Customer Reviews

Freedom's Ransom (Freedom Series)

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(15)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

Anne McCaffrey's Freedom series is a delight, but much of the action culminated in the third book, leaving this one more of an epilogue than a whole other installment. I enjoyed visiting with Kris and Zainal again, and I was intrigued by their visit to Earth and liked seeing how "we" were doing post-Catteni--but I still liked the first three books better. It was worth the reading, though, as Ms. McCaffrey's books almost always are.

I was pretty disappointed in the fourth book in the Freedom series. For one, it seems like the plot of almost the entire book (obtaining valuables in order to ransom Earth's goods back) is cancelled toward the end with the execution of an audacious and hasty scheme.

As always, the Botanists luck out a little too much, a little too often to reflect reality and Murphy's Law. Rarely does even a small thing go wrong in the execution of their grandiose plans. Minor and annoying inconsistencies seem to get worse with this book, and the characters did not seem the same at all. Even their speech seemed different. As others have noted, the constant focus on teeth and coffee got very old, very fast! In some places, I felt like I was reading a coffee ad.

Showing how Earth and Botany functioned after the end of Eosi domination was a good idea, in my opinion, but it could easily have been done in a concise, interesting chapter or two. Instead, the series just won't die and continues on in a repetitive, shopping-list fashion.

The series overall is pretty good for a light read when one has some time to kill. There are some winning aspects that, for the most part, outweigh the negative aspects, such as the generally believeable characters, an imaginative planet, the creative ETs, and the ingenuity and resiliency of humans. However, if you liked the first three books, just skip this one and let your imagination wrap up the series.

As much as I enjoyed the previous Freedom series books (particulary the first book, Freedom's Landing), this one read like a junior high school essay of "How I Spent My Summer Vacation." Very little plot, almost no conflict or character development. Description was lacking as well-- I felt as if I were listening to a bunch of "talking heads." There wasn't even much between Zainal and Kris, which to me was one of the highlights of the previous books. And the beginning, where the characters were discussing what they were going to do-- ARRGH! It's bad enough to have to attend meetings, much less read about them! I think Ms. McCaffrey could have done with less research on coffee growing and dental procedures and spent her attention on what has made her such a great storyteller.

Freedom's Ransom could have have been a good story, but instead, it is a description of a story. Instead of dialog and action telling the story, the story is described in prose. It brings to mind the old line "SHOW the reader, don't TELL her!" This is definitely a book that could have used another rewrite to replace the tedious prose with dialog and action. This isn't the first of her books about which I'd make this same complaint.

I have read Anne McCaffrey books before and thoroughly enjoyed them but this was a great disappointment. It was possibly one of the most boring books I have ever read and with the most irritatingly stupid plot. Although to say the book had a plot would be something of a compliment that it doesn't deserve. I suspect that earlier books in the series may have been good but this truly wasn't.
Here's the story so far - earth ravaged by aliens, humans on a distant planet plan rehabilitation. The survivors on earth are starving and ravaged with disease so what's the great plan? ... the idiotic first priority is to set up a satellite cellphone system; and how do they pay for that - set up a dentist's practice and a Starbucks. This book is the story of how they achieve that. Now if this is meant to be an ironical look at western countries' priorities, coffee and a white smile, in the face of sub-Saharan Africa starvation,it is an interesting take; but as a sci-fi thriller it is about as yawn inducing as your mother telling you about her shopping trip and latest dental treatment - oh and she'll also tell you about the bread she baked. Give this one a miss and try another of Ms. McCaffrey genuinely excellent books.

Worst book written by McCaffery, if she actually wrote it and the publisher didn't sub-contract. Reminds me of mass market pulp SF written in the 1950's. Botany has many high level leaders of Earth nations, but they exert no influence on their respective roots. Earth could care less about the colony trying to 'help', which makes no sense (Botany has cool alien tech!). Instead the colony goes into the coffee business with a dental sideline (don't ask). As in transporting coffee beans across interstellar distances because not one supra-advanced alien race can grow or synthesize their own caffeinated drinks.

The vocabulary of the main characters consists of the phrase 'I drop, I stay' whenever a tense situation comes by, which admittedly isn't often. Lots of fluff, slice of life, meetings, and no characterization. Conflict is solved by sending people elsewhere. Events which happened earlier are retconned to be different (or the author gets her own details wrong), plus jarring perspective changes between paragraphs with no reader warning.

A great book to MST3K in your head, just unbelievable in terms of construction (both of science and characters). Needed editing, fact-checking, and additional drafts. Without McCaffery's name, would have been thrown away.

The "Freedom" series kept my interest up through the third book. This fourth one falls off a cliff. Imagine a universe where a few tons of automotive supplies and food has a measurable impact on the reconstruction of a looted and devastated Earth. Imagine one where interstellar travel is so cheap that bird carcasses, bananas, and coffee beans are the prized trade items. Repetitious descriptions and dialog, boring 1-D characters, a chaotic plot, bad science and inconsistent technology, absurd scale effects, and a host of other flaws make this a painful book to push through to the end. You'll also find "exterior motives" and "one of the only". Sad. How did the publisher let this one get to print?