Robert Buettner is an American author of military science fiction

Military science fiction

Military science fiction is a subgenre of science fiction in which the principal characters are members of a military service and an armed conflict is taking place, normally in space, or on a planet other than Earth...

 novels. He is a former Military Intelligence

Military intelligence

Military intelligence is a military discipline that exploits a number of information collection and analysis approaches to provide guidance and direction to commanders in support of their decisions....

 Officer, National Science Foundation Fellow in Paleontology and has been published in the field of Natural Resources Law. He has written five volumes of the Jason Wander series and two volumes of the Orphan's Legacy series. Buettner currently lives in Georgia.

Jason Wander Series

War is an Orphanage: Jason Wander, left orphaned at age 17 by an attack from an unseen alien enemy, must fight his own demons before he can fight Earth’s. Jason starts off on a self destructive streak that leads to being expelled from school, through foster homes and finally to an appointment with a no-nonsense judge. As the world begins falling apart, Jason is given the choice of so many others, from an earlier time in American history: join the Army or go to jail. This decision leads to an odyssey of adventures that takes Jason Wander from the pits of despair to the heights of victory. In the spirit of Johnnie Rico and Starship Troopers

Starship Troopers

Starship Troopers is a military science fiction novel by Robert A. Heinlein, first published as a serial in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and published hardcover in December, 1959.The first-person narrative is about a young soldier from the Philippines named Juan "Johnnie" Rico and his...

, Robert Buettner crafts a story that is as much about a young man coming of age as it is about fighting alien creatures.

1. Orphanage(1 April 2008 - Reissued), the first volume in the "Jason Wander" series.

Mankind’s first alien contact tears into Earth: projectiles launched from Jupiter’s moon, Ganymede, vaporize whole cities. Under siege, humanity gambles on one desperate counterstrike. In a spacecraft scavenged from scraps and armed with Vietnam-era weapons, foot soldiers like eighteen-year-old Jason Wander-orphans that no one will miss-must dare man’s first interplanetary voyage and invade Ganymede.

2. Orphan's Destiny (1 April 2008 - Reissued), the second volume in the "Jason Wander" series.

At twenty-five, General Jason Wander has fought and won man’s only alien conflict. Now, after long years in space, he’s coming home…but to what? Earth’s desperate nations, impoverished by war damage and military spending, are slashing defense budgets. There’s just one problem with this new worldwide policy-the first alien invasion was merely Plan A.

Suddenly, the real assault begins: Earth is attacked by a vast armada of city-sized warships. To block their invasion, mankind has only one surviving craft and a single guerrilla strike force…a suicide squad led by Jason Wander."

3. Orphan’s Journey (1 April 2008 - Reissued), the third volume in the "Jason Wander" series.

In the years since the last Slug War, Jason’s command style hasn’t made him any friends in the Army. Now, in an effort to keep him out of trouble, the Army has sent Jason to the vast, Earth-orbiting resort called New Moon. At the core of this enormous space station is a starship, a relic from the last war.

When a test run of the ship goes wrong, Jason, along with a handful of others, will be torn from orbit and thrust into space. Now, stranded on an alien planet, Jason realizes that not only are his friends looking to him for rescue, but an entire planet sees him as their only hope.

4. Orphan’s Alliance (28 October 2008), the fourth volume in the "Jason Wander" series.

Humans have been discovered on the Outworlds. And the Army decides to send emissaries. Emissaries like Jason Wander. As intraplanetary conflicts rage around him, and the personal stakes get ever higher, Jason finds that playing planet-hopping politician can be harder than commanding armies. When united mankind squares off to battle the Slugs for a precious interstellar crossroad, Jason will discover that the most dangerous enemy may be the one he least expects.

5. Orphan’s Triumph (26 May 2009), the fifth volume in the "Jason Wander" series.

Jason Wander is ready to lead the final charge into battle. After forty years of fighting the Slugs, mankind's reunited planets control the vital crossroad that secures their uneasy union. The doomsday weapon that can end the war, and the mighty fleet that will carry it to the Slug homeworld, lie within humanity's grasp. Since the Slug Blitz orphaned Jason Wander, he has risen from infantry recruit to commander of Earth's garrisons on the emerging allied planets. But four decades of service have cost Jason not just his friends and family, but his innocence. When an enemy counter strike threatens to reverse the war and destroy mankind, Jason must finally confront not only his lifelong alien enemy, but the reality of what a lifetime as a soldier has made him.

Orphan's Legacy Series

In March, 2011, Baen Books, distributed by Simon & Schuster, released Overkill, Buettner's sixth novel and first in a new series, which will include at least three books. This series is set a generation after the Jason Wander books and includes characters from the earlier series, both directly and by reference. A continuing theme is the search by the protagonist, Jazen Parker, for his parents.

1. Overkill (March 2011), ISBN 978-1-4391-3420-7

Jazen Parker, a Legion soldier recently separated from service, accepts a bodyguard assignment to a rich tourist on the planet known as "Dead End." Jazen forms both personal and professional connections as a result.

