Warchild [Mass Market Paperback]

Weird in that you're basically inside the head of a young boy from age eight to seventeen, as he goes through various sorts of interstellar war-torn hell and is brutalized, emotionally disturbed, and deals (not too well) with all of these issues. All in all, not a pretty book, but definitely worth reading. In that sense, it reminds me quite a bit of some of William Barton's works.

Besides the heavy subject matter, the book spends a lot of time and probably the great majority of the text dealing with the boy's internal mental state - albeit always through his thoughts and reactions to what's going on around him. This, again, gives the book a more contemplative feeling than I normally prefer (and is why it reminds me of Barton's work).

However, it was gripping enough that I had trouble putting it down and finished it fairly rapidly.

The basic backdrop of the book is a sort of just-barely-hot war between an alien race and humanity. In theory the two races had a brief war and came up with a treaty, including a DMZ. However, the treaty is falling apart as the humans raid the alien's colony worlds and the aliens raid the human stations and fight the occasional deep space skirmish with human warcraft.

The alien race is definitely at a disadvantage but is managing to stay in the game and even kick ass, largely because of the corruption and disorganization of the human race's bureacratic galactic empire. The aliens also have the help of "sympathizers", humans who are taking the aliens side. The earth politicians are barely in control of the farther reaches of their empire and the star-faring warships that keep the war going. They're definitely not in control of the pirates that
raid and devastate merchant ships, killing the adults and enslaving the survivors.

The book starts when the merchant ship Mukudori, home of the main character, eight-year-old Jos Musey, is pretty much sacked by a pirate ship. The boy ends up in the hands of the pirates, but it doesn't end there. He later ends up in the hands of the aliens, who train him to be a spy and assassin, then put him to work. Along the way he has a lot of problems figuring out who to trust and when, including himself.

One tip: the first chapter is all told in second person; i.e. "You do this. You remember that. etc". Normally this bugs the hell out of me, and would be enough for me to instantly relegate the book to the trash pile, but I flipped ahead a bit and saw that it was just a literary device for the opening chapter. I pretty much read through it and did my best to ignore it. After reading the entire book and looking back, I can even see the real reasoning behind it (and it's not just fun with literary devices). Trust me, this book is well worth the time.

However, I recommend having some more optimistic reading material queued up behind it.

Come to think of it, I just figured out the best way I can concisely sum up my feelings about this book. I felt, after finishing the last page of this book, a great deal like I felt as I walked out of the movie theater after seeing _Schindler's List_.
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SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

A couple of comments from other reviewers were sufficiently off the mark that they deserve some comment. Doing so involves some spoilers, but since the other reviewers already spoiled them...

One reviewer complained that we don't find out that Jos was actually sexually abused until near the end of the book. I think the reviewer sort of misses the point. This book is in part a mystery - the mystery is what happened to make Jos the sort of person he is. We don't find out easily because this book is told from Jos' point of view, and Jos doesn't admit to himself because he's having trouble dealing with the topic (big surprise there).

Recognizing this also illuminates the reasoning for the second-person introduction. Jos' use of the second person in describing his early history to Nikolas (and later presumably) Azarcon) is a way of displacing himself from the events, of protecting his ignorance. I still think second-person sucks, and I really think using it for the first portion of the book was a tactical mistake, but I understand Lowachee's reasons for using it. I can't really say it would be the same book without it.

One reviewer complained about "all the touchy-feely stuff". I can't say I was really happy about that myself, but I also can't say that Jos's issues with personal space and physical affection could have been conveyed any other way. I think the reviewer is missing the forest for the trees in the way. The space opera backdrop is mainly a context for the exploration of the forces that shape the main character.

But it's what happens next, and what continues happening that keeps you turning pages. Characters acting like real people. They don't always make the right decisions, and you don't always agree with them. Heck, you don't even always *like* all of them! But all of them, even the pirates, are understandable and seem real. The characters grow and develop. They get hurt and develop emotional scars. They hurt each other, and they heal. When I finished the book, I put it down, said "wow" and immediately re-read it again. I haven't done that since I finished Lord of the Rings almost 20 years ago.

(For those who cannot bear the second person, bear it. Lowachee soon switches to the less immediate--though no less poignant--first person.)

He is inevitably torn away from his homeship and has his childhood ripped apart so brutally that even when the chance comes for him to rediscover trust, he does not believe it.

Lowachee paints no pretty pictures about humanity. It is war and the lives of soldiers that she depicts. Although she offers no cosmetics for the grimmer parts of her story--the way Jos and others he encounters are treated--she uses a delicacy that left me all the more horrified and at the same time drew me toward the characters through its lack of crude detail. Much of Jos' life is a tragedy, where each thing he comes to value only becomes another loss. And all throughout he searches for a home, the place where he can belong.

The writing is beautifully taut, whether during battle or during introspection, reflecting how Jos is always on guard. At one point I came up from between the pages for a gasp of air and had to orient myself in the real world--I'd been that firmly rooted within Jos' mind. This is an emotional story with its characters vividly rendered, and it deserves a look by anyone searching for a powerful read.