Orphan's Legacy

Robert Buettner

ISBN's:

Orphanage:   9780316019125

Orphan's Destiny: 9780316019132

Orphan's Journey:  0316001732 

Orphan's Alliance:  0316001740

Orphan's Triumph:  9780316001755

Rating:  Buy, Paperback, New

As I mentioned in my last review I have pretty much given up on dead-tree books for the reading I do for entertainment.  Mrs Bugbear is displeased with me because I recently backslid a bit.  I bought Robert Buettner's Orphan's Legacy series in paperback.  I got a them used for less than I could purchase the them as e-books.  The only ebooks I could find were in Kindle format (bleck!!) as well.

There were some things I didn't care for, like the main character going from a misfit grunt private to field promoted general in very short order.  I also feel that the author took too much of a short cut in creating a sort of inverse McGuffin to avoid detailing the biospheres of the planets touched on in the stories.  The biosphere's don't drive the story the inverse McGuffin just tries not to impede the story so to speak.  Also it's written in the first person (a pet peeve of mine)  but the character isn't too drowned in misery or self-examination.  Mr. Buettner also killed off my favorite character.  I expected the death but it still rankled.  The final encounter with the enemy seemed a bit rushed through as well but really the final enemy is just providing a framework for the main character to grow up, mature, age, retire and rejoin civilian life.

Generally, the books have been pretty entertaining.  The main character is likeable from the start and the books seem to move along fairly well.  I especially like that with the exception of the FTL drive there really isn't any wonder-tech.  Guns are really just guns extrapolated from what we have now for example, tanks evolve in fairly logical directions etc.

I've also read two follow-up books Overkill and Undercurrents by Mr. Buettner.  The follow-up books show a bit more polish and explore the cold war that follows the war of the Orphan's Legacy series.  Overall some decent military themed science fiction.