Science Fiction and Fantasy Association of New Zealand

Orphans Triumph Orphans Triumph
by Robert Buettner
Orbit

Supplied for review by Hachette New Zealand

Reviewed By: Jacqui Smith

You know exactly where you are at, when the first three words of a book are BLAM – BLAM – BLAM. This is military SF, and actually rather good SF all up. I suspected that I’d have problems with this novel because it’s the fifth and last of a series, and I wouldn’t understand what was going on, but Buettner got me into his situation and his characters without resorting to one of those tedious introductions that some authors favour. Instead, he went for the tactic of tipping the reader in with the characters at the deep end, and then explaining how they got there. It was immediately obvious that there was a war on, and that humans were fighting against varieties of alien slug. I liked the way Buettner uses the various epochs of Earth’s prehistory to create alien worlds that actually made sense. Like him, I have long been of the opinion that trilobite ought to be tasty, and should make excellent bisque. But that is only the background to a powerful story of one human being caught up in a galactic war for the survival of humanity. And the ending is unusually satisfying. Yes, I really liked this book, and not just because our heroes get to kill some especially nasty neo-Nazis…
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