Customer Reviews

Orphanage

5 star:		(31)
4 star:		(22)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

"We crabbed shoulder to shoulder down the cargo nets to our landing craft bucking in the Channel, each GI's bilge -and-sea-soaked boots drenching his buddy below. In that moment I realized that we fight not for flags or against tyrants but for each other. For whatever remains of my life, those barely met strangers who dangled around me will be my only family. Strip away politics and whatever or whenever, war is an orphanage."
-Anonymous letter fragment, Recovered on Omaha Beach,
Normandy, June 1944.
Orphanage begins with this quote but it began a long time ago. This book is written in homage to Science Fiction Greats Robert A. Heinlien, and Joe Haldeman, who each wrote political commentaries on War set in science fiction stories. Heinlein wrote his original Starship Troopers in 1959, and Haldeman wrote his The Forever War in 1972 and revised it in 1975. Each of these books follows a young man from basic training through to great battles to attempt to save the earth from aliens, as does our story.
Our grunt is Jason Wander, a young man mad at the Universe, his parents were killed in the first meteor impact. After a few run-ins with the law because of anger and lashing out after his loss, he is given the choice to serve prison time or in the military. At some point in his training he goes from being apathetic, to deciding to become a good soldier. His adventure lead him to the moon where he is the first human to encounter the slugs who are trying to wipe out all life on earth, then onto Ganymade where the first major conflict of this war begins. Ganymade is the outpost in our solar system for our alien enemies that we are being bombarded from. During the heroic battle as the force of 10,000 is knocked down to a few hundred, he is promoted time and time again, for succeeding and rising to the occasion. Field promotions are hard earned for they come at the loss of good men and women, and with each promotion you become responsible for more lives. Can he take the pressure, can he save earth, read it and find out.

Like the other reviewers, I really enjoyed "Orphanage". But having read "The Forever War" and "Starship Troopers" recently, I couldn't help but notice that most every major plot point or character stereotype in "Orphanage" was lifted from those two books.

Talented space pilot who happens to be the main characters friend? Check (Starship Troopers). Human handlers psychicly and emotionally attached to a robot/dog scouting the front lines? Check (Starship Troopers). Main character emotionally attached to a female who gets wounded on the front lines? Check (Forever War). Evil aliens thowing large objects at Earth in order to soften us up? Check (Starship Troopers) Main character haunted by the death of a family member who happened to be at ground zero when said object hits Earth? Check (Starship Troopers). Main character part of the first assault wave against the aliens, only to be handed a crushing defeat? Check (both Starship Troopers and Forever War). Main character's military mentor tries to rejoin the front in time for battle? Check (Forever War).

This list goes on and on, right down to the manner in which Jason Wander ends up in the military, with some minor variation. Granted, there are some trademark cliches of the genre that are simply unavoidable. But really, this seems a bit much. "Orphanage" reads like the redheaded stepchild of both of its superior forebears. There are some original elements to it, as Jason Wander becomes attached to military intelligence unit scouting a crashed alien Projectile on the moon. Or earlier on as Wander is sent into the remains of Pittsburgh searching for Projectile debris (including a subplot involving Wander's almost-psychic ability to find said debris, which is never followed up on).

Again, "Orphanage" is a good read, and I am genuinely anticipating the sequel, which is promised in the author's biography. Hopefully, the sequel will be more original than this first volume.

I kept reading reviews all over the net claiming Orphanage was the novel of the year, of the decade, this generation's Starship Troopers. Right. I know books. I know Heinlein. So I appointed myself as a Truth Squad and plunked down $6.99 to set the record straight.

Twenty-four couldn't-put-it-down hours later, I reveal The Truth to you all: The reviews are right. Orphanage may be the definitive military coming-of-age story of the Post-9/11 generation. Easily 2004's best SF novel, but it is fast, funny and accessible enough that general-fiction readers can gobble it like Grisham or Grafton.

Orphanage is the story of smart, underacheiving teen Jason Wander, who grows a chip on his shoulder as big as Jupiter after alien bombs kill his mother and millions of others. Jason comes of age in the infantry and winds up "one of the lucky orphans who in one hour will save the human race or die trying." His infantry division must invade Jupiter's moon, Ganymede, and destroy the Alien outpost that is sending the bombs. They have to win with pasted-up antiques. Each time you think things can't get worse, they do.

Halfway through, I thought I loved this book because it was fast, funny, superbly-written entertainment. When I finished it, I realized that I loved it because I would never look at soldiers the same way again. And today that matters.

Warner Books released Orphanage as a low-profile, mass-market, genre paperback. As The Word gets out, my $6.99 for that first-printing paperback is going to look like an investment.

Wow! I couldn't put this book down. Buettner did a great job of keeping the reader invested in each and every character. This is by far the best sci-fi book I have read this year. I can certainly see this exciting story as the next big blockbuster movie.

A spur of the moment purchase that turned out to be a day and a half of non-stop reading. A new entry into military SF has arrived. Written by a soldier about what really modivates individuals that take up the sword as a profession. Orphanage is the story of the development of a unified Terran military force as told from the viewpoint a grunt whose simple choice is military service or jail. If you enjoyed "Starship Troopers", "Joe Mauser", Hammer's Slammers" or "Falkenberg's Legion then this book is for you.

