Deep Wheel Orcadia

by Harry Josephine Giles

Deep Wheel Orcadia is a magical first: a science-fiction verse novel written in the Orcadian dialect, as well as the first full-length work of adult fiction in the Orkney language for over fifty years. The inhabitants of Deep Wheel Orcadia – a huge space station with a suspiciously large amount in common with contemporary Orkney – is host to a rich and varied cast, who weave a compelling, lyric and effortlessly readable story around themes of place and belonging, work and economy, generation and gender politics, love and desire – all with the lightness of touch, fluency and musicality one might expect of one the most naturally talented poets to have emerged from Scotland in recent years.
The book also comes with a parallel translation into startlingly playful and vivid English, so the reader will miss no nuance of the original. Harry Josephine Giles hails from Orkney, and is already widely known as a fine poet and spellbindingly original performer of their own work; Deep Wheel Orcadia strikes out into new and uncharted space.

Genres: Poetry, Science Fiction, Fiction, Queer, Scotland, LGBT, Fantasy

176 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 1, 2021

About the author

Harry Josephine Giles is a poet from Orkney. Their PhD on the possibilities of science fiction poetry for minority language literature became the verse-novel Deep Wheel Orcadia (2021). Tonguit (2015) was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection, and their second book, The Games (2018), for the Edwin Morgan Poetry Award.

Reviews

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a unique and fascinating reading experience this was! Deep Wheel Orcadia is a sci-fi novel written in the Orkney Scots dialect. It is formatted like a poem, with an English translation on each page below the Orcadian. I am learning Scottish Gaelic (a different language, to be clear) and was curious to see whether there was any similarity, as I haven't read anything in Orkney dialect before. The grammar is different, but a few words were familiar from my (limited, Duolingo-learned) Gaelic or from general osmosis by living in Scotland for five years. My method was to mentally sound out the Orcadian so as to understand as much of it as possible, then read the English while glancing back to map it onto the original. I found this very satisfying, as the rhythm of the Orkney dialect started to become familiar. The translation approach is unusual and clever. Multiple concatenated translations are given for a word or two in most sentences, like so:

The night thor a ring o Light
aroon her sleepeen kist
wi no a body tae see it.
Sheu breathes; hid swaalls an birls;
i'the mids o the wheel sheu dreams.

Tonight there's a ring of Light
around her sleeping-chestcoffinbreast
with no one there to see it.
She breathes; it swellwaves and whirlrushdancespins;
in the centre of the wheel she dreams.

I really appreciated this, as it invites the reader to think about the choices involved in translation. It emphasised to me that the Orcadian word was often the most vivid and effective, whether familiar from English or not. 'Swaalls and birls' are beautiful and assonant; I prefer them to any of the English options. I think I absorbed the book as a melange of Orkney dialect and English. This would have been an appealing experience in any genre, but I found it particularly appropriate for sci-fi.

In my experience reading sci-fi (and to an extent other fantastical fiction) always involves interpreting new words or new uses of familiar words for concepts, technologies, and activities. This sometimes becomes an act of translation and certainly expands the reader's understanding of words' meanings and recombinations. Some sci-fi writers minimise reader effort of this sort with detailed explanations; Andy Weir springs to mind. Others create a whole new vocabulary and let the reader work out what they can from context cues, e.g. Hannu Rajaniemi. Most fall somewhere between the two extremes. Personally I love this element of sci-fi reading, which Jo Walton wrote memorably about in What Makes This Book So Great.

Reading Deep Wheel Orcadia is a rich experience of interpretation and translation on multiple connected levels. The quote above gives you 'kist' and 'sleeping-chestcoffinbreast' for the place where a character is sleeping in her room on the space station. These options leave an area for the reader's imagination to fill, while making them more aware of this process of interpretation and visualisation from context. They delineate an area for interpretation in a way that a single word would not. I've never read a book that unveiled and examined the process of sci-fi linguistic world-building in this way before and found it riveting.

