imported>Marcocapelle: removed Category:Soviet Union in fiction; added Category:Works set in the Soviet Union using HotCat

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removed Category:Soviet Union in fiction; added Category:Works set in the Soviet Union using HotCat

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{{Short description|Short story by William Gibson, Bruce Sterling}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=March 2025}}
{{Infobox short story | 
| name = Red Star, Winter Orbit
| author = [[William Gibson]] and [[Bruce Sterling]]
| country = [[Canada]]
| language = [[English language|English]]
| series =
| genre = [[Science fiction]]
| publication_type = [[Anthology]]
| published_in = ''[[Omni (magazine)|Omni]]'', ''[[Burning Chrome (short story collection)|Burning Chrome]]'', ''[[Mirrorshades (book)|Mirrorshades]]''
| publisher =
| media_type = Print ([[Hardcover|hardback]] and [[paperback]])
| pub_date =July 1983
| preceded_by = [[Burning Chrome]]
| followed_by = [[The Winter Market]]
}}
"'''Red Star, Winter Orbit'''" is a short story written by [[William Gibson]] and [[Bruce Sterling]] in the 1980s.<ref name=frailty/> It was first published in ''[[Omni (magazine)|Omni]]'' in July 1983, and later collected in ''[[Burning Chrome (short story collection)|Burning Chrome]]'', a 1986 anthology of Gibson's early short fiction, and in Sterling's 1986 [[cyberpunk]] [[anthology]] ''[[Mirrorshades (book)|Mirrorshades]]''. The story is set in an [[alternate future]] where the [[Soviet Union]] controls most of the Earth's resources, especially oil. As a result of this the [[United States]] is no longer a dominant economic power on earth and the Soviets have won the [[space race]].

Science fiction critic [[Takayuki Tatsumi]] regards the story as a descriptive account of "the failure of the dream of space exploration", reminiscent of [[J. G. Ballard]]'s "inner space/outer space" motif.<ref name=gothic/> Gibson scholar Tatiani Rapatzikou commented that the motif of the [[space station]] was used by the authors as a "symbol of the tension and uneasiness the characters or readers experience every time they deal with the artificiality of their technological world".<ref name=gothic/>

== Plot summary ==
The story takes place on the Soviet [[space station]] ''Kosmograd'' ("Cosmic City"), which consists of a number of [[Salyut program|Salyut]]s linked together. The station has both civilian and military roles; the military portion is a base for the operation for two large [[particle beam weapon]]s for shooting down [[ICBM]]s. The civilian side, once a hub for [[space exploration]], is now reduced to a maintenance role for the engineers running the station. Most of the story takes place in one of the Salyuts that has been set aside as the "Museum of the Soviet Triumph in Space." Its caretaker is [[cosmonaut]] Colonel Yuri Vasilevich Korolev, the first man to visit [[Mars]].

As the story opens, the military role is no longer required now that the United States has lost [[superpower]] status and the threat of ICBMs is gone. The government decides to stop crewing the station, but this would involve a loss of face as they would be abandoning their last occupied space presence. At first they plan on blaming the station's shutdown on the civilian crew's [[black market]] activities, the minor trafficking in American media. When he hears of the shutdown, Korolev organizes a strike, demanding the charges be dropped. He is ignored, and the station rapidly deteriorates.

On the ground, a [[purge]] starts within the space establishment that removes most of the "old guard." The remaining administrators decide to put the station in a [[Orbital decay|decaying orbit]], and blame the ''Kosmograd's '' demise on Korolev, the strike's leader. After 20 years in space, Korolev can no longer return to Earth and will make a convenient [[scapegoat]].

Korolev instead hatches a plan to use the remaining [[Soyuz spacecraft|Soyuz]] capsules to allow the crew to make their [[defection]] to [[Japan]] after landing in [[China]]. His attempts to interfere with the military side of the station fail and they prepare to fire on the defectors. One of the capsules returns and deliberately crashes into the weapon. The military crew is killed when their portion of the station is ripped open, and Korolev is locked in the civilian side when the doors automatically close. He is left alone in a decaying orbit.

Some time later, Korolev awakens to find one of the hatches being knocked on from the outside. Thinking he is [[dream]]ing, he comes to his senses when the hatch is opened and several [[Americans]] enter the station. Hearing it had been abandoned, they have decided to leave their [[squatting|squat]] on a [[solar-power]] [[balloon]] and take over the station to form a new [[colony]]. The story ends with Korolev being asked to give a tour of the station for its new inhabitants.

== References ==
{{reflist|refs=
<ref name=frailty>{{cite news|work=[[The Jerusalem Post]] |date=August 24, 1997 |title=The frail humanity of Mir |first=Ivgeny |last=Pesahovitch |author2=Olga Pollack |page=6|quote=The novelist William Gibson said in a recent interview that the best science fiction of the 1990s is on CNN news. Gibson and Bruce Sterling wrote a story in the 1980s called Red Star, Winter Orbit, set in a dilapidated Soviet space station slowly falling apart. As usual, the science-fiction writers, the real prophets of our age, were ahead of the launch of Mir, as well as of its current decay. Yet Gibson admitted it would have been hard for him "to beat that garbage-module slamming into Mir! ... Looking back, I can see that we didn't go nearly far enough [in the Red Star story.]"}}</ref>
<ref name=gothic>{{cite book | last = Rapatzikou | first = Tatiana | title = Gothic Motifs in the Fiction of William Gibson | publisher = Rodopi | location = Amsterdam | year = 2004 | isbn = 90-420-1761-9 |pages=63–64}}</ref>}}

==External links==
*[http://www.antonraubenweiss.com/gibson/short.html#redstar "Red Star, Winter Orbit"] at the William Gibson Aleph
*{{ISFDB title|id=41252}}

{{William Gibson}}

[[Category:Cyberpunk short stories]]
[[Category:1983 short stories]]
[[Category:Science fiction short stories]]
[[Category:Short stories by William Gibson]]
[[Category:Short stories by Bruce Sterling]]
[[Category:Works about astronauts]]
[[Category:Works originally published in Omni (magazine)]]
[[Category:Fiction about outer space]]
[[Category:Fictional space stations]]
[[Category:Works set in the Soviet Union]]
[[Category:Communism in fiction]]
[[Category:Cold War fiction]]
[[Category:Alternate history short stories]]

Red Star, Winter Orbit - Revision history

imported>Marcocapelle: removed Category:Soviet Union in fiction; added Category:Works set in the Soviet Union using HotCat