Freehold

Rating:
Summary: Compare this to Heinlein's "Farnham's Freehold"
Review: Not bad for a first novel. But he strains too hard. Whilst this book lacks the turgid, pompous ponderosity of Ayn Rand's tomes, you can see a pronounced preachy, didactic tone at many places. Now Steve Stirling and other authors have said that it is a common mistake by some readers to assume that a narrative viewpoint in a book is necessarily the author's personal viewpoint. So do keep that in mind.

But in this book, the depiction of the society is so utopic to some political worldviews, and takes up so much of the text, that you have to wonder if indeed it does represent the author's beliefs. Even if not, the plot is trifle more than a wrapper around these descriptions.

Some of you with a historical bent in science fiction will recognise this as the traditional criticism of science fiction. In regular fiction, the characters and the plot are primary. In SF, often it is the idea that is the real hero. The characters are really tokens shuffling across a chessboard in order to give life to the idea.

The influence of Robert Heinlein is pretty clear, even without the inclusion of a spaceship by that name in the plot. One consequence is not necessarily good to the book. By explicitly invoking Heinlein, the author can cause you to compare it against Heinlein's works, especially his best works, because isn't that how you remember most authors? That comparison of Williamson's first novel against Heinlein's finest is not really fair, but inevitable. Well, the two may have similar views, but Heinlein at his peak was a far better writer.

Speaking of which, of Heinlein's works, are we meant to compare this to "Farnham's Freehold"? Superficially, there is the similarity in titles. Dig deeper. Farnham's was a small group struggling to survive a nuclear war. Society had disappeared, and they only themselves to depend on. A graphic, very explicit novel for its time [early 60s] that, amongst other things, depicted incest and interracial sex.

The society in Williamson's Freehold follows the individualistic nature of Heinlein's. But the Heinlein book had a far stronger plot line. More taut. Yes, Williamson's book has its action sequences and characters. Both aspects are far weaker.

Williamson adds a twist. The book is not a simple rewrite of Heinlein's. He appears to be redoing the American Revolution, with this new planet's society mapping to the Americans, and the United Nations being the British. Fine. But the UN characters in the invading forces are totally cardboard oafs, whose main role seems to be clumsily stumble about the land before being killed by the brave colonists. One dimensional cartoon characters. Now, publishing constraints means that authors face practical limits as to the length of a novel. But by not fleshing out the bad guys in any depth just reduces them, and the pedagogic views they stand for, to straw dummies.

One other thing. The society depicted does not have state funded education. Families are expected to pay directly for their children's education. Now it is one thing for parents to support private education alongside an existing state education system. But consider from actual history what societies had no state education. All the preindustrial societies. But of the industrial societies, ALL have state education. If you consider countries without this, they invariably are the poorest, most wretched. Mostly in subSaharan Africa. Or Afghanistan under the Taliban. If you look at the newly industrialised countries - Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, Thailand, etc, they all invest heavily in state education.

The book posits that you can have, and maintain, an industrial society, without it. And also not have pockets of poverty striken ignorance arise due to this policy. These may really be the most controversial claims in the entire book. Totally at variance with empirical observations of actual industrial development. Most other reviewers appear to have concentrated on the glitz of the plot, without thinking deeper about the implications of the declaimed construct.

Rating:
Summary: Thumbs up
Review: OK I can see the comparison to Heinlein. I'm currently reading (for the umpteenth time) "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" (ISBN: 0312863551). Both societies are very "don't tread on my toes and I won't tread on yours". Nice idea and sounds like it might be a nice place to live. Would a system like that work in real life? I doubt it. How would you go about converting the USA to something like that? Some of the founders wanted it to be more like that and some people still think it should be, but the problem is that we got top heavy with government. Oh well, enough soap box. Great book Mike, keep it up!

Rating:
Summary: Unbelievably good first novel
Review: Others have detailed the plot, so I will just say that I became enthralled with the characters and the plot.

The reader gets inside the characters and makes them totally believable. You see how horrible war can be from the level of the individual soldier with no excessive gore(there is plenty) or histrionics.

You also see the hard decisions and what it costs the people who have to make them. This is seen from the side of the residents of the Freehold, with only a little devoted to the UN side, but our POV is the Freeholders'.

There is also a wrenching description of the damage war does to those who fight it, and what it costs.

The book is reminiscent of Heinlein at his best. The Freehold also reminds me of L. Neil Smith's North American Confereracy stories, but done right, with no extraneous lecturing. Infodumps are subtle and fold well into the story.

I believe that, in a few years, Michael Z Williamson will be one of the leading writers of this generation.

Rating:
Summary: Libertarian Sci-Fi at it's best
Review: The novel is a fast pace, exciting, vivid account of the last enclave of freedom in the human universe and their struggle against the communo-socialist power brokers who seek to enