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The Gravity Pilot
It is the polluted and gritty future, saved, sort of, by technofixes. Young skydiver Orr Sitka wants no more from life in future Alaska than he already a woman he loves and the chance to dive. When he makes a reckless, record-breaking jump that catapults him into celebrity, he’s courted by corporations that want to exploit his talent to make him a sports media star.
The dangerous jump that wins Orr infamy turns out to be a breaking point for his loving girlfriend, Dyce, who is wooed away by a promising job in the thriving underground city of Seattle, a world media center in a crumbling civilization. Separately, Orr and Dyce are sucked into nightmare lives that take a terrible toll on each of them. When Orr learns that Dyce has become addicted to virtual reality, controlled by an eccentric media billionaire and his decadent daughter, he does everything in his power to rescue her. But is Orr strong enough to get through to Dyce and break them both out of hell?
The dangerous jump that wins Orr infamy turns out to be a breaking point for his loving girlfriend, Dyce, who is wooed away by a promising job in the thriving underground city of Seattle, a world media center in a crumbling civilization. Separately, Orr and Dyce are sucked into nightmare lives that take a terrible toll on each of them. When Orr learns that Dyce has become addicted to virtual reality, controlled by an eccentric media billionaire and his decadent daughter, he does everything in his power to rescue her. But is Orr strong enough to get through to Dyce and break them both out of hell?
- GenresScience Fiction
336 pages, Hardcover
First published March 15, 2011
2 people are currently reading
64 people want to read
About the author
M.M. Buckner
9 books8 followersMary M. Buckner is a hard science fiction author with an M.A. in Creative Writing from Boston University. Her first novel, Hyperthought was a finalist for the Philip K. Dick award, and War Surf won the award in 2005.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
August 5, 2023
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night mode reading ;
skaitom nakties rezimu
About the Book: World has changed, but not the humans on it. Greed and personal ideals push some beyond the boundaries of morality, where abusing others’ weaknesses for profit is a given. Orr Sitka lived for the sky. One of those rare, outstandingly skilled sky-divers, creating net content for which he himself didn’t care much. But the moment one of his videos went viral, and he reached celebrity status, it became a matter of time when those dark digital tendrils would come wrap around his life too. Dragging him down, down onto the ground, into the cities and below them, where human addictions made him famous…
My Opinion: Book has a very solid base. Interesting story or its skeleton, and a pretty decent world building. But the characters are written so bad, it was hard to enjoy what little there was of the good. No personality to grasp, as if author mushed a few examples together, never managing to Frankenstein some life into the written people, leaving us with inadequate doers-of-tasks. Lacked consistency, but not plot holes.
night mode reading ;
skaitom nakties rezimu
About the Book: World has changed, but not the humans on it. Greed and personal ideals push some beyond the boundaries of morality, where abusing others’ weaknesses for profit is a given. Orr Sitka lived for the sky. One of those rare, outstandingly skilled sky-divers, creating net content for which he himself didn’t care much. But the moment one of his videos went viral, and he reached celebrity status, it became a matter of time when those dark digital tendrils would come wrap around his life too. Dragging him down, down onto the ground, into the cities and below them, where human addictions made him famous…
My Opinion: Book has a very solid base. Interesting story or its skeleton, and a pretty decent world building. But the characters are written so bad, it was hard to enjoy what little there was of the good. No personality to grasp, as if author mushed a few examples together, never managing to Frankenstein some life into the written people, leaving us with inadequate doers-of-tasks. Lacked consistency, but not plot holes.
February 15, 2022
Good read! I find myself being piss off at the main character for letting his emotions run away with him and first saying he wants to help the girl he loves and then loses focus all the time. The character would be a person who drive me nuts. That is great writing to make a character so alive while reading that I get emotionally invested. A book that surprise me completely. About skydiving fanatics set in the future.
January 31, 2021
Recent Reads: The Gravity Pilot. M M Buckner's climate apocalypse skydiving romance slides between the catacombs of an over-crowded Seattle and the smog-enfolded Aleutian Islands. The result is a high-tech battle between love and commerce in the ruins of a dying world.