2. Undercurrents (July 2011), ISBN 978-1-4391-3449-8

Jazen Parker is asked to infiltrate a planet to investigate some disappearances. Personal reasons drive him to accept the assignment. This novel begins to explore the “cold war” conflict between Earth, which has a monopoly on interstellar spaceflight, and Yavet, a heavily populated planet with draconian population control and an ambition to overtake and surpass Earth. Jazen's personal moral code also conflicts, to a degree, with the goals of the organization, and people, with whom he works.

Both novels to date in this series have incorporated antique, by the standards of the time depicted, tanks. Buettner is the son of a tanker.

Short Stories

1. Mole Hunt (June 2011), http://www.baen.com/MoleHunt.asp

Set in the Orphan's Legacy universe, just after Undercurrents, and offers a glimpse at Yavet efforts on "Dead End" to recover a critical piece of Earth technology.

2. Yet to be titled short story in Armored (March 2012), ISBN 978-1-45163817-2, edited by John Joseph Adams.

Critical opinion

The Washington Post and Denver Post favorably compared Buettner's debut novel, Orphanage, to Robert Heinlein's 1959 classic Starship Troopers

Starship Troopers

Starship Troopers is a military science fiction novel by Robert A. Heinlein, first published as a serial in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and published hardcover in December, 1959.The first-person narrative is about a young soldier from the Philippines named Juan "Johnnie" Rico and his...

, to which, the author has written, Orphanage is a deliberate literary homage to Robert Heinlein, and also to Joe Haldeman

Joe Haldeman

Joe William Haldeman is an American science fiction author.-Life :Haldeman was born June 9, 1943 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. His family traveled and he lived in Puerto Rico, New Orleans, Washington, D.C., Bethesda, Maryland and Anchorage, Alaska as a child. Haldeman married Mary Gay Potter, known...

. Other critics have compared Buettner's books favorably to the work of "Golden Age" science fiction writers Poul Anderson

Poul Anderson

Poul William Anderson was an American science fiction author who began his career during one of the Golden Ages of the genre and continued to write and remain popular into the 21st century. Anderson also authored several works of fantasy, historical novels, and a prodigious number of short stories...

, Andre Norton

Andre Norton

Andre Alice Norton, née Alice Mary Norton was an American science fiction and fantasy author under the noms de plume Andre Norton, Andrew North and Allen Weston...

, H. Beam Piper

H. Beam Piper

Henry Beam Piper was an American science fiction author. He wrote many short stories and several novels. He is best known for his extensive Terro-Human Future History series of stories and a shorter series of "Paratime" alternate history tales.He wrote under the name H. Beam Piper...

, L. Sprague deCamp, to recent writers Joe Haldeman

Joe Haldeman

Joe William Haldeman is an American science fiction author.-Life :Haldeman was born June 9, 1943 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. His family traveled and he lived in Puerto Rico, New Orleans, Washington, D.C., Bethesda, Maryland and Anchorage, Alaska as a child. Haldeman married Mary Gay Potter, known...

 and John Scalzi

John Scalzi

John Michael Scalzi II is an American author and online writer, and president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. He is best known for his Hugo Award-nominated science fiction novel Old Man's War, released by Tor Books in January 2005, and for his blog , at which he has written...

, and to such diverse artists as Miguel de Cervantes

Miguel de Cervantes

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra was a Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright. His magnum opus, Don Quixote, considered the first modern novel, is a classic of Western literature, and is regarded amongst the best works of fiction ever written...

, Monty Python

Monty Python

Monty Python was a British surreal comedy group who created their influential Monty Python's Flying Circus, a British television comedy sketch show that first aired on the BBC on 5 October 1969. Forty-five episodes were made over four series...

 and P.G. Wodehouse. Buettner was nominated for the Quill Award for Best New Writer in 2005.

Commercial performance

Buettner's first novel, Orphanage, made numerous bestseller lists, including Barnes & Noble's overall paperback Top 50 and the Locus Magazine paperback Top 10. Orphanage was nominated for the Quill Award as best Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror novel of 2004. Orphanage's publisher (which changed its name from Time Warner Aspect to Little Brown Orbit) reissued Orphanage in April, 2008. As of June, 2008, the book was in its sixth printing. Orphanage has been translated by foreign publishers into Chinese, Czech, Russian and Spanish, was published in hardcover by the Science Fiction Bookclub, and as an ebook in various formats. Orbit also markets the Jason Wander series in a separate edition geared for the United Kingdom market. The rest of the series is believed to have performed similarly to Orphanage.

Style

All five books in the Jason Wander series are told in the first-person viewpoint and distinctive voice of the protagonist, Jason Wander. They follow his coming of age and growth from misfit soldier to maverick general during a decades-long interstellar war. Buettner said in an interview that "Writing generation-spanning space opera through a single, first-person-viewpoint character is like painting the Death Star with a toothbrush."

The two books to date in the Orphan's Legacy series are also told in the first-person viewpoint, primarily, although not exclusively, through the protagonist Jazen Parker.

External links

• Official web site
• Official Blog
• Robert Buettner Interview at BookReviewsAndMore.ca