Orphan's Destiny (Jason Wander, 2)

In book two of what is so far a trilogy, Robert Buettner continues with his reluctant hero, Jason Wander. Jason, now a general and senior surviver of the first off planet human military expedition, has to try and adjust to a world that is quite happy to forget the threat they had barely survived. In a world trying to pick up the pieces and rebuild, the Armed Forces have become very expensive "luxuries". To history minded readers, the whole story will remind you of America's frantic post WW1/2 disarming. While grateful, the world wants those resources a military would use to try and get life back to normal. So Jason gets drafted to front the American disarmament move, after all if the Hero of Ganymede says its safe, it must be. Most of the book follows his seeing the world's problems and trying to earnestly obey his orders to be the voice of military agreement. Of course then the problem of uncooperative Slugs rears its head again... The book reads well, its obvious Buettner spent time in the Army too but not much around enlisted men. The technology and background scenes are not too far fetched to confuse, they actually let one become absorbed in seeing familiar things still similar in the future. The story is on two levels, the traditional (in the US anyway) civil vs military budget needs (guns versus butter)and Jason's personal angst in a world in no longer seems to fit in. Its worth picking up.

Back to war. After we left our hero Jason Wander at the end of Orphanage, we believed that we were free from the slugs. Wander was one of the few who doubted it. It took him over two years to return to earth and the earth was in sad shape. The destruction that had been so devastating before he left, was now even worse. After almost 2 years of near nuclear winter, vegetation and animals were struggling to survive the climate change and it would be years before the atmospheric dust cleared itself up. Orphan has a new Military mission to convince the media and the population that the threat is over and that money should be spent on rebuilding the world, not military spending. The problem is, he is not sure he believes it. Like many veterans, he struggles with guilt: why did he survive and so many others did not? Why did he bury his love and his friends so far from home? Then his worst fears are confirmed: there is an attack that takes out earth's only military spaceport. He must once again do the impossible, and lead a small band of determined men and women back to space for a last-ditch effort to save earth from a fleet of 121 ships larger than any we have, and 1 ship the size of a city. Read Orphan's Destiny and see if Wander can pull off a miracle a second time, or will humanity lose all hope. (First Published in Imprint 2005-09-23 as 'Return of Killer Slugs')

This was outstanding read, I really enjoyed this book and the whole series.

Earth was unaware that Slugs used Jupiter's moon Ganymede as a base of operations to invade. Over sixty million humans died while cities were decimated. The climate as a result of the explosion radically changed for the worse. It was due to the heroism of General Jason Wander and his troops that humanity defeated the Slugs. Now the seven hundred survivors of the infantry are going home to Earth where Jason is used as a heroic symbol by the politicians who want the budget to be focused more on rebuilding than on defense weapons. The problem is that Jason isn't sure that the Slug problem is over but he is ordered by the president to not raise fear in the citizenry. Unfortunately Jason is proven right when a vast amount of Slug spaceships, some as big as cities head towards an earth that has only one working warship. Jason and three people he trusts try to devise a suicide mission that will destroy the Slug fleet if God is there copilot. ORPHAN'S DESTINY defines twenty-first military science fiction novels. This is also a coming of age tale of an infantry soldier who earns a field promotion as a general and then becomes the leader such a high ranking officer is supposed to be. There is plenty of action in this entertaining novel set in a near future that is totally believable. Technology hasn't advanced too much since the early twenty-first century but there were enough changes to give the book a futuristic feel. In the next book in this series humanity takes the war to the Slugs. Harriet Klausner

Great book. Really follows nicely with Orphanage. After winning against the aliens Wander is returned to Earth that is trying to recover the economy of pre war times. The story line is pretty predictable but the dialog and situations are simply some of the best. The character development is also good as we see the main characters continue to grow. The last chapter is again set further in the future so thankfully he is planning more books in this storyline.