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Bottom line
up front:
This book
flipped my world upside down the first time I read it some
six years ago, and continues to blow my mind with each
subsequent reading. I *heart* this book like wow and whoa.
The rest:
We first
meet young Joslyn Aaron Musey on board the Mukudori,
a merchant ship. Life is this charming, fantastical place
full of new wonders to explore with his friend Evan. Of
course, into every life an asshole must enter, and arrive
one did in the form of former captain turned pirate Falcone.
The pirates capture ships, kill all the adults on board, and
sell the children into slavery.
Jos was
this spunky little thing who grabbed a gun and tried to save
his ship, thus bringing him the personal attention of
Falcone. Jos was stuck in a dark room with all his friends
and acquaintances, and forced to say there while the other
children disappeared one by one until he was the last child
remaining. He became the pet of Falcone, and hinted at some
really disturbing things happening to him while onboard the
pirate ship. After just under a year, Jos is taken to a
space port, sees a chance to escape, makes a run for it, and
is shot in the back for his troubles.
Fortunately
for Jos, his luck improves somewhat as he falls after being
shot and lands at the feet of Nikolas S'tlian, captain of
the Turundrlar. Niko takes Jos to Aaian-na, an alien
world inhabited by people known as striviirc-na. One of the
first real conversations between Jos and Niko is indicative
of their future relationship to each other.
I moved away fast, blinked, and rubbed at my eyes. "What're
you going to do with me?"
"You think, what. Don't cry"
I thought suddenly of Evan, holding toys above my head. I
forced the memory out. "I'm not crying."
"Think."
"What- to dress me up and teach me manners?"
"No."
"Then what?"
He stood. "I want only what you want."
"I don't want to be here!"
As if what I wanted ever mattered.
"There is only here," he said gently.
Niko heals
the highly distrustful Jos and becomes his teacher,
educating Jos in the language and ways of the alien culture.
Desperate to find a way to end the long war between the
striviirc-na and the humans, Niko sends Jos as a teenaged
spy to the Macedon, a warship captained by Cairo
Azarcon, who is the son of the admiral of the human fleet.
Jos
infiltrates the ship as a young military recruit called a
soljet, and passes messages and information to Niko via a
maze of spies and Sympathizers, humans who were empathetic
to the alien cause. He continues on for years- until an
unexpected event flips his world upside down once again.
The first
time I picked up Warchild, I almost put it right back
down. The first thirty-six pages or so are written entirely
in second person, which drove me bugnuts. However, after my
first "wtf??", I flipped forward a few chapters and saw that
the story didn't stay in second person, so I continued on.
Stopping?
Would have been the biggest mistake EVER. Jos captivated me
from the beginning. I was inextricably drawn to the
eight-year-old child who had been taken from his parents,
family, and friends by a sadistic pirate who did some really
horrible things to the poor darling. It is rare that I feel
invested in the success of a character the way I wanted
Joslyn to triumph. I ached for Jos, that his short time with
the pirates emotionally crippled his ability to ever really
get close to anyone. I cried for him when he couldn't.
The world
building here is phenomenal- lush planets and cold steel
space ships and wars that have gone on so long that neither
side really remembers why they're fighting, only that they
viciously hate each other. I was deeply impressed by not
only the crafting of the chain of planets and galaxies
comprising Earth Hub, but the complexity of the striviirc-na
language, fighting style, and social caste system that was
interwoven throughout the story so deftly that there was
never any one area of the dreaded info-dump. Thoughts,
feelings, and scents are so well described that I felt like
this universe was one I knew, ships I had been on, paths I
myself had trod.
Overall,
Warchild is a stunningly breathtaking story of a young
child who had some serious crap dumped on him, and was left
in a deep struggle to find himself amidst the many lies and
betrayals.
And when I
read the next book in the series, Burndive, I slashed
Jos and Ryan like crazy...but that's another article
entirely. |