When I received this book I began to read and found myself unable to do much of anything until I finished it. The narrator's voice makes you feel as though it is your good friend telling you this heartfelt story.
I have not read Forever War, but have read Starship Troopers. And, unlike the previous reviewer I find the book is just a great new version of Starship Troopers. The similarities to "Troopers" are obvious, but that is what the cover of the book tells you.
I highly recommend picking up this fantastic new story. It kept my weekend full of good reading.

At last, a worthy successor to _Starship Troopers_ and _The Forever War_.

Robert Buettner offers more than simple homage in this fine military-SF novel. Oh, the homage is there; he acknowledges both Heinlein and Haldeman, and he incorporates variations of themes not only from _Starship Troopers_ but also from _The Puppet Masters_. But he's not merely copying stuff others have done before him. On the contrary, it's almost impossible to write a novel in this genre _without_ incorporating many things that now seem 'cliche' because the original masters did such a memorable job of inventing them.

You can gather from the other reviews everything you need to know about the plot. Jason Wander, as you'll learn within the first few pages, is a young man who lost his mother in a devastating attack by some aliens who seem to want to move onto our planet and hope to soften us up. He winds up serving in the infantry; we follow him through Basic Training and off to Ganymede, where the aliens have a base. (No doubt this will remind many readers of Juan Rico, but Wander is a different character entirely and he has his own voice altogether. In fact, his cynical smartassery recalls the best work of Keith Laumer.)

An excellent, excellent work of post-9/11 military SF. Heinlein would have loved it.

And three cheers to Fred Gambino for a magnificent piece of cover art.

I rarely read sci-fi these days. If more books were like this one, I'd be an addict again. This here's the real deal--a delightful adventure in the grand Heinlein tradition. No lover of old-fashioned space opera should miss it.

It's not every day that a writer's first novel draws praise from Joe Haldeman (author of The Forever War) and comparisons with Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers. Robert Buettner's Orphanage, though, certainly deserves many of the accolades it has garnered. The novel doesn't have the complex socio-political subtext of a Starship Troopers, but it does serve up one heck of a good military science fiction adventure. There isn't time for political rumination or sociological analysis in Buettner's Earth of 2040. The Earth is under attack from an unknown extraterrestrial enemy, and it needs people to go out there and kill some aliens - and that's where Jason Wander fits in.

Wander's life changed the day his mother visited Indianapolis, only to be killed by an alien projectile. He becomes something of a juvenile delinquent, popping Prozacs to keep himself from thinking about his loss. After getting into trouble, he is given a choice between jail time and the life of a soldier. In boot camp, he continues to screw up - until nearby Pittsburgh is destroyed instantaneously by another projectile. Even then, he makes another huge mistake and should really have been booted out of the infantry for good - but he wasn't. Thus it is that this most unlikeliest of soldiers becomes the first human to ever see a live alien and plays a crucial role in mankind's first offensive mission of the intergalactic war. If you like to see normal human beings in your science fiction, Jason Wander is your man. He's as real as they come - funny, sarcastic, temperamental, and as cowardly as he is brave - in other words, he has the makings of a true hero.

These aliens, I should mention, are Slugs, an alien life form that intelligence specialists struggle to understand and defend against. Their attack on the Earth comes in the form of unarmed projectiles which decimate city after city across the globe. A few decades of peace have made the world woefully unprepared for such a military crisis, and the good guys go to war with a lot of equipment dating as far back as the First Gulf War or even World War II. After discovering that the Slugs have established a firing base on Ganymede, one of Jupiter's moons, UN forces prepare a daring counter-offensive, secretly launching it years before it is officially supposed to be ready. Despite a series of court-martial offenses, Wander is there. The attack does not go as planned, not by a long shot, and that only makes Wander's story all the more intense.

If you're wondering about the title of the novel, it comes from the idea that war makes orphans of all soldiers. When you're there in the heat of battle, your only family consists of the men and women fighting alongside you - and, when it comes right down to it, you fight like hell for them - not for yourself, not for your family, not even for your country (or, in this case, planet). Wander fights primarily for three of his compatriots - his old buddy Metzger, a rocket jockey who got famous by shooting projectiles out of the sky; his fellow gunner "Munchkin," an Egyptian lass he treasures for more than one reason; and a pilot named Pooh, the new love of Wander's life (a life which promises to be a very short one indeed).

The war as we see it in Orphanage is a personal war - Wander's war. As a former military intelligence officer, Robert Buettner proves himself more than capable of presenting battle at is most visceral level, as seen through the eyes of a grunt. There are some interesting science fiction elements involved in the storyline, and yes, there are certainly similarities with the science fiction of Heinlein and Haldeman to be found here, but Orphanage really tells its own story - and a thrilling story it is.

I have heard it said that all of the current fantasy fiction is from authors who needed more hobbits and dwarves and wizards. That they could not accept the loss of Tolkien. I have never been able to accept the loss of Johnny Rico, Carmen, Sgt. Zim and the Roughnecks. I have not been able to accept the loss of Robert Heinlein and now I don't have to.

Mr Buettner has given us a homage to "Starship Troopers". Yes, it is derivative and I can see Rico, Raezcak, Zim and the others in this novel. Since Heinlein didn't give us the rest of the story Buettner has. I would classify this as juvenile fiction in the same vein as Heinlein's juveniles. He has different characters in a different unvierse but is telling the same story. Not of glory, but of sacrifice. Not of great ideals, but of the man next to you and the unit you live with.

And he is going to tell us more.

Good enough for me.