Freedoms Landing

Rating:
Summary: Light Weight Anne McCaffrey
Review: Freedom's Landing is light weight Anne McCaffrey and there's nothing wrong with that. The situation is interesting. First you meet the heroine surviving alone having escaped slavery by fleeing into the wilderness. Then she rescues someone from certain death who turns out to be ahigh ranking officer of the enemy. This has been done before but it's always an interesting situation. I wish the novel had stayed with this plot and really focused on the two of them struggling to survive together. Instead, they both are shoved with a group of slaves onto an alien planet. Provided a minimum of supplies they are left to try to settle the planet. If they fail, they die. If they succeed, the planet will then be conquered by the enemy. So they have to organize themselves, survive some major monsters and prepare to defeat the enemy. It's a good story but it's carried out "by the numbers". That is, there's nothing wrong with the book but it's definitely a hastily written lightweight read. Which is not to say I didn't thoroughly enjoy it. I just wish there'd been more to it. It also is a definite set up for a sequel.

Rating:
Summary: Can't wait to see the rest of the series!
Review: I thought McCaffrey wrote a very well-told story in this book. It was especially interesting to me because it was taken straight from her short story "The Thorns of Barevi." I had read that story in Get Off the Unicorn (which has several other wonderful short stories), and it was a joy to me to see a full novel (now 2 novels!) based on that story.

The main character, Kristin, and her Catteni companion from the short story are also in the novel, although changed somewhat. The story becomes part of the first chapter of the novel.

I thoroughly enjoyed Freedom's Landing, and am waiting impatiently for the next novels in the series

Rating:
Summary: One of those 'average' books
Review: On a good point, this is the best book in the Freedom series but after this, it just goes down. There isn;t musch of a story line and the romance almost becomes tacky. This is definitly not one of Anne McCaffrey's best sagas. The Dragons of Pern and The Crystal Singer are much better for science fiction fans.