September 15, 2021
Cool world building, interesting characters, kinda dull in some parts but overall pretty interesting. Ending is a bit of a twist
November 12, 2012
The premise: ganked from BN.com: It is the polluted and gritty future, saved, sort of, by technofixes. Young skydiver Orr Sitka wants no more from life in future Alaska than he already has: a woman he loves and the chance to dive. When he makes a reckless, record-breaking jump that catapults him into celebrity, he’s courted by corporations that want to exploit his talent to make him a sports media star.
The dangerous jump that wins Orr infamy turns out to be a breaking point for his loving girlfriend, Dyce, who is wooed away by a promising job in the thriving underground city of Seattle, a world media center in a crumbling civilization. Separately, Orr and Dyce are sucked into nightmare lives that take a terrible toll on each of them. When Orr learns that Dyce has become addicted to virtual reality, controlled by an eccentric media billionaire and his decadent daughter, he does everything in his power to rescue her. But is Orr strong enough to get through to Dyce and break them both out of hell?
My Rating: 7 - Good Read
Anyone who was enamored and awed by Felix Baumgartner's Red Bull Stratos jump, let alone fans of skydiving in general, need to get their hands on this book. It's a quiet, futuristic fiction that manages to take so many little things and weave them into a believable, recognizable future. It's a character-driven novel that's complex as the world the characters live in, and if there's one flaw to the book, it's that the reader is never really sure what's going on and why until closer to the end of the book, when the stakes are revealed and all seems practically hopeless. It's a very good read, and one I'm glad I finally got around to. Also, Buckner lives in Tennessee, and I'm always happy to promote and support Tennessee authors in the genre, especially since there doesn't seem to be that many of them.
Of course, that's neither here nor there. It's a compelling read, and fans of the genre, readers who want something closer to home, something more believable than hard-edged military SF or eye-candy space opera, should definitely give this a shot.
Spoilers, yay or nay?: Nay. The full review may be found at my blog, and as always, comments and discussion are most welcome. Just click the link below to go directly to the full review!
REVIEW: M.M. Buckner's THE GRAVITY PILOT
Happy Birthday!
The dangerous jump that wins Orr infamy turns out to be a breaking point for his loving girlfriend, Dyce, who is wooed away by a promising job in the thriving underground city of Seattle, a world media center in a crumbling civilization. Separately, Orr and Dyce are sucked into nightmare lives that take a terrible toll on each of them. When Orr learns that Dyce has become addicted to virtual reality, controlled by an eccentric media billionaire and his decadent daughter, he does everything in his power to rescue her. But is Orr strong enough to get through to Dyce and break them both out of hell?
My Rating: 7 - Good Read
Anyone who was enamored and awed by Felix Baumgartner's Red Bull Stratos jump, let alone fans of skydiving in general, need to get their hands on this book. It's a quiet, futuristic fiction that manages to take so many little things and weave them into a believable, recognizable future. It's a character-driven novel that's complex as the world the characters live in, and if there's one flaw to the book, it's that the reader is never really sure what's going on and why until closer to the end of the book, when the stakes are revealed and all seems practically hopeless. It's a very good read, and one I'm glad I finally got around to. Also, Buckner lives in Tennessee, and I'm always happy to promote and support Tennessee authors in the genre, especially since there doesn't seem to be that many of them.
Of course, that's neither here nor there. It's a compelling read, and fans of the genre, readers who want something closer to home, something more believable than hard-edged military SF or eye-candy space opera, should definitely give this a shot.
Spoilers, yay or nay?: Nay. The full review may be found at my blog, and as always, comments and discussion are most welcome. Just click the link below to go directly to the full review!
REVIEW: M.M. Buckner's THE GRAVITY PILOT
Happy Birthday!