However I did not just enjoy the novel as an exercise in deconstructing sci-fi linguistics. The plot, characters, and setting are all vivid and thoughtful. Deep Wheel Orcadia is novella-length, yet fits in an impressive amount of characterisation and world-building. The Deep Wheel is an isolated space station, distant from the centres of human habitation and with a fragile economy based on harvesting a fuel named Light. (This detail reminded me of Delany's Nova.) The cast of characters includes a couple of people from elsewhere who speak English; an archaeologist named Noor who is studying mysterious alien wreckage and a new arrival named Darling. As the novel opens, a woman named Astrid also arrives on the same ship as Darling, returning to her birthplace. The narrative probably gives the most time to Astrid and Darling, while also showing others living on the Deep Wheel. It's not hard to see the setting as inspired by Orkney and the space-station-as-island analogy is definitely effective. I particularly liked the scenes of Light harvesting, Astrid showing Darling the views, Noor's investigations, Higgie the Coder encountering weirdness, and the dance. The relationships between characters are shown deftly.

My sole criticism would be that the story ends quite abruptly and I would have liked it to carry on further. If you have an interest in sci-fi, languages in general, Scottish languages in particular, or are just looking for new and rewarding reading experiences, I definitely recommend Deep Wheel Orcadia. Both structure and content are compelling and unique. It is a rare and heady pleasure to read.

EDIT: An interesting interview with the author can be watched here: https://lighthousebookshop.com/posts/...

[Rosamund Taylor · Rating 3 out of 5]

On the level of language -- the lines on the page -- this book is beautiful. Each poem is dynamic, surprising and full of beautiful sounds and images. Giles uses the Orkney dialectic, which is very readable and compelling, as well as giving the reader standard English versions of the poems below. The two function well together -- the standard English gives multiple meanings to different words, allowing the reader to have different interpretations of each scene, and creating subtle nuance of character. As someone from Ireland who has lived in Scotland, I found the Orkney fairly easy to read, though I always have more trouble with spoken Scots than written Scots. So this was engaging and entertaining, and had a more-ish quality: once I'd read one poem I really wanted to read another. I liked the range of characters -- parents, lovers, co-workers -- and the imagery of Orcadia, which is a huge space station slowly turning among the stars. I struggled, however, with the ways Deep Wheel Orcadia functions as a science fiction story. The tropes used -- time gaps due to almost lightspeed travel, wrecked ships, using a future society to comment on gender norms -- weren't given enough depth to feel new or interesting, and the narrative lacked depth and immediacy. Giles' work is at its most impressive when she is dealing with dynamics between people, and when she is building up relationships and human connections -- I felt that this piece might have been more successful without the sci-fi elements. That being said, it's a risky, imaginative and thought-provoking piece of work. It's exhilarating to read, and I'm very glad it's out in the world.

[Siobhan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Deep Wheel Orcadia is unlike anything I've read before, a sci-fi novel in verse about home, belonging, and place written in the Orkney dialect with an English translation. The plot follows the meeting of Astrid, who returns to the titular space station after art school on Mars, and Darling, who is fleeing her past and has ended up in the far off reaches of space, but also a cast of characters across Orcadia as they try to keep apace with the changes around them.

I found the form ideal for the setting and narrative, with the verse and the sci-fi combining well to make the world-building concise and leaving plenty of ambiguity in this glimpse into the world of the space station. The short poems, occasionally getting longer to play out a big scene, move quickly between characters and situations and I found the pacing a lot more suited to me than a lot of sci-fi, leaving me wanting more rather than feeling like I'd been told too much. There's probably a lot of different ways to read the book with its dual text, and though I settled into reading each page first in the Orkney and then English, I could imagine trying out different ways in the future.

The exploration of gender and love in this world was a real highlight, and I also liked the fact that a lot of the story was about a character returning from the "big city" (aka Mars) to their childhood home and perhaps looking for inspiration that won't come. There's a lot of stuff in Deep Wheel Orcadia that feels timeless, and in general it is a book that transcends things. I want to think more about Astrid and Darling and I'll undoubtedly be rereading this a few times and probably picking up more and more each time.

