When all the adults on the seed ship Renaissance died, it fell to their children to meet the terms of the contract – a year of work on each of Orbis’ rings then freedom. The children, whose entire lives have been spent on board, have little idea what their new lives will be like, but Johnny Turnbull (JT to his friends) has high hopes for both himself and his mute sister Ketheria. He’s also looking forward to getting away from Switzer, a boy who has bullied him all his life and who never believed he could communicate with Mother, the ship’s computer, with his mind. He doesn’t anticipate discovering that he’s a softwire, a natural computer-communicator who can access any terminal merely be standing beside it, the first known human with that ability. And JT has no idea that, within days of arriving on Orbis’ outermost ring, he’ll be charged with trying to crash the Orbis mastercomputer, nor that he’s the only one who can save it from a destructive virus – a virus in the form of a young girl.
Virus on Orbis is a little convoluted but highly rewarding. Its main characters, both human and alien, are compelling and JT in particular is well drawn. The environment is unique, and the abruopt transition from familiar to wholly alien is strongly portrayed. Highlights for me were the descriptions of the isolation cells, the relationship between JT and Ketheria and between JT and Max (a friend from the Renaissance), and the character development of both Weegin, their alien master, and Switzer. - Alex
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