July 22, 2015
It's the year 2068 and the future is bleak. The environment is polluted and humans are living inside
dome structures and underground cities to survive. Orr is a 22-year old skydiver who becomes famous
after attempting a dangerous jump from the stratosphere. His girlfriend, Dyce, wants him to quit the sport and move with her to Seattle where she has a new job. Orr can't give up skydiving and lets Dyce leave alone. After his famous jump, he is offered a lucrative contract and the opportunity to skydive as
much as he wants. He gets caught up in his new life of wealth and convenience. He quickly starts to figure out that the owners are lying and keeping secrets from him. Meanwhile he realizes it was a mistake to let Dyce go to Seattle alone and discovers he is being prevented from communicating with her. Can he free himself from the owners and reunite with Dyce?
This is a great book. The author does a wonderful job of world building. The descriptions of this futuristic society made me almost feel the claustrophobia of the characters. You understand their motivations to take extreme risks to escape or change their reality.
The most interesting characters were the villains. They are unique and intelligent. The corporation's father and daughter duo are very well-written with their weird relationship and corporate strategies.
The only slight negative is that the main couple, Orr and Dyce, are not very memorable. His love for her is the motivation for many of his actions in the book and their love story was just average. The rest of the book more than makes up for this. It's full of action and surprises right up to the end.
dome structures and underground cities to survive. Orr is a 22-year old skydiver who becomes famous
after attempting a dangerous jump from the stratosphere. His girlfriend, Dyce, wants him to quit the sport and move with her to Seattle where she has a new job. Orr can't give up skydiving and lets Dyce leave alone. After his famous jump, he is offered a lucrative contract and the opportunity to skydive as
much as he wants. He gets caught up in his new life of wealth and convenience. He quickly starts to figure out that the owners are lying and keeping secrets from him. Meanwhile he realizes it was a mistake to let Dyce go to Seattle alone and discovers he is being prevented from communicating with her. Can he free himself from the owners and reunite with Dyce?
This is a great book. The author does a wonderful job of world building. The descriptions of this futuristic society made me almost feel the claustrophobia of the characters. You understand their motivations to take extreme risks to escape or change their reality.
The most interesting characters were the villains. They are unique and intelligent. The corporation's father and daughter duo are very well-written with their weird relationship and corporate strategies.
The only slight negative is that the main couple, Orr and Dyce, are not very memorable. His love for her is the motivation for many of his actions in the book and their love story was just average. The rest of the book more than makes up for this. It's full of action and surprises right up to the end.
May 22, 2015
In the polluted skies of the mid-21st century"," Orrpaaj Sitka is an extreme skydiver"," to the dismay of his girlfriend Dyce. When his exploits draw the attention of Vera Luce"," a media producer"," Dyce leaves him to take a library job in Seattle. But Orr finds his new celebrity is sapping the enjoyment from his hobby. Meanwhile"," Dyce has become addicted to an online world called “Cyto.” Now Orr must escape from his media contract"," and rescue Dyce from a living death.This is actually a Science Fiction retelling of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice"," which ended badly for all concerned.
February 14, 2016
It started out pretty good, but it seemed to get bogged down in I'm not entirely sure what. The main character, Orr, had no desire to be the main character and it felt like he was pulled unwillingly through the entire book. He seemed to just kind of drift through every scene he was in.
Vera, I don't know what her deal was, but she was pretty unlikable.
The world building was very nice, it gave us glimpses as the story unfolded until you got the entire picture of the world.
The twist at the end did surprise me and changed my opinion only slightly of one of the the other characters.
Vera, I don't know what her deal was, but she was pretty unlikable.
The world building was very nice, it gave us glimpses as the story unfolded until you got the entire picture of the world.
The twist at the end did surprise me and changed my opinion only slightly of one of the the other characters.
May 24, 2012
Set in the polluted future where virtual reality substitutes for most actual activity Orr Sitka, a young skydiver, finds fame and loses his great love. All he wants is to be able to ride the winds and get his girlfriend back while others have designs on exploiting both. This is an interesting look at the possible world in 50 years with interesting characters and a lot of skydiving; it almost, only almost, makes you want to go jump out of a plane (and that's a good thing).
March 30, 2011
Read from 2/27 - 3/6.
September 29, 2012
A top notch book. M. M. Buckner is a very skilled author.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews