Customer Reviews

FREEHOLD

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I read alot of adventure, sf, mystery books. I pay attention to the publisher. When it is an author I do not know, I usually get good value if the publisher is Baen or Forge.

Not this time. There was just too much sex and libertarian propaganda. Perhaps the too must go together, but Heinlein did the libertarian politics thing so much better. The boot camp military training section was good, but too obviously fortends that the big bullys (Earthling UN authorities)are a bunch of wimps that will never stand up to the rugged Freeholders. Maybe worth your time to read it, if you can re-sell the copy. Not worth shelf space in my library.

God where to start.

The book was a real eyeopener about the way tings could go. I liked the comment about what a One World Government could led us towards.

Politics aside. Deatils of the training was very good. The combat also was a part that made sense. The fact that the reader might not totally understand anger one character has towards another is explained as it would be in the real world.

This book is an excellent view of a possible future. Shying away from the over used "Utopian" view, Williamson has created a future society rich in freedoms...complete with the flaws any human society will have...and produces an antagonistic society by simply expanding on current liberalistic trends in the present.

On top of that, it is a great tale, suberbly told. It will keep you glued to your seat, flipping pages until you have devoured the book as quickly as you can.

A couple of times early on, I got lost in technobabble, unable to envision exactly what was going on. Occasionally I thought some of the activities could use a bit more explanation, especially when dealing with esoteric technology. The sex was a little more explicit that I would have liked, but thankfully not overly so. The action sequences occasionally made me lose the "vision" as well, but maybe I was just tired -- I was so into the book that it was 1 AM before I could put it down on my second day into it.

Comparisons to Heinlein: Well, RAH is my absolute favorite author, so I guess it's inevitable. Personally I thought the book had far less in common with Farnham's Freehold or Starship Troopers than with Heinlein's greatest work, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. We have the "throw rocks at them" strategy towards the end, the pomposity of the statists throughout, the for-profit court system, and the fascination with bizarre marriage arrangements.

The only thing that seemed possibly related to Starship Troopers might have been the whole "Citizen" thing, but I never really caught on to how one became a citizen in this society. Is it the awarding of the Citizen's Medal? That would certainly explain the relatively low numbers of them, though not how Rob ever expected to become one despite being a daredevil pilot.

What can I say that hasn't already been said? I loved the book and am looking forward to more by this author. I am a libertarian, and despite the author's protestations I thought Grainne sounded like a great place to live. When can I ship out?

A glance at Williamson's site shows him to be a veteran, an immigrant and a classical-liberal leaning libertarian. This unique combination of ideals tempered with practicality gives him the viewpoint to create one of the more interesting SF societies depicted. I expected a libertarian pseudo-utopia in Freehold. I didn't get one.

We feel the understandable fear and culture shock as Kendra Pacelli, our viewpoint character, goes through as she adapts from what is a gritty, frightening concept of a global (and more) fascism (not "socialism" as some reviewers suggest) to a highly constitutional, very limited republic with low taxes and ultimate respect for the individual. But is this entirely for the good? One of the first characters she meets attempts to subvert her into prostitution. While cliche, this is a common enough occurrence historically to justify it. There are some very self-centered people in this society. Think of Gold Rush California and the Irish and Chinese immigrants for a taste of what we have here.

In sub-plots, we have a well-thought out study of how such a society would handle an Enron-type debacle. Williamson is obviously a student of Roepke and the other Austrian School economists, and offers an improbable but still thought-provoking concept of economic-based punishment and compensation.

There's a technological but still dirty war, not for superiority of culture, but simply for survival. Williamson maintains a focus on the character, with the society and warfare platforms from which to study the human experience. Nevertheless, it seems somewhat lacking in technological development for its claimed timeframe 500 years in the future. The human development is pretty good. The SFnal elements are so-so.

Pacelli is a highly intelligent character, groping at self-identification through inadequate preparation. In this, the story should appeal to younger women culturally held back behind their innate capabilities. The romance and sex are fairly simplistic, but he does maintain reader interest. I would have liked to have seen more development in this area, but the book already is substantial. He spends more time on the question of how one adapts from a society much like that Orwell envisioned and Hitler created as a black comedy, to one that combines socio-political elements of feudal Japan and the Icelandic Republic? Casual nudity and prostitution, religious freedom, an over-riding sense of honor and a thirst for property and status? An unlikely blending of honor cultures, it's nevertheless quite readable. Though he covers it enough the society becomes a character itself. This is not always a bad thing, and this is his first novel.
Hopefully, he will grow through this stage and learn to focus on one or the other.

