subject titles or understanding doesn't seem to correlate with the buzzwords that the kids are spouting. As a sharp contrast, in Card's _Ender's Game_, you really did feel that the characters did have a preternatural understanding of the world, and it showed in their actions and thoughts. In _Orbital Resonance_, the kids spout off the buzzwords of the subjects their studying, but their actions are like kids in a kindergarden playground, with no maturity, with no insight to the reader as to why they are supposed to be smart or what they're thinking. This is just lazy writing. Lastly, if you thought the main story was bad, the ending is the worst. (...)
Rating: 
Summary: Where's Ender?
Review: All told, this was a fun book, and Barnes should be given lots of credit for writing from the viewpoint of a thirteen year old girl (which I can say from experience is one of the most self absorbed groups on the planet . . .) and making it utterly entertaining, he definitely pulls you into the world he's created and makes you care for his characters. What we have here is a future Earth that is being ravaged by diseases and wars and the usual stuff that always happens in the future, and so a lot of people have pulled themselves into an orbiting colony in an attempt to get above it all while the earth pulls itself together. Enter our protagonist, Mel (I won't even try to spell her whole name) who is concerned with the usual thirteen year old fascinations, puberty, boys, classwork and friends and . . . oh yeah, saving the world. Or at least getting ready to run it. But all of that seems almost secondary to the writings of this young girl, we get a peek into her and the life of teenagers and how their social pecking order works. Mel's a fascinating character, she loves her family, can act real annoying sometimes and alternates wallowing in angst and self congratulation. When her father admits that the kids are being conditioned psychologically to want to help save the world and run it, her reaction is quite realistic considering the circumstances and you can't help but feel for her. However, Barnes doesn't have much to say about the interactions of teenagers other than the usual amazement of how cruel and kind they can be to each other at the same time, most of the clique stuff you can see coming a mile off once the gears start rolling and that familiarity takes away from some of its emotional impact. Most of the adults except for maybe her father are ciphers, especially her mother. Still, her growing relationship with a boy she has a crush on is touching and does make you want to cheer her on, the scenes involving races are gripping, the science fiction is as good as it comes and Mel's writing can be aggravating, but it can also be moving and exciting at the same time. Some of the negative comments about this story I can't understand, the organism scene lasts for about three lines and is mentioned only one other time and being that teenage girls are teenage girls, is a valid subject for any novel about them, in my opinion. The things that struck me the most were the rather abrupt ending and the mental comparsions I kept making to Orson Card's classic, which this approaches but alas doesn't surpass or even equal. Taken on its own terms, it's a highly entertaining young adult novel in the vein of early Heinlein (which is the other author this reminds me of), swift and fun and maybe a little more sophisticated but not much more than that. Still he hasn't done a bad book yet and if you find this to your fancy, go read A Million Open Doors which is even better.
Rating: 
Summary: Asteroid Adolescents
Review: An interesting story much in the tradition of some of Heinlein's work in the fifties (Podakayne of Mars). A rite of passage tale, with lots of straight talk about social issues and development. The hard science-fiction portions were clever also. The idea of an inhabitable asteroid-ship orbiting between earth and mars intrigued me. A clever way of dealing with the long distances between planets. The low-grav games are described in amazing detail, somewhat like Harry Potter's broomstick sport. A good read for a hot summer.
Rating:
Summary: Asteroid Adolescents
Review: An interesting story much in the tradition of some of Heinlein's work in the fifties (Podakayne of Mars). A rite of passage tale, with lots of straight talk about social issues and development. The hard science-fiction portions were clever also. The idea of an inhabitable asteroid-ship orbiting between earth and mars intrigued me. A clever way of dealing with the long distances between planets. The low-grav games are described in amazing detail, somewhat like Harry Potter's broomstick sport. A good read for a hot summer.
Rating: 
Summary: Pretty terrible
Review: Awful coming-of-age tale. If you are interested in an adolescent girl describing her orgasms in a science fiction setting, this is the book for you. If you are looking for solid entertainment, look elsewhere. Even worse Barnes' clumsy and cliched "A Million Open Doors".
Rating:
Summary: Good Plot,nice Characters, Somethig missing...
Review: I start with this is a good book, not the best and not a must reader. But if you like Scifi at all this book is good. And it is true that he wrights like Robert Heinlein(the in your face way). I was not aware of this book being in a series, that just what i think it needs. What i have seen looks to me as if the second is not all that good, but this first book was not bad and even good so i will try the second one and get a review on.
Hypno signing off
3.6 Stars for Orbital Resonance
Rating:
Summary: This was a very good book.
Review: I was only 13 when I read this book, but I loved it after I got done with it. Read it. It is sometimes boring, but in all, it is a very good book.
Rating:
Summary: Good early work by John Barnes
Review: If you're a fan of John Barnes and haven't read this book, it's about time you did. This book, more than any other, to me establishes his style of thinking, plotting, and writing. The story is engaging; the characters are well-drawn; the setting is imaginative. One of the things I like best about John Barnes is his ability to write science fiction novels that are actually about people the reader can identify with and care about, and Orbital Resonance is a good early example of that ability.
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