Review by Frank Plowright

Azar Sharif and her mother have recently moved from New York to Vermont where they’re renting part of a house from reclusive author Shannon Wahle, and Azar has already befriended his son Tristan. The process of restoring and selling their previous home is taking far longer than anticipated, making Azar annoyed at her father for remaining in Brooklyn on her birthday, but she finds some solace in one of her landlord’s SF fantasies from years previously.

Kazimir Lee uses continuing excerpts from the novel to accompany illustrations of Azar’s neighbourhood, contrasting the rural aspects with sights seen in any urban community. It’s attractive artwork defining people and locations while also ensuring clear storytelling in which Azar is central. She knows she’s gay, but is unable to tell her mother, who has fixed opinions, and the first third of Low Orbit follows Azar navigating assorted social difficulties until reaching a crisis point.

That’s counterpointed by excerpts from the novel Azar’s reading, about which she learns additional circumstances that prompted the writing. There’s a purpose to excerpts from ‘The Exiles of Otherworld’, but they’re also intrusive, and readers not greatly keen on science fiction may find the passages dull, not least because Lee uses them to extend Low Orbit’s deliberately slow pace. Azar’s story could have been efficiently told without using text from the novel.

Hers is a learning process of everyone having their disagreements and troubles. What at first seems an ideal existence with others has fractures, and Lee’s subtle in showing Azar as someone able to figure out the problems of others and devise solutions. The deliberate leisurely pace is a confident statement, and while everyone is seen to be flawed sooner or later, there’s no judgemental viewpoint accompanying this, which is an effectively mature statement from a creator producing their first graphic novel.

That’s apparent in other ways, though, as Lee diverts into unnecessary scenes. The most obvious is almost sixty pages set at a convention, where the essence of what needed told requires nowhere near that page count. On the other hand, there’s not a panel wasted in showing Azar’s experiences immediately afterward.

Low Orbit is an appealing slice of life drama, a confident opening statement, and the work of someone who’s only going to become more impressive.