The Earth described is fascistic, but it's almost a parody. There certainly are societies that despotic. I can't believe one would have any durability, given the access to space and other systems in this universe. The Freehold is the first breakaway state, and I have a hard time with that. It may be a literary device, but it's a contrived one, really. It's good for juxtaposition, but it is overdone. There's not a lot of subtlety here. That is true throughout. Lots of elements are crammed in and it's too clever in spots. In that way, you can tell this is a first novel.

At least the ending isn't "happily ever after." We learn things about the heroes that show them to be flawed, vicious, vengeful people when hurt. Individualism does create a hostile and sometimes malicious attitude toward more group-oriented societies. Warm amongst themselves, elitist and brutal to outsiders. Many Libertarians will not like the revelation of a
certain level of selfishness that inevitably transfers from the body-politic to the individual. But Williamson is honest enough to admit it. His overall tone is still too optimistic for my taste, but fiction does have to entertain, not depress. There's ways to do this, too. Hopefully, he'll develop.

This book is at once pleasing, disturbing and visceral, optimistic and depressing. There's something to offend everyone, and that may be a deliberate dig. Williamson's elitism may be personal, or it may be a literary device. I couldn't tell, which is a positive sign. The concept is good, the writing is excellent. The storytelling can lag at times. But if he improves, he'll be well worth the reading in future.

This book is so dumb, it's actually funny. It's like male adolescent fantasy run amok.

The plot is the same one you read in most science fiction: Earth is now a (yawn) totalitarian Big Brother - admittedly most sci fi authors seem to be lefties, and make the Religious Right the cause of the Earth Is Now A Totalitarian Evil Place, but this guy's a right-winger, so the U.N. is the official Evil - it's still the same old, though; can't anyone come up with a new villain, just for a change?

Our beautiful but dumb heroine, wrongly accused of a crime, flees to a planet that is obviously meant to be some sort of Utopia. The heroine is tall and of course unusually sexy, has a complete military training - yet still turns all mushy and helpless in the arms of the first Manly Man she meets (it seems she can't figure out how to find her apartment without a Man to rescue her. Obviously someone forgot that *women* aren't ashamed of asking for directions...).

Of course, being very Manly, our hero is the sort of guy who chomps down hotter-than-halepenos without flinching. He takes her out to dinner - on this world accepting an invitation for dinner implies sex afterwards. Surprise! But, he doesn't take advantage.

Whatta guy.

Still, you can clearly see that it's only a matter of pages - maybe paragraphs. Not that she has any reason to want to jump into bed with him...but, let's face it, this clearly isn't a book written for female types.

The real purpose, in fact, that this book was written, is to share the author's inspirational vision of Utopia, which is what the book is really about: they've found Eden, and the big bad UN is gonna come take it away. The problem with this is in the details.

Apparently, all one needs to do to create Paradise is abolish all laws and regulations. In a bizarre right-wing twist on the Communist Manifesto, as soon as the Evil is eradicated, people will suddenly start living in perfect harmony. They may walk around armed to the teeth, flaunting their ostentatiously displayed guns and knives, but there's no crime on this world - only on the bad UN world where Big Brother monitors everyone is there crime all over the place (?huh?). Not that being from a high-crime world teaches our heroine not to just throw herself into the first stranger she meets; she's amazingly able to trust without adequate reason or motive.

Anyway.

Although on this Utopia there are no tariffs, no business regulations of any kind, nobody would dream of taking advantage or attempting "unfair" competition - there are no economies of scale here, no monopolistic impulses. Even ol' Adam Smith would be shocked....all the businesses are small and friendly, and the lack of business licenses means that consumers get nothing but the best, tastiest, freshest produce.

It's a capitalist world where nobody knows how to capitalize.

And on and on it goes; obviously yet another science fiction writer who spends months or years researching every last detail of the hardware, the physics, the genetics - and doesn't bother with those "soft" sciences. The problem here, though, is that this is more a political rant than a story (as if to drive this point home, he even litters the text with political quotes that sound increasingly like lectures). So, it's not appropriate to have contempt for the soft sciences; they may not be as demonstrable as Newtonian laws, but they're still the subject matter.

