Customer Reviews

Freehold

5 star:		(35)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

When I first finished this book, my first reaction was, "When can I move?" It was only a few minutes later that I realized that Freehold existed only in the wildly creative mind of Michael Z. Williamson. I also realized that Mr. Williamson had just given me a glimpse into the future - where we, as a human society are headed, and where I wish we would end up.

Kendra Pacelli escapes from a human hell -- the kind of Earth most dread, but know deep inside that we could become if we continue on our present course. Human beings are controlled by government, by force, tracked, licensed and regulated. The United Nations, corrupt and power-hungry, governs earth with a socialist iron fist. Framed for a crime she didn't commit, Kendra escapes to the Freehold of Grainne - a society of a truly free people that refuses to become part of the UN's domination plans.

In her new home, Kendra learns what it's like to be truly human - to live, love, work, deserve, achieve and succeed without a power-hungry government controlling her every move. She learns that to be a wholly human means relying on oneself, taking responsibility for one's own actions and reaping the consequences. She realizes that true freedom is not easy, but worth defending.

As is typical of tyrannies, the UN cannot afford for the Freehold to exist. It cannot afford to allow its enslaved sheep to realize just how subjugated they are. The UN cannot tolerate the existence of a free, uninhibited society, so it attempts to destroy Freehold and the beneficial, successful society its inhabitants treasure.

It is during this war that Kendra learns how much she treasures freedom and what she will sacrifice to preserve it.

This book is an excellent read. It's a page-turner from beginning to end.

Freehold is a society of free human beings - a society I, personally, want to inhabit.

667 pages. Feels like 150. This is a *good* book. Reasonably interesting plot, nice depiction of a libertarian society that is, however, a little *too* perfect. Realistically flawed in some areas - there are still jerks here and there, and corporations can be dishonest - but still, the streetgangs in Freehold don't write graffiti and mug people, they take care of the local park and help lost children find their parents.

That that's the worst flaw I've found in Freehold, says something. The book's well done; realistic, some excellent ground combat, and Williamson clearly knows what the hell he's talking about in everything from economics through war and diplomacy. Writing style is crisp, using less words rather than more - something I like - and intelligent.

A very, very impressive first novel. I'm looking forwards to more from this guy.

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

Freehold is good, very good. It is a very long book in both ideas and story. It kept my interest and has numerous good scenes. Many are a great deal of fun and many I deeply appreciate. An important scene and one I appreciate is the Freehold military funeral scene. It sets the stage for the military battle scenes later in the book. It's important to me because every generation of my family has served in the military and it's traditions are important to me.

In many lucid and well written steps you are brought through a very alien culture with Kendra as your measure. Kendra is very much a future character, beholding to a corrupt and stifling world government. Both are a strong contrast to the responsible and liberty minded Freeholders and their government. I liked this contrast of differing world views. I find earths government stifling and Freeholds appealing.

The scenes where Kendra flees her home from wrongful prosecution at the hands of the world wide UN government kept me interested throughout. I felt that she was competent and capable when she chose Freehold as the only planet that will not extradite her. From the moment she lands at Freehold she is battered by a kaleidescope of strange local practices. I throughly enjoy the contrasts between her upbringing under what amounts to a totalitarian dictatorship and her experiences with the Freeholders free wheeling capitalists. Be warned that Kendra is human and Freehold has few sexual taboos nor restrictions on what consenting adults do.

Kendra has no good marketable skills and finally turns to the familiar and joins the the Freehold military and finds out they do things harder and tougher with no allowance for female frailty. She becomes proficient and becomes more settled into her new life.

No totalitarian regime can long suffer an independent thorn in it's side it thinks is weaker. The UN attacks Freehold by using an elaborate ruse to garner public support for it. The battle scenes in this book had me glued to the book. The scenes are very realistic to me and like war, there are many brutal scenes and atrocities are committed.

Freehold is an extraordinary first novel and I look forward to this authors future work.

I haven't read a book this quickly or with this much enjoyment since I discovered Andrew Vachss one day and spent the next 3 months reading everything he had ever written. Williamson is an excellent writer, and knows how to hold the reader's interest even when the story slows down for necessary plot breaks. His depiction of the Freehold society is flawlessly done and a Libertarian idealists delight. His depiction of the corrupt UN forces and society is frighteningly familiar. If you love speculative fiction, military action, or have ever just fondled a beautiful sword and wished you had lived in another time where you had the freedom to carry it, you should treat yourself and buy this book. In short, I intend to buy anything Williamson writes in the future sight unseen, simply based on the strength of this first novel.

Mike is far too modest in his own review. Although his willingness to indulge in self-criticism bodes well for the sequal, Freehold is itself a spectacularly intriguing vision of a free-market society in conflict with larger, older, corrupt societies. Analogies to the fledgling US colonies vs. the British Empire are apt, but this is no cheap adaptation of history to a science-fiction setting. Mike brings a very well-thought out world to vivid life with characters and relationships which live and breathe and you come to care about through the course of the tale. As previous reviewers have commented, this is no Hollywood-style Happy Ending special, and people die and take brutally life-altering damage - which is a fact of war and something which people are better off acknowledging and accepting as a part of the price of combat. The underlying themes of responsibility, sacrifice, loss and triumph are vital and beautifully presented, although there is plenty of action, warfare, combat, gadgets, guns and more as well. Overall, a rollicking good read and a must-add to any serious collection.