[Ruxandra Grrr · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a unique, lovely and charming reading experience!

Astrid’s brought a little and heavymeaningful life on her back, and when she steps into the airlock, she begins to feel grief about what will happen if the parts of her can’t find their placedistancepartwhile.

This is a story set on a space station, told in verse, in Orkney dialect and translated into English in a combinatory translated method (so for instance a word like piece is translated into placedistancepartwhile and it's emotional and touching to read). It's a book that is at once written simply, but sort of complicated, layered and musical, full of vibrant characters lovingly rendered.

I definitely did not understand everything, but felt happy to be carried away by this book. I particularly loved listen to the author narrate the audiobook - and I was listening to them speaking in Orkney, while I was eyeballing the English parts. It felt very immersive and after a little while I felt like I could definitely understand a lot of the Orkney.

Deep Wheel Orkadia has a great sense of place and its people and there's a lot of enticing worldbuilding. It's also enjoyably queer and we do get to read a lovely little queer romance. I'm excited to discuss this in my *checks notes* two book clubs that will cover it this month and the next. And speir (ask) some questions when the author comes to Berlin in January!

[Gavin · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm glad it exists (I'm glad when anyone imagines themselves happy in the far future) but it's too contrived for me. In particular most of the noun translations / calques are overdone kennings ("wantneed" for "waant", "fullbursting" for "pangit" and "codeprogramscripture"). Obviously scifi is full of neologism and funny phonemes, and kenning is a natural way for a logicish intelligence to convey connotation and polysemy. But even very successful scifi prose often feels contrived, even if the novelty skeuomorphism is worth the loss in taste. And this isn't very successful.

One reason I distrust the kennings is that they only go one way. A single Orcadian word leads to a compound English term, and never the reverse. This feels like clumsy bragging about one's ane leid.

And finally there's the sentiment, the wan Standard Poetic Register of watery hope and fickle gentle/fidge emotionality and belonging. Oddly, the Scots is way less sentimental than the English translation, probably those kennings' fault.

I actually remember Giles from their old poem "Brave" which sadly isn't online.

One day any language we caught in the web will have speakers in space.

[Alex Sarll]

It's often hilarious the things which try to promote themselves as 'the only' in what are clearly crowded categories, but I think this one is telling the truth when it claims to be the only queer science fiction novel in verse written in Orcadian*. If your Orcadian should unaccountably not be up to scratch, there is also an English version included – though I found it interesting that it runs across the bottom of the page, rather than facing page, the approach with which I'm more familiar. A power move, perhaps, a way of ensuring the Orcadian retains primacy? Which is fair enough, though I was more surprised by the way the English version would often plump for a vaguely Joycean composite word when there was a single word closer to the Orcadian which could have done perfectly good service. Not every time – "a langersome day" as "a longtiring day" is probably fair. But "seatimetides" for "tides" when the latter in English already encompasses the other two implications? Perhaps it's a defamiliarisation strategy. Elsewhere, it may be that I have a slight advantage from at least having grown up with a Midlands English in which a little more of this stuff survives (see also 'nesh'), but it still left me bristling a little to see "canny" glossed or translated as "skilledwisemagicalcautious" when 'canny' would be perfectly cromulent in the English too.

The plot? Well, that seems distinctly Orcadian too. Someone who's been away from the space fringes to the space big city and then has an awkward space homecoming. The struggles, inner and outer, of a space-whaling community facing the nagging realisation that the space-whales are space-sentient, in space. Though fair play to Giles, almost every other SF story I can think of which was heavily reliant on whaling analogies was a riff on and/or direct sequel to Moby-Dick, and at least this isn't that. And it's not as if verse epics stand or fall by the plot, is it? Maaaaybe the Odyssey, but even with the Iliad you'd be pushing it, and as for something more modern like Don Juan... Certainly there are some passages I thought very moving, though I hesitate to quote them, not least from not knowing which language to choose. But when the person who's been away and the one who stayed have that gap between them, each of them knowing something immeasurably precious which the other never can, and they don't talk about it, but they do – that section alone would justify the reading of this.