To the author: go get yourself some introductory textbooks: political science, business, financial markets, international trade, diplomacy, maybe sociology, something on psychology - not the old style Freudian(gak!)stuff, but the neurologically based new work - economics...history, in particularly history of the tendency toward overly centralized governments. The details are all wrong; there's an argument to be made in this book - probably a good one - but if the "science" in the fiction is to be the "science" of politics and economics - of "freedom" - who cares if you know exactly how the spaceship that gets her from planet A to planet B takes off?

Earth native Kendra Pacelli has fled to the planet of Freehold to escape a frameup for embezzelment from the military. She builds a new life which is threatened when Earth invades, and must fight back to save her new home from destruction

If ever a debut novel needed anothe rewrite and 150 pages of editing, it was this one. Williamson spends too much time discovering the culture by writing about, wasting time that doesn't advance the plot. The early chapters have an indistinct voice that does refine as Williamson writes but that clashes with the overall cohesiveness of the book. Secondary characters change implausibly. Rob, for example, starts as landlord-cultural-narrator-lover then suddenly becomes the cocky hot pilot, with no hints of the pilot-characterization when the character is in the earlier role. In fact, the entire book switches from an immigrant discovery story to a military SF story, with few hints of the second them to tie it to the first theme.

Freehold and Williamson show great promise, but the book would have been far better with stronger editorial guidance that made him decide what story he wanted to write. The structure of the plot is weak because he tries to tell two stories in continuum without appropriate details, foreshadowing or build up. The book is worth some time, but if you are a demanding reader, be prepared for some frustration.

Mike Williamson does war and politics. Moreover, he does them well.

FREEHOLD is fast-paced, with details of politics, everyday interactions and combat that read well. The combat scenes are fast, with the attention to small details that makes them realistic. The politics are idealistic, as are the politics of most novels. Mr. Williamson's grasp of political treachery is good. His villians are villians, heroes are heroes, soldiers are soldiers - on both sides.

In summation, if you like fast-paced novels of war and political betrayal, you'll love this one.

Freehold was a great read, crossing new boundaries in science fiction. Because of the length at 660 pages, I almost put the book back on the store shelve... The book came highly recommended, so decide to give it go. From start to finish it was well worth the read. Glad I didn't put it back on the shelve...

Buy this book if you like Military fiction or Libertarian philosophy, worked out in an unflinching and sometimes blunt way.

It's an excellent tract on Libertarianism carried out to a logical extreme, and a **** RIPPING GOOD ADVENTURE/WAR YARN ****. The infantry fighting and guerrilla warfare are just as credible as anything I've ever heard from a Viet-vet or any other military people who've ever described fighting in my hearing. The desperation and fear and occasional sense of unreality are all immediate, full-color, up close and personal, brutally direct.

The pre-war sequences are pleasantly entertaining, with a bit of set-piece background thrown in to educate the reader about the realities of life in a genuinely Libertarian society, as the author conceives them. In this, too, Mike reminds me of Heinlein -- just enough background to provide color for the piece, not enough to overwhelm or even seriously impede the plot. He has a good touch for this.

I had trouble in one or two places sympathizing with protagonist Kendra -- I couldn't get a read on what she was _feeling_ as she had certain _thoughts_ -- but the rest of the time she was completely real. That needs more consistency, but it's still better than three-quarters of the stuff I read.

I think this is a good first work, and in fact the rigorous working-out of the effects of theories does remind me quite a bit of early Heinlein (sorry, Mike). It hangs together nicely, and all the major plot threads are tied off in believable ways. It's not for the under-13 crowd, as it handles adult subjects in adult ways, without flinching or Bowdlerizing; both sex and violence are dealt with in the book, in ways that seem integral to the plot.

The thing that I find most likable about the book is that neither the hero nor any of her comrades are glamorized. The only thing I found even slightly unrealistic about the plot was the survival of all three members of the central trio throughout the war ... I guess someone hinted to Mike that you can't kill off major characters in mass-market any more, if indeed you ever could. I've also got some issues with his concept of how such a political system would work, but my point here is that his _people_ are believable as actors within the system.

I recommend it if you're tired of reading books of Glorious War, and if believable people are more important to you than sweetness-and-light characterization. It's a good book, and I look for more from this writer.

--Phil