Rating: 
Summary: Great Novel
Review: Warchild is an awesome read for those who like sci-fi tales with aliens and space travel. If you have read the Gap Cycle by Stephen R. Donaldson, it is like that, but better! It is compared to Ender's Game, but they are only alike in 2 aspects. 1. They revolve around alien war with children involved.
2. They are awesome books to read.The first 100 pages or so are done in 2nd person. At first it is hard to get through and some may not want to read it because of that. After the first section, she changes to first person. Those who read on are rewarded greatly with an excellent story based around a child caught in a war between humans, space pirates and aliens. (it sounds corny, but it isn't :) This book will be a classic.
Rating:
Summary: Sho-Gun meets Star Wars
Review: Warchild is one part Star Wars, one part Robert Heinline and two parts Sho-Gun blended with a lot of unique setting details and characters. It is large, yet a fast read. Get it, if you like science fiction you'll love this book.
Rating:
Summary: Phenomenal book
Review: Warchild was a book that really got under my skin. I found myself thinking about it often and reading it several times. There is a sequel out now, which I've ordered, and I hope this is the beginning of a great new series. If you haven't read Warchild, then by all means, treat yourself to a great book, and I don't use the word great lightly.
The first few chapters of the book are written in second person. On first reading, I didn't care for that at all, and almost ended up not finishing it. However, something about it kept me going, and was I glad it did. Subsequent readings, understanding the reason for the second person viewpoint--the need for the victim to distance himself from the history he's recalling, made it enrich the story.
In that beginning section, Jos tells of being a child on board a merchant starship when the ship is raided by pirates. The adults on the ship are all killed, and most of the children are taken captive, to be sold into slavery. Falcone, the captain of the pirate vessel, keeps Jos as his own personal toy, teaching him proper manners as well as how to play poker and serve as a bedmate.
Jos escapes from Falcone only to be taken by the human leader of the "strits", an alien race currently at war with humans. The enigmatic leader, Nicolas, has a hard time earning the trust of his young captive, but eventually he does, and trains him to be an "assassin-priest" (sort of like a ninja). He also has Ash, his brother, teach Jos how to "burndive", which is a hazardous form of interactive computer hacking using special contact lenses.
Then Nicolas sends Jos to be his spy on board one of the human warships. We later learn that the captain of the ship was also held as one of Falcone's toys when he was a child. Jos has a hard time fitting into the crew of the ship and maintaining his trust in Nicolas, while slowly maturing into a young man in his own right. His divided loyalties and his struggles with relationships and truth are enough to tear a lesser person apart, but slowly Jos grows and learns his own strength.
Lowachee does an utterly phenomenal job of getting inside the mind and body of this damaged soul. She has either been a victim of rape/abuse herself or has known someone well who was, because I'm positive she couldn't possibly understand and portray this wounded child so very well without that experience. His avoidance of mirrors and touch, his distrust of people, his self-doubts, his need for approval--so many things make him leap off the page and into full-blown multi-dimensional human being.
This is not a book you can put aside and say, "Well, that was interesting." This is a book that will haunt you for days after reading it. It's a book that will enrich your own soul, as so few do nowadays.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Book!
Review: Winner of the Warner Aspect First Novel Contest, Warchild is a cannot put down book. Told from the point of view of young Jos Musey, who must go through loss, followed by coercion and abuse, ultimately emerging on an alien world, where he is trained in an alien culture - one with which the Earth-Hub government is at war. Like Jos, many of the people that populate this world are young orphans - displaced by a long interstellar war, ignored or enslaved - all of whom are, like Jos, reaching out to find their place. This makes the book enjoyable on multiple levels - as a sci fi military adventure and also as a more complex psychological study. It deals with frightening situations without hitting one over the head with them. I highly recommend it for teen readers. Read Burndive next - it continues the story of this fascinating world.
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