My other half remarked that this was trying to be a novel and not quite making it, which is pretty well true but not at all damning. Not damning, first, because I enormously like most Cherryh novels and would be happy to see her polis throw out colonies; second because this is a first novel and Cherryh has been writing for decades.
The parts that are Cherryh-like are the really horrible circumstances into which the young hero falls. Civilizations are locked in deadly battle, both sides want his allegiance, and he painfully learns that neither side is wholly good or wholly bad and - maybe worse - that he doesn't often guess correctly as to who is what. It's like Rimrunners with more idealism to lose.
The prose is plainer, the dialogue less sinewy, than Cherryh's. Or maybe less forced; matter of taste. The only place I think Lowachee really needed to do more work was in the alien society, which is far too much like an Edwardian view of feudal Japan (all the philosophy is alien, all the economics human). I was massively unconvinced by the human sympathizers becoming masters of an alien sword-form in two generations, for instance; especially when the aliens are described as being innately swift and graceful, and the humans are half a generation from space travel.
I do wonder if Japanese SF automatically uses Great-White-Fleet-era images of the West for its boil-in-bag alien societies. Anyone want to make an argument from anime?
ISBN: 0-446-61077-1
So wrote clew in SF&F. | TrackBackI've just read the book yesterday. Did a little google-search and ended here.
I found the book to be very intersting. Quite a change from the type of SF books I usually read (Zelazny is my favorite, specially his Amber series, in addition to Asimov et al).
I think Karin did a nice job here. The atmosphere was grim most of the time, people were just a pack of interests (while not being false it was still painted in a dark colors) and the overall feeling was of being trapped. Jos was just reacting to events instead of having control.
One last remark on the book - The ending. It is very common to see endings that doesn't fit it so comfortable. Many books, even of skilled authors, suffer from this problem. As someone writing myself (more towards scripts then books) I know how hard it is. Anyway, I found the ending of WARCHILD to be a little to fast. The whole think just took a second to fix - all it had to be was getting the two heads together. It should have taken longer and harder for both sides.
Just my 2 cents.. :)
I know there's a sequel out, maybe the ending is just setting up for that; books that really ought to be one long volume but are published as trilogies often are ragged at the seams.