*Though it does eventually confess to a fair chunk of borrowing from regular Scots. All the same...

(Publisher ARC)

[McFudd · Rating 1 out of 5]

Have to be brutally honest. This book just wasn’t for me. Not my taste. I did stick with it and it got easier toward the end but I only stuck with it because I hate starting a book and having the oooo what if it got better. I did understand some of the Scot’s/Orkney dialect but it didn’t flow for me. I read most of the translation at the bottom of the pages but even with that due to many of the Orkney words having multiple meanings the translation was like whatwherehowwhy which really bugged me out. But I’m sure it’s someone’s kind of book. Like astrid and darling? I dunno but is there something deeper there? I just don’t know. Super confused with all the characters? It all kinda meshed together for me.

[Hope · Rating 3 out of 5]

not sure what to rate this because, quite frankly, I didn't understand any of it. there were some good quotes? i felt that it might have been good so 3 stars i guess.

[Raul Terhes]

honestly not gonna rate this. I don't think i'm cut for reading stuff like this. I somehow got to ordering it and found it on my shelf. It's a set of poems written in the Orkney dialect, the english translation is provided but for me everything was just too much confusion. If you do like obfuscated, non-conformist styles of literature/poetry maybe try it. Just wasn't for me :)

[Julie J. · Rating 2 out of 5]

ENGLISH VERSION BELOW


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"Deep Wheel Orcadia" von Harry Josephine Giles hat mich leider nicht überzeugt. Trotz der innovativen Idee, eine Geschichte in Versform und im Orkney-Dialekt zu erzählen, fand ich den Zugang zum Buch schwierig und die Handlung oft schwer nachvollziehbar. Die lyrische Sprache und den künstlerischen Effekt mochte ich, ich fand es auch nicht schwer, es zu lesen (auch das Original und nicht nur die englische Transkription). Die Geschichte selbst ist aber leider so gestaltet, wie ich das überhaupt nicht mag. Viele Lücken (zum gedanklich selber füllen), wenig Hintergrundinfos oder Erklärungen. Mir waren die Charaktere egal, mir war egal, wie es weitergeht.
Das Künstlerische ist sicher etwas Besonderes, mir war es hier aber nicht genug.

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Unfortunately, I wasn't convinced by "Deep Wheel Orcadia" by Harry Josephine Giles. Despite the innovative idea of telling a story in verse and in Orkney dialect, I found the book difficult to get into and the plot often hard to follow. I liked the lyrical language and the artistic effect, and I didn't find it difficult to read (even the original and not just the English transcription). The story itself, however, is unfortunately organised in a way that I don't like at all. Lots of gaps (to fill in mentally yourself), little background information or explanations. I didn't care about the characters, I didn't care what happened next.
The artistry is certainly something special, but it wasn't enough for me to like the book.

[Andres · Rating 4 out of 5]

Primero dejar muy claro que para alguien no nativo en inglés y menos en dialecto Orkney, este libro escrito en prosa poética es una experiencia que requiere concentración, y mucha
Es un experimento lingüístico hermoso, bien armado y atrayente. No te suelta y con el formato de página con doble lectura (original orkney e inglés) te permite disfrutar, conocer y jugar con las palabras. Una maravilla.
La historia a veces se pierde en el juego de lo poético, pero está. El encontrar su lugar, el cambio, el que soy o quiero ser. No siempre claramente, pero está. No puedo decir que pude seguir la trama de forma continua porque me ponía a navegar en las palabras y las traducciones. Fascinante.
Este libro una aventura, como bien dice la contraportada. Casi un libro objeto.
Y, solamente por eso, ya vale la pena.
Ganador del Arthur C. Clarke, destaco.

