Orphanage [Hardcover]

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.

Spoilers!

I haven't yet read Starship Troopers, but I have seen the movie. If the movie is anything to go by, then this book is pretty much the same as it. That's not a bad thing though.

On buying this book I expected standard military-SF series fare, as turned out by so many ex-army soldiers/intelligence officers/marines/pilots etc. On that basis, this book lives up to it's expectations.

Again, no bad thing.

Orphanage follows the adventures of Jason Wander, prozac-popping troublemaker who has been on a downward slope since losing his only family - his mother - in an alien attack. "Projectiles" are being launched from Jupiter's moon Ganymede in an effort by the antagonists to kill off the population and alter the atmosphere of Earth to suit their own needs. To help the war effort, and to try and straighten Wander out, he is sent to train to be in the army.

I'm sure you can probably figure out the rest from here. This is a well-trodden archetypal story, but enjoyable nonetheless. And when I say it is just like the film of Starship Troopers, it really really is, right down to the accidental death in training due to stupidity, right down to the love between soldiers angle, right down to the travelling-to-another-world-to-blow-the-crap-of-the-aliens-only-to-get-their-arses-kicked-yet-miraculously-win-after-killing-the-main-brain-alien thread. The drill sergeant is a badass of course. You get the idea - fairly formulaic.

However, in so doing this, Buettner ensures the success of the book as an enjoyable read. This kind of story is familiar yes, but it's familiar because it's successful, and people have enjoyed reading it over the years in many different forms. How important you consider this is up to the reader - personally I didn't mind, as I expected it to pan out as such.

Buettner adds his own stamp to the otherwise well-known story. He explores the loss felt by people and soldiers during war, and how it makes orphans of those left behind. If anything this area isn't explored to it's fullest, nor is Wander's reliance on drugs to keep him going. Buettner is clearly well-read on his military history, and very frequently makes references to events that happened in past wars. As he writes in first person, it follows that Wander is a historian also, but outside of these references he never shows it and seems somewhat ignorant (unless I've missed something and I'm mistaken). This is a little conflicting.

The training element of the story is perhaps a little slow, but when we finally head to Ganymede the action shifts up a gear and moves past in a breeze. Along the way Buettner makes a good stab at how the world has been affected by the projectile attacks (but again, not enough) and takes us on a journey with relatable characters, honesty, and the odd jarring moment of silliness. Certain phrases are often repeated, such as "my heart " as a shorthand for describing how Wander is feeling, as well as the most criminal in my book, the shrug. There is far too much shrugging in this book. Nobody shrugs that much.

Overall this is a good opening to a series that shows promise. It's not particularly deep and doesn't pretend to be, and it is quick and easy to read (short chapters!). The gripes I have mentioned can be forgiven due to the fact that the story is simple and easy to digest.

However, the critic in me must say that it is all very familiar territory.

7/10

Competent but not great and I'm being generous with the four stars.

Begin with the action about to start and then spend two thirds of the novel showing how the narrator ended up in that situation, which is a fair enough way of doing things. The writing is competent, the protagonist is the standard underachiever who achieves, plot is okay -alien slugs bombard Earth with rocks, the dust causing the start of massive climate change -ironic as I'm writing this after my flight to Lanzarote was cancelled due to the Icelandic volcano erupting and throwing dust into the stratosphere and I read about half of it in the airport. It's predictable in that it's fairly obvious which of the supporting characters is going to die and doesn't really add anything new to this subgenre.

That said, it kept me reading and I've ordered the sequels -the cheapest copies available from Amazon Marketplace that is. This was an enjoyable enough time passer which I'm now about to drop off at my favourite charity shop. If you like military SF you'll like this.