Ouroboros
January 7th, 2006, 11:15 AM
At what point does a tribute risk making itself redundant, if it remains forever in the shadow of what it pays tribute to?
Robert Buettner's 'Orphanage' shares so many superficial similarities with 'Starship Troopers' that if you are familliar with the basic plot of either then you know the outline of both. They are effectively interchangable: In a future society bugs throw rock(s) at earth and the human military responds with a faultering campaign to prevent mankind being snuffed out.
Both are first person coming-of-age stories fused with miltiary SF at least, and in the case of 'Starship Troopers' a case can be made for reading the novel as a meditation on the vanishing appreciation society places on those persons willing to place the survival of the body politic and society as a whole before their own survival. It is difficult to make the same case for a deeper purose in 'Orphanage'. It can't really be read as an intelligent commentary on Heinlein, as Haldeman's 'Forever War' can be. Nor is it a conscious attempt at focusing on the action element of the story, as John Steakley's cult classic 'Armor' was.
OK, let me backtrack and establish what 'Orphanage' is like in its own right, before I continue throwing rocks of my own at it. I'm being a bit unfair to it.
Buetter is a former military intelligence bloke. This is always a good start for any prospective writer of authentic military SF. Heinlein was a naval man. Haldeman and Drake cut their teeth in vietnam. More recently, John Ringo and Tom Kratman are both veterans of the big green machine. Kratman, in fact, was also a US marine I believe.
As a result of his own life-experiences, Buettner can inject that little bit of authenticity that is sometimes missing otherwise: The bureaucracy and petty mundanity of everyday military life, and contrastingly the visceral physical reaction of the body to combat situations, with all its perceptual distortion and shock.
In respect of his battle scenes, Buettner is particularly able to reflect the 'murphy's law' quality of real conflicts. Whether a fist-fight or a campaign, a maxim which always seems to prove itself true is that "if it can go wrong, it will go wrong". 'Orphanage' is strewn with the bodies of supporting characters who are offed at a staggering rate and often with a meaninglessness that mirrors the reality of conflict. Veterans sitting in drop-ships are skewered by bits of loose gear dislodged during a rough landing. Ships full of soldiers vanish into lakes of ash. Others are smothered in their sleep by the invertebrate alien enemy.
Buettner's protagonist, Jason Wander, is similar enough to Heinlein's eager-to-please Fillipino Johnny Rico that initially I expected him to have a comparatively soft ride through his coming-of-age. Rico, blandly competent, gets over his 'hump' deceptively easily in that his personal trials and tribulations are swallowed into Heinlein's broader descriptions of the training process at Camp Currie. Barring his one final brush with administrative punishment, Rico heads out into the bug war having been successfully conditioned and indoctrinated. From there, its all 'up' for him, into a spot as an NCO and then into OCS.
Kudos to Buetter, as such, for making Wander the kind of screw-up that Rico never was. For the bulk of 'Orphanage', Wander is the lowest common denominator is his crop of recruits. He may shoot exceptionally, he may be more physically capabale than some of the others, but he consistently fails to fit into military life and the notion of a square peg going into a round hole springs to mind. The final cherry on the cake is his scraping through boot camp thanks to some political string-pulling necessitated by his involvment in a drugs incident which resulted in the death of a fellow trainee.
We are told at a later date that Wander was 'born' for the leadership role that he finds thrust upon him, and indeed that others 'saw' the necessary qualities in him which he himself was oblivious to. I would have preferred to be shown rather than told, in the sense that we see precious little evidence of the maturation process that Wander is supposed to have undergone. While we have incidences of compassion, these are almost always related to self-interest. We have incidences of Wander displaying physical courage, but from the first incident we meet him (in front of a judge for assaulting a teacher), we know that he does not fear conflict. While I can accept that Wander has the "it" which makes not just a good soldier, but a good officer, Buettner does little to tease it out.
Buettner's focus remains closely on Wander, and little of the overall war is painted. This is also the case in 'Starship Troopers', to an extent, but there is a crucial difference: Heinlein's society's response to the alien threat is simple: "Fight!". And as a result of vicariously sitting in Mr. Dubois' classes with Johnny, we can understand why they are so prepared and able to do so. The philosophy of Rico's society is expounded step by step, from education through discipline through to its highest aspirational goals for its citizens. Buettner's future society also fights, but through Wander we learn little about the whys and hows.
Is 'Orphanage', as promised, a "hell of a good read"?
Well, This is competent military SF, and very much blood kin to 'Starship Troopers'. Perhaps not in the same mould in the stylistic sense, related like a younger brother clinging on the coat-tails of an older sibling. The prose is modern and conversational, peppered with references to sex and general hedonism (Heinlein saved this for his other books). Wander is an interesting protagonist as a result of, rather than despite his flaws, making Rico look like 'Mr. Clean'. There is something endearing about anyone who drugs himself before his final exam, which involves throwing live grenades. All around him, more able and professional people are blown to hamburger meat. But its Wander who is left standing. Perhaps Buetter is teaching us another great maxim of military life: "Its better to be lucky than good".
In conclusion: Readable. Good military SF is always a worthy exercise. I question whether Buettner didn't do himself an injustice in setting out to mirror Heinlein quite so closely. I am tempted to suggest that anyone contemplating reading it should first be steered towards Heinlein's original at all costs.