[Marc Gommert]

First time I'm writing a short text after I finished a book, and only to explain why I'm not giving it a rating.
That's because my rating usually is based almost entirely on my subjective enjoyment of the book. In this case, however, pretty much all the metrics I usually apply to measure this don't really apply, which is why I'd have to give this book a relatively low score - but I feel like it doesn't deserve that, on the other merits it undoubtedly has.

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

So beautiful & unequalled. I saw Orkney & it’s folk of today on the station. And I really enjoyed reading the original passages through the lense of the (little) Cumbrian (Cumbric) I know, but the original Orcadian is magical.

[Matt Yeager · Rating 5 out of 5]

The more I think about it, the higher the rating gets. Expertly crafted and subtle. 10/10

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sci-fi written in verse in the Orkney dialect? Cool! But why? It’s poetic and unique, but I think I was missing the link between form and function.

[Elizabeth]

gay science fiction prose-poem written in the Orkney dialect,,,…. one of the coolest things i’ve read all year

[John Damon Davis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wonderful concept, disappointing execution

[Kevin Hume · Rating 5 out of 5]

I canna say I'm much of a poetry fan overall, more that I haven't indulged enough to appreciate it rather than any dislike of the art form... For many many reasons though, this tale feels like it's written for me.

I can't really give an unbias opinion of the book then.

The linguistic anthropologist in me gets excited at the dual language narrative, and creative use of adapting sci-fi concepts to auld Orcadian language. (forcefield = containment dykes)

The sci-fi nerd in me gets excited at the slice of life on an isolated space station. It's far from cosy, it's a tough environment but the beautiful use of language at the same time softens it, making it a very human story of finding your place in the world.

My Orcadian roots get the warm nostalgic fire in my belly going. I have family in the north isles and parts of the story just bring me right back to childhood holidays visiting family on Papay. The emptiness of space and the vastness of the sea blend into one and the same

And of course, I can't neglect to mention I've known Josie for a good long while and she is a wonderful person.

So yeah, 5/5, but no objectivity in this opinion 😁

[Gina Lyle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gorgeous. In a relatively short space, Giles evokes a real sense of a community, with all its joy and difficulties. A helpful cast listing at the beginning ensures you always remember who's who, but each character feels distinct. They feel authentic and full, all while occupying a fantastic sci-fi space. Deep Wheel Orcadia is imaginative and playful with identity and technology, asks hard questions about home and art, explores family and friendship - without ever feeling rushed or stiff.

I particularly loved the translation style, which takes so much care to express the range each Orcadian word holds, preserving as much nuance as possible. To 'bide' becomes to 'waitstaylive', for instance, so you can really revel in the depth and fun of the language, no matter which way you read this.

This novel really feels like something that was written with so much love, and I felt it as a reader. My only wish is that there was more of it.

[Runalong · Rating 3 out of 5]

I admire the ambition and use of language and culture but overall didn’t feel the story quite worked as well as it should have. Would have been more effective as slice of life than trying to boot a form of first contact tale on top

Full review - https://www.runalongtheshelves.net/bl...

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

An astonishing achievement. Simply like no other book.

[M Cody McPhail · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book of lyrical poems, written in the Orkney dialect, with an English translation at the bottom of each page, is a beautiful amalgamation of science fiction brushstrokes. Centered in the tale is a fling at first sight. Young hip travellers, Astrid and Darling are at the heart of this epic. Their love story is set in the bustling space station, Deep Wheel Orcadia. "Light" is a substance that fuels interstellar travel and is mined in the atmosphere of the yellow gas giant that Deep Wheel Orcadia orbits. Lighters (Light miners) live a harsh existence, always on the hunt for more of this precious substance. Never seeming to have enough Light or credits. But what is Light? Is it alive? What are the wrecks that orbit the planet? Do they have a relationship with the Light? Xeno-archaeologists travel across the void of space to study the wrecks. They're trying to discover their origin.

