Orphan's Destiny

Jason Wander, having survived the Slug War in Orphanage and risen, to a frightening degree (especially to himself) simply by surviving, to the rank of general and commanding officer of the Ganymede Expeditionary Force, is relieved when a new ship arrives to take him and his seven hundred surviving soldiers home to Earth. Although he has spent the months between the defeat of the Slugs and the arrival of the Excalibur taking every relevant correspondence course that he can, including a lot of military history, he knows he's not remotely qualified to be a general, but harbors strong hopes that he's at least worked his way up to lieutenant.

After a journey home that proves he doesn't have the political skills and officer training to be a show more general in the presence of other senior officers who know what they're doing, he's appalled to discover that he's going to remain a general anyway, because the government needs a war hero as a pr tool. And as the general who defeated the Slugs and saved Earth, he's it. There's no one else who can fill that role. It's especially difficult for Jason because he believes that current US government policy is wrong; the new administration is spending funds on economic and infrastructure reconstruction that Jason, not convinced that the Slugs won't be back, believes need to be spent on building a better defense. His dilemma gets worse once he's made a few tours in his unwanted new capacity: while he's more convinced than ever that every penny needs to be spent on defense, it's also clear to him that, after the years of pounding by the Slugs, every penny also needs to be spent on reconstruction. The government is engaged in the thankless and probably impossible task of trying to divide the available resources to do both at least adequately.

It simplifies things, in a quite unwelcome way, when the Slugs do attack again, this time from a spaceship carrying the bulk of their invasion force. Jason is at least confronted with a problem he understands somewhat better, even if dealing with that problem involves lying, cheating, stealing, and disobeying orders. And of course, persuading some of his surviving friends and subordinates from the Ganymede expedition to do the same.

This book is in many ways in the tradition of Starship Troopers and The Forever War, but Heinlein and Haldeman were each in their different ways angry when they wrote their books celebrating the infantry. I think Buettner is mostly having fun here (and certainly the reader is), while still celebrating the common foot soldier and trying not to oversimplify and cast Jason's human obstacles to defending Earth as villains, or even necessarily completely wrong.

Very enjoyable. show less

Science Fiction. This is the 2nd book in the Orphanage series. The first half o the book chronicles Jason's time on Ganymede, his return to Earth and learning what life is like on Earth after the defeat of the "slugs". The second half of the book is realizing the "slugs" are not gone and figuring out how to save the planet. As with his 1st book, I love the authors ability to sound like an actual soldier. The book is a great read!

What happens when the war is over and the boys and girls in the armed forces come home? Parades, bureaucracy and budget cuts of course. However, what happens when the war isn't over?

Synopsis:
Jason Wander has just gone from an infantry grunt to the General after the fight on Ganymede, and after losing a vast majority of their fighting force, is on his way back to Earth. Whether or not he wants to be seen as a hero, the political machine has already decided that the too young general is going to be the face for this war, and be the person to announce the war is over. Jason on the other hand is as far from a bureaucrat as possible, and what's more he's not convinced that Earth has heard the last of the Slugs.

Also, as if to answer the show more prayers of Jason's worst nightmares, Howard, resident head Spook, has brought back a football shaped piece of alien technology. Jason, as if to answer the prayers of the government's worst nightmares, has decided that he does not want to be their puppet and declare the war is in fact over. If anyone has a right to be a pessimist it is certainly General Wander, and if anyone has any idea what Slugs are capable of it is not the government who has been sitting back on Earth waiting to find out if their soldiers survived or died. href="http://kellymelchersbookblog.blogspot.com/2009/05/book-review-orphans-destiny.html">Click here to read more... show less

A fun military sci-fi space romp. Enemies are basically slugs that throw themselves at us in suicidal waves. But, for the most part we don't see a ton of combat until the end of the book and some of it is space fleet vs space fleet. A good chunk of the book is the main character trying to deal with the regular military and the politicians back on earth thinking there are no more enemies to fight.

Who thought that the Slugs setup on Ganymede was all there were? Orphan's Destiny is a solid follow up to the original. I actually liked the "politics" in the first third of the book. Although, I thought that the humans were being a little stupid and naive. But who knows, maybe that is how we really would react to an alien encounter that ended in a near death experience for the species. I read through this book fairly quickly and had a good time with it.

"Orphan's Destiny" About par for a second book of a series. We see the survivors ( 700 of ten thousand) of the Battle of Gandymede come home to a Hero's welcome. after which they are descarded by a war weiry populations. General Jason Wander is paraded around as a trophy and celebrity to drum up support for politicians' ideas that he doesn't agree with. Of course the Slugs return and the battle begins again.
Still not a bad read for those that like military sci fi , or a few hours of pure escapeism.

I really enjoyed the first book in this series, however Orphan's Destiny just didn't have the same draw, in fact I have a difficult time remember many of the details of the story. Frankly I think this is because I didn't feel the same connection as I did the first time around. Certainly there really wasn't anything wrong with the story and it felt like a logical progression from the first book. There were images that I appreciated in this book that I continue to visualize, but they certainly weren't enough to buoy the whole book.