Karin Lowachee's first novel, Warchild, was published because it won Warner Aspect's competition, Voices of the Future. It's no surprise, therefore, that Lowachee's novel is tightly-written, with three-dimensional characters who face difficult moral choices and operate in a well-established future civilisation that spans many worlds.

The story follows eight-year-old Jos Musey, whose life is thrown into chaos when the merchant space-ship he lives on with his parents is captured by pirates. The pirate, Falcone, takes a fancy to Jos and keep him as a plaything for a year until Jos manages to escape--but he falls into the hands of the strits, the alien race with whom the humans are at war.

Jos is taken back to the strit homeworld where he discovers that much of what he has been told about the race is propaganda, and that there are many humans who sympathise with the strit cause. He is trained by Niko--known as Warboy among the humans for his attacks on Earth Hub ships--in the martial codes of the strit race. Eventually, Jos is sent back among the humans, to spy upon the Earth Hub military on its vessel, the Macedon. There Jos is forced to see the war from the human point of view, as he fights against the very people who have taken care of him for many years.

Lowachee explores many difficult dilemmas in this book: the destruction wrought upon people by war, especially the young, how hate and revenge can twist and drive a person to act in ways previously never considered, and how war inevitably results in the loss of truth. Through the character Jos, Lowachee brings the reader through an exploration of both sides of a conflict in stunning detail and depth. The strit race are believably described, and alien enough to be realistic. The real villains of the piece are not the humans, or the strits, but the pirates who play one side against the other, and kill either with equal disregard as long as it results in a profit. The internal conflict of Jos is excellent: he is forced to re-think the propaganda he was taught as a child, and later has to re-evaluate his opinions again when he works as a military grunt on the Macedon.

There are no simple situations in life, and especially not in war, when two cultures are locked in a battle because of social miscommunication. Lowachee works through these issues with skilful assurance, and confident writing, which belies the fact that this is her first novel.

My only (minor) criticism is that the third section of the novel, where Jos is on the Macedon, lagged for me in places. Lowachee loves her tech, and knows her military, but I felt she over-indulged her interest at the expense of plot and pacing in this section. However, it's only in places, and it picks up quickly, especially as it rushes towards the climax of the novel. The second part, which describes the strit homeworld and culture, flows well and is a joy to read.

I already posses Lowachee's second novel, Burndrive, which is a set in the same cosmology as Warchild. I look forward to reading it. If it's as good as its forbearer, then I have a treat waiting for me.