I read this twice in a row because I felt I had missed a lot. On the first read, my eyes were jumping from the translation to the poem. It was a bit distracting. I was trying to figure out how to read the English compound words that translate the Orcadian words. Giles is attempting to give literal translations by combining English words to define their Orcadian counterparts. On the second read, it all clicked. I only focused on the translation this time. I think Deep Wheel Orcadia is a masterful exercise in poetics, linguistics, and speculative writing. A beautiful, expansive experience. 4/5

[GONZA · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am having more than one difficulty commenting on this book, written in two languages that are not my own. Leaving aside the Orkney dialect, which at times very rarely I could understand, the English was also full of compound words, and that is, two or three words written together to give a more precise idea of the emotions of the people who were experiencing them. Nonetheless, the plot is easier to understand, but I can say that I have a vague idea. The fact remains that if it had not been a book in the science fiction reading group that I have been a member of for almost a decade now, I would not have chosen to read it because it was exhausting.

Sto avendo piú di una difficoltá a commentare questo libro, scritto con due linguaggi che non sono il mio. Tralasciando il dialetto delle Orcadi, che a tratti molto rari riuscivo a comprendere, anche l'inglese era pieno di parole composte e cioé due o tre parole scritte assieme per dare un'idea piú precisa delle emozioni delle persone che le stavano provando. Nonché la trama sia di piú semplice comprensione, peró posso dire di avere una vaga idea. Resta il fatto che, se non fosse stato un libro del gruppo di lettura della fantascienza di cui faccio parte ormai da una decina di anni, non avrei scelto di leggerlo perché é stato faticoso.

[Polygenics · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the strangest and most beautiful scifi books I have ever read. I'm not one for poetry I will freely admit that, but the lilt and flow of the Orcadian dialect used in this book is just stunning to immerse yourself in. I suspect 4 years in Aberdeenshire surrounded by Doric helped me parsing it, but even the translation has its own beauty written in what is not quite English all the time.

The stories woven up in this were almost incidental to me, this is a novel that transmits you to another place, another time, in a language you don't even know. Incredible stuff. I was worried that I would find this as tough going as Feersum Endjiin's extended phonetic passages, but whilst it has taken me a while to read this slim tome, it's simply because I enjoyed dipping into it, and prolonging what I knew was going to remain a unique experience.

[Misha · Rating 3 out of 5]

This only half worked for me, but I appreciate its ambition. Written in Orkney dialect with a parallel English translation that also shows off the melded-word sensibility of the author. Winner of the Arthur C. Clarke award, this read like a Les Murray prose poem in space. I did not feel connected to the story, but appreciated some of the playful style and depiction of people on a space station just whiling away the time and trying to figure themselves out. I wanted more narrative connectivity, but will also admit that I read this quickly and maybe missed some of what it is trying to do.

[Jeroen Kuiper · Rating 3 out of 5]

A scifi novel in verse written in the Orkney dialect of Scots. I love the ambition and it was quite enjoyable to read, it's relatively close to English to understand most of it, and there is a quirky prose translation too. The story though wasn't too compelling and lacked focus (too many characters) and depth.

[G · Rating 4 out of 5]

First verse novel I've read, an I liked it

"The Dance" in part 3 was a highlight

[Dr. des. Siobhán · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely impressive! Deep Wheel Orcadia is written in the Orkney dialect but features a fluid English translation, you should not ignore one thing or the other. Translation is questioned on the page just like the limits of humanity are tested within the story. I think the book was a bit exhausting to read because I had to stop and ponder words and translations and meaning a lot but overall it was worth it. Story-wise it could've been a bit longer, I feel like the ending could've given me a bit more input, but overall just a wonderful, creative and fascinating read!

[Shay E · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed reading the dialect, but the rest only sort of worked for me.

[Adrian Coombe · Rating 3 out of 5]

I laud the different style, but it was very hard to get into, so it feels quite alienating to find much affection for the story itself.