Freedom's Ransom [Hardcover]

Anne McCaffrey (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Ace/Putnam, New York; Book Club edition (2002)
• ISBN-10: 0399144889
• ISBN-13: 978-0399144882
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (50 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,346,927 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Anne McCaffrey, the Hugo Award-winning author of the bestselling Dragonriders of Pern® novels, is one of science fiction's most popular authors. With Elizabeth Ann Scarborough she co-authored Changelings and Maelstrom, Books One and Two of The Twins of Petaybee. McCaffrey lives in a house of her own design, Dragonhold-Underhill, in County Wicklow, Ireland.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Did Anne McCaffrey really write this book??, January 28, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Freedom's Ransom (Paperback)

I found this book to be very inconsistent with McCaffrey's other writing. Not only was it a much more plodding book, with a ill-defined story line, but it did not continue the series well. Some characters just dropped out of sight. A couple of new characters were introduced for no apparent reason. The characters who continued from previous books didn't have the same voices and went from interesting, unique people to flat charicatures. References to the Eosi who plagued Botany in the first books suddenly had a different name -- an inconsistency that is rather unusual for McCaffrey. I was extremely disappointed and have a hard time believing that this was written by the talented author of the other Freedom books, the Dragonrider books, and all the other wonderful books she's written. She's never told a story so poorly, that I've read.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A Big Disappointment, June 20, 2002

By 

Altogirl (NY, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Freedom's Ransom (Hardcover)

As a big McCaffrey fan, I had looked forward to this one. Unfortunately, it lacks the depth and character development of the earlier books in the series, and the plot is all over the place and boring at the same time. I found this the most disappointing of any book I have read by this author, and I've read all her SF.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing, October 30, 2003

By 

Mark Attico "Let's Go Devils!" (Scottsdale, AZ) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Freedom's Ransom (Paperback)

I read the first three books in the Freedom series and while they weren't on par with the Pern or Ship series, they were solid enough to keep me moving on to the next book...up until I came to Freedom's Ransom. It was dragging along so slow that I decided to check here and see whether it picked towards the end. Unfortunately, it appears most of the reviewers agree with me -- this is not a very good book.

I've been reading all of Anne McCafferey's books for a good 15 years now, and I suppose that everyone has to eventually produce a dud. If I were to sum up the plot of the book after 204 of 287 pages, I would only need 2 words: Coffee and teeth. That's it. After everything that's happened so far in this series, that's an awful long plunge back into reality. Sure, there's going to be rebuilding, but this doesn't offer anything in the way of intrigue, excitement, interesting characters...nuthin. Thankfully I got this series at the library instead of spending money on it, but if there is a 5th book in the series I may be hard pressed to check that one out unless I hear glowing reviews first based on number four falling flat.