Freehold

Rating:
Summary: Excellent political/military SF
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent read
Review: 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?

Rating:
Summary: Flawed but promising
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Admiration for a Good First Work
Review: 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

Rating:
Summary: Yawn.... Then Retch.
Review: Cut-rate Heinlein for the politically naive. And that's an insult to Heinlein! Even the kinky sex is boring. Wooden characters, eye-rollingly bad dialog, little action and I'm only up to page 135! Still, maybe things will improve in the next 500 pages...

Okay, after reading another 85 pages, I have had a change of heart. I don't have time to watch this erstwhile sci-fi Tolstoy improve his craft and espouse his laughably weird philosophy on my dime. The dialog just becomes ever more ludicrous and the idea that some bizarre form of anarcho-libertarian, laissez faire nudist colony is the ideal governmental system sought by mankind throughout the ages is hysterically absurd. While this notion may be the ideal of dateless adolescent boys, it clearly has limited appeal to other, more adult, segments of the population.

If you have a jones for poor writing and a plot that is best described as hackneyed and plodding, do yourself and your wallet a favor and buy a used Harold Robbins novel. At least the sex will be more believable.

Rating:
Summary: One editor and one re-write short of excellent
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: What a way to start.
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Future Nebula Nomination?
Review: 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...

Rating:
Summary: A New Giant Rises
Review: Freehold, The Word Raises the Hair on the back of my neck.

Michael Z. Williamson has written one of the finest calls to action that I have yet read. Packaged as a one sitting Science Fiction Thriller Mike has crafted a full explanation of a future we can embrace preventing that First Premise his book starts from, U.N. Control of our Future. A must read for all interested in Mankind's future both here on Earth and out in the Deep Black of interstellar space. Freehold is a great story of Deception overthrown by Guts and Ingenuity. Solidly Developed Characters drew this reader into the action; his great ideas kept this reader into the action till the last words, or were they the last words. I believe that this is the first of many From Mike which future generations will Honor as the cutting edge of Literature.
Added 28, Dec 2003 3:54 AM
Copy of Personal Message to the Author
Finished Reading Published version of "Freehold" in just under 36 hours by the clock. I Estimate I spent around 20 hrs actually reading in a high Distraction environment. I Had both Physical and Emotional impacts in the last third. Masterful work by any literary Standard.

All in All a truly Great book. One which will rank you with the Masters of the Past in years to come. The Frank level of exploration of Sexual and Moral issues puts you ahead of most current writers. I have enjoyed all three readings through the different variants and look forward to your future efforts.

Joseph A. Merrill III
Sarge the Poet
SFC USAR (ret)

Rating:
Summary: Good book. Intersting Characters that seem real.
Review: 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.