“Engaging and ambitious . . . Eccentric Orbits is maximalist nonfiction, 500 pages of deep reporting put forward with epic intentions . . . a panoramic narrative, laced with fine filigree details, that makes for a story that soars and jumps and dives and digresses . . . [A] big, gutsy, exciting book.” —Jon Gertner, Wall Street Journal
“An exhaustive account . . . Eccentric Orbits not only offers good corporate drama, but is an enlightening narrative of how new communications infrastructures often come about: with a lot of luck, government help and investors who do not ask too many questions.” —Economist
“Those with visions of vast satellite communications networks dancing in their heads would do well to read John Bloom’s new book on [Iridium] . . . Bloom . . . tells this story well . . . He does a good job of explaining the technology and the importance of the inventors who made the technology possible.” —Dwayne A. Day, Washington Post
“An inspiring history as well as an effective business thriller . . . Bloom argues convincingly that creating and then saving Iridium was one . . . desperately difficult—and brilliant—achievement.” —Doug Millard, New Scientist
“Extensive . . . Sprawling . . . A detailed and entertaining history of the rise, fall, and rebirth of Iridium.” —Jeff Foust, Space Review
“Eccentric Orbits is a story rich in larger-than-life characters, including shady Cold War operatives and warrior-like Motorola executives . . . Bloom gives a wonderful sense of what an engineering marvel Iridium was.” —Bethany McLean, Strategy + Business (Best Business Books 2016)
“Highly engaging . . . Check it out.” —Bill Virgin, News Tribune
“A good read.” —Marketplace
“A prize-worthy example of the investigative genre . . . [Eccentric Orbits] has conflict and triumph on a Wagnerian scale . . . John Bloom has achieved in Eccentric Orbits an admirable balance of the human and the technological in what is at heart an age-old tale of one man’s triumph against apparently insuperable odds.” —Martin Vander Weyer, Literary Review
“Riveting . . . I’ve never used the term “tour de force” in a book review before, but if it ever belonged in one, it is this review of Eccentric Orbits.” —Dylan Schleicher, 800-CEO-READ
“An outstanding read . . . [An] inspiring story . . . Highly recommended.” —Robert Poole, Jr., ATC Reform News
“Spellbinding . . . A tireless researcher, Bloom delivers a superlative history . . . A tour de force.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“Eccentric Orbits does for the 1990s birth of the satellite phone industry what Tracy Kidder’s Soul of a New Machine did for the next-generation computer business. It’s a wild story . . . With a deep cast of characters, Eccentric Orbits is like George Lucas’s Star Wars saga—complicated, seemingly never-ending and thrilling . . . Funny, informative, exciting . . . A business book that reads like a thriller complete with heroes, villains, subplots and intrigue . . . A sprawling masterpiece of history and reporting.” —Bruce Jacobs, Shelf Awareness
“Eccentric Orbits is a remarkable work. I had known about Iridium but not about its fascinating history. John Bloom’s writing style is attractive and the level of detail is astonishing. This was a page turner for me!” —Vint Cerf, Chief Internet Evangelist, Google
“Interested in giant, head-scratching miscalculations by a great American company? The power of one man to rescue the world’s biggest deployment of low-earth satellites? A place where genius engineering meets a total lack of common sense? Then John Bloom’s book about Motorola’s multibillion-dollar debacle, Iridium, is for you. Eccentric Orbits is both a novelistic thriller and a cautionary tale, a page-turner about a reach for the heavens and a business primer on a near-fatal fall back to the earth.” —Julian Guthrie, author of The Billionaire and the Mechanic
“This book takes readers on an unusual, head-shaking investigative journey ab​out the provocative but little-known history of Iridium, the only phone network that covers anyone, anywhere, in the world—and which almost disappeared in a hell-bent suicidal incineration. Impeccably researched, and in smooth, easy prose, John Bloom interweaves fascinating historical trivia about the space race, satellites, and global communications with detail-filled personality snapshots and cringingly revealing, often disturbingly humorous, insights about the many ways big business can shoot itself in the foot.” —John Brewer, former president and editor-in-chief, New York Times Syndicate and News Service
“John Bloom’s Eccentric Orbits, which tells the story of one of the most ambitious projects in the history of technology, is the most compelling book I have read in a long while. Bloom somehow coaxed the deepest thoughts and darkest secrets out of many satellite engineers, skeptical VCs, business royalty, inner-city tycoons, Italian marketers, Russian rocket launchers, Arabian princes, corporate CEOs, African leaders, Washington insiders, insurance giants, Pentagon brass, government lifers, politicians, and frustrated bankruptcy judges. This is a masterpiece of research and storytelling. If not for Bloom, one of the greatest stories of American ingenuity and bullheadedness would still lie scattered in thousands of documents and the memories of those who lived it.” —Gary Kinder, author of Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea
“This is a monumental piece of non-fiction, not just for the breadth and depth of the research, but for its audacity: Bloom seeks to make technology and marketing and high finance dramatic and funny and instructive of the human condition—and succeeds. Until I read this, I had always assumed that my cell phone was created by something like spontaneous combustion; like one day, it just appeared between my right hand and my ear, as if it had always belonged there. Bloom has given all of us—all billions of us—the back story on it, and what a strange, tangled, convoluted, fairly hilarious one it is.” —Jim Atkinson, Texas Monthly contributing editor
“Build a better mousetrap, and the world will erect every possible obstacle to its success. That’s the sobering lesson of John Bloom’s book on the progress of a reliable, cheap, encrypted, worldwide mobile phone system to supermarket shelves. The exhilarating lesson is that it can be done if you have visionary geeks, hard-boiled veterans, retired capitalists, and the occasional eccentric rebellious bureaucrat determined to do it. This is high scientific journalism, exciting business journalism, and a rattling good tale. It even includes Nazis.” —John O’Sullivan, author of The President, the Pope, and the Prime Minister: Three Who Changed the World
“Pacy [and] . . . worth reading, not just for the wild ride that involves secretive Saudi sheikhs, plucky terrorists, never-say-die businessmen and Bill Clinton, but also as a reminder of how vast business can be vastly dumb . . . A thrilling boom-to-boom corporate drama.” —Sunday Times (UK)
“John Bloom’s account of the Iridium satellite network is more than a ripping read, it is both a commentary on the way we do technology today and a reminder of Friedrick Hayek’s observation that presumed experts and planners are the last people you want picking winners. A tale well told is a thing of delight, and John Bloom’s Eccentric Orbits: The Iridium Story does not fail.” —Quadrant (Australia)
“Prepare to be amazed . . . Bloom’s retelling of the idea, creation, and near destruction of one of mankind’s greatest achievements is packed full of corporate espionage, cold war negotiations, and very rich people spending their money on the most extreme ideas.” —Hudson Booksellers (Best Books of 2016)
Atlantic Monthly Press
