It has been a good year for science fiction, with a novel set on the International Space Station winning the 2024 Booker prize. Orbital is a beautiful, sublimely written, hopeful book that takes place over 16 orbits of Earth.

One might argue that it isn’t science fiction. After all, the ISS is a real place and the book is simply a novelisation of ordinary life upon it. Author Samantha Harvey describes it as “space pastoral”. But then what…