'Orphan's desinty' awaits on my shelf.
Robert Buettner's 'Orphanage' shares so many superficial similarities with 'Starship Troopers' that if you are familliar with the basic plot of either then you know the outline of both. They are effectively interchangable: In a future society bugs throw rock(s) at earth and the human military responds with a faultering campaign to prevent mankind being snuffed out.
Both are first person coming-of-age stories fused with miltiary SF at least, and in the case of 'Starship Troopers' a case can be made for reading the novel as a meditation on the vanishing appreciation society places on those persons willing to place the survival of the body politic and society as a whole before their own survival. It is difficult to make the same case for a deeper purose in 'Orphanage'. It can't really be read as an intelligent commentary on Heinlein, as Haldeman's 'Forever War' can be. Nor is it a conscious attempt at focusing on the action element of the story, as John Steakley's cult classic 'Armor' was.
OK, let me backtrack and establish what 'Orphanage' is like in its own right, before I continue throwing rocks of my own at it. I'm being a bit unfair to it.
Buetter is a former military intelligence bloke. This is always a good start for any prospective writer of authentic military SF. Heinlein was a naval man. Haldeman and Drake cut their teeth in vietnam. More recently, John Ringo and Tom Kratman are both veterans of the big green machine. Kratman, in fact, was also a US marine I believe.
As a result of his own life-experiences, Buettner can inject that little bit of authenticity that is sometimes missing otherwise: The bureaucracy and petty mundanity of everyday military life, and contrastingly the visceral physical reaction of the body to combat situations, with all its perceptual distortion and shock.
In respect of his battle scenes, Buettner is particularly able to reflect the 'murphy's law' quality of real conflicts. Whether a fist-fight or a campaign, a maxim which always seems to prove itself true is that "if it can go wrong, it will go wrong". 'Orphanage' is strewn with the bodies of supporting characters who are offed at a staggering rate and often with a meaninglessness that mirrors the reality of conflict. Veterans sitting in drop-ships are skewered by bits of loose gear dislodged during a rough landing. Ships full of soldiers vanish into lakes of ash. Others are smothered in their sleep by the invertebrate alien enemy.
Buettner's protagonist, Jason Wander, is similar enough to Heinlein's eager-to-please Fillipino Johnny Rico that initially I expected him to have a comparatively soft ride through his coming-of-age. Rico, blandly competent, gets over his 'hump' deceptively easily in that his personal trials and tribulations are swallowed into Heinlein's broader descriptions of the training process at Camp Currie. Barring his one final brush with administrative punishment, Rico heads out into the bug war having been successfully conditioned and indoctrinated. From there, its all 'up' for him, into a spot as an NCO and then into OCS.
Kudos to Buetter, as such, for making Wander the kind of screw-up that Rico never was. For the bulk of 'Orphanage', Wander is the lowest common denominator is his crop of recruits. He may shoot exceptionally, he may be more physically capabale than some of the others, but he consistently fails to fit into military life and the notion of a square peg going into a round hole springs to mind. The final cherry on the cake is his scraping through boot camp thanks to some political string-pulling necessitated by his involvment in a drugs incident which resulted in the death of a fellow trainee.
We are told at a later date that Wander was 'born' for the leadership role that he finds thrust upon him, and indeed that others 'saw' the necessary qualities in him which he himself was oblivious to. I would have preferred to be shown rather than told, in the sense that we see precious little evidence of the maturation process that Wander is supposed to have undergone. While we have incidences of compassion, these are almost always related to self-interest. We have incidences of Wander displaying physical courage, but from the first incident we meet him (in front of a judge for assaulting a teacher), we know that he does not fear conflict. While I can accept that Wander has the "it" which makes not just a good soldier, but a good officer, Buettner does little to tease it out.
Buettner's focus remains closely on Wander, and little of the overall war is painted. This is also the case in 'Starship Troopers', to an extent, but there is a crucial difference: Heinlein's society's response to the alien threat is simple: "Fight!". And as a result of vicariously sitting in Mr. Dubois' classes with Johnny, we can understand why they are so prepared and able to do so. The philosophy of Rico's society is expounded step by step, from education through discipline through to its highest aspirational goals for its citizens. Buettner's future society also fights, but through Wander we learn little about the whys and hows.
Is 'Orphanage', as promised, a "hell of a good read"?
Well, This is competent military SF, and very much blood kin to 'Starship Troopers'. Perhaps not in the same mould in the stylistic sense, related like a younger brother clinging on the coat-tails of an older sibling. The prose is modern and conversational, peppered with references to sex and general hedonism (Heinlein saved this for his other books). Wander is an interesting protagonist as a result of, rather than despite his flaws, making Rico look like 'Mr. Clean'. There is something endearing about anyone who drugs himself before his final exam, which involves throwing live grenades. All around him, more able and professional people are blown to hamburger meat. But its Wander who is left standing. Perhaps Buetter is teaching us another great maxim of military life: "Its better to be lucky than good".
In conclusion: Readable. Good military SF is always a worthy exercise. I question whether Buettner didn't do himself an injustice in setting out to mirror Heinlein quite so closely. I am tempted to suggest that anyone contemplating reading it should first be steered towards Heinlein's original at all costs.
'Orphan's desinty' awaits on my shelf.