Local Lift: Nora Wall and her third novel ‘Orbury’

Local author Nora Wall. Photo: Nora Wall

PARK CITY, Utah — Recent Park City High School Graduate and current freshman at the University of Iowa, Nora Wall, has published her third science fiction novel, titled Orbury.

This book comes after her two previous works, The Dominion and Time Never Stops: Musings of the Last Man.

Wall is heavily influenced by George Orwell and Ray Bradbury and their dystopian worlds.

Orbury is structured like Christopher Nolan’s film Memento, in that one of the characters writes his criminal transcript backward, eventually converging with the narrative of another.

“It’s a very near future, dystopian city,” said Wall of the book’s setting. “It’s very self-contained.”

Regarding the society conveyed in Orbury, Wall said “it’s pretty much dominated by technology. They have a physical dictator, but people are monitored through devices called lenses. They’re forced to have them inserted into their eyes when they’re 18 — for monitoring.”

She originally wrote it when she was 16, and somewhat rewrote it the following year.

“The technology aspect of it was mostly inspired by Fahrenheit 451,” she said.

“In some respects, it was definitely about social media and kind of mass entertainment.”

When Wall was asked about the progression of technology today and its impact on society, she said it offers both positives and negatives.

“Advances in areas such as medicine and general technology is a good thing, but I think it has the potential to just kind of destroy a sense of individualism and arts and culture and things like that. I don’t think we’ve reached that point yet, but I think it would have the potential to do that eventually.”

For fun, Wall plays on the university’s rugby team.

You can purchase Orbury for $9.49 on Amazon.