The story of Kendra Pacelli and her friends, the Earth she knows, the true home she comes to find off world after America is no longer the land of the free and the home of the brave.

This was a very touching story that sent shivers up and down my spine with a glimpse at a possible future. A future that if you know where to look even now just might be a possibility. Earth in this future is a over crowded hell-hole unless your rich. America has bought lock, stock and barrel the ideology of the United Nations. It is no longer the home of free. It is instead corrupt, over-crowded and "freedom and justice" is available only to those who are the new rich socialists.

Our Heroine Kendra Pacelli leaves Earth for the world called Freehold. It is on Freehold she finds happiness and love and realizes all the lies that have been told over by the U.N. to the billions of humans back on earth. For on Freehold there is more than enough for everyone. Sure you have to pay or take it out in trade or work out some kind of arrangement, but if you want it you can get it, you can earn it without being filthy rich.

The truth of this story come out when the U.N. decides that Freehold needs to be under Earth's control for its "Own Good." The vastly out number Freeholders fight a Gorilla style war, while non-combatants and prisoners of war are raped, murdered and tortured by the soldiers of the U.N. In the end its only by drastic measures, the threat of extinction of all live on Earth that forces the U.N. to back down all the while spouting their sanctimonious B.S.

The author. Michael Z. Williamson, has created a story that is both fictional and prophetic and I look forward to the next book in the Freehold Universe!!!

I am a Libertarian at heart and a lover of science fiction. I've red my share of utopian stories and while they are fun, they are nothing close to being real.
THIS book is as close to the real thing as you can get. The author spends over 300 pages building it up, allowing us to see the good and bad of Freehold via the eyes of Kendra Pacelli, and then uses 300 pages trying to let the United Nations destroy it all. No holding back, no magic tricks, no saving Freehold with a super-weapon invented in a underground lab nobody knew about. The characters are sometimes loving, sometimes enraged and sometimes are just this close to just plain wanting to sit down and give up. The end is both shocking and ruthless, and I'm sure it can't be called a happy ending. But maybe it was the only ending that fits.
This book touches on everything from business to rape, from the joining the military to getting a job.

Freehold is Michael Z. Williamson's first novel. If he can keep the same level of quality through all his work, he should have quite a career ahead of him. If he actually manages to improve, he has the potential to become one of the really big guns.

Now, on to the specifics of the novel. Freehold centers around a woman named Kendra. At the beginning of the story, she's a supply sergeant in the UN military (the year is roughly 25XX. We're never given the specific date). When a friend warns her she's about to be arrested for selling military equipment out the back of the supply shed during her last mission (a crime she documented, not committed), she makes a run for the Freehold of Grainne, the one place in the known galaxy where the local government won't turn her over to the UN.

Of course, there's a catch. On Grainne, the idea of Welfare and government charity runs contrary to the very nature of the society. Grainne also has the highest standard of living of any human planet. In short, the UN welfare state doesn't dare allow the Grainne to go on existing, because it throws a bright light on all that's wrong with the UN's socialist nanny state.

In other words, Kendra has run to the only place she could possibly hide, just in time for it to turn into a war zone.

Of course, the idea of the failing socialist state attacking the smaller but far more successful capitalist state has been done before in science fiction. It's one of the central themes of David Weber's wonderful Honor Harrington series.

What makes Freehold different is how the story focuses on Kendra. Weber's Harrington novels, which have a similar political theme are high space opera. This is not. This is the story of one woman, torn from her home, exiled in a foreign land, forced to make a life there and eventually to defend her new home against her old.

Williamson does a brilliant job making you feel the story. Everything from her initial sense of panic when she learns she must run, to her sense of displacement every time the realities of her new society throw her a curve, to the horrors of a war that brings home the old proverb "War does not determine who is right, but who is left.".

But as much as I enjoyed the social and political aspects of the novel, what really made this story for me was Kendra's personal life. A story arc that puts me very much in mind of some of Robert A. Heinlein's best work. This, in my opinion, is where an otherwise excellent novel is elevated to the level of masterpiece.

While I've already compaired Williamson to Weber and Heinlein, I think there is one other comparison to make. Williamson's handling of the soldier's perspective remind me of another of my favorite authors. John Ringo. In fact, my initial impression of the novel was that it read very much like what I imagine a collaboration between Heinlein and Ringo would be like.

In the time since I've read it, that impression hasn't faded one bit.

I was blown away by Williamson's THE WEAPON. Upon finishing it, I eagerly sought out this related book. It tells the story of the same war between Earth and a breakaway colony but does so from a different point of view. Some of the characters overlap but that makes it that much more fascinating.

Kendra Pacelli is an Earth girl. She is a logistics sergeant for the UN and does a fair and honest job. That stops when she is implicated for corruption she helped to bring to light. Not having anywhere else to run, she runs to the Freehold, now independent and broken away from the clutches of the UN.

Moving to the Freehold is a big cultural shock. She finds herself treated as an adult responsible for her own actions. She finds real freedom for the first time in her life and it can be frightening. Unfortunately for her, her basic skill set is not all that lucrative and she finds herself enlisting in the Freehold military to serve in logistics.

When war with earth comes, she finds herself in a difficult place. Her origins plague her as do her loyalties. And although she may be plagued by her loyalties, she is loyal and become a hero of the war.

It's a great book. Its not as exciting as THE WEAPON but just as well written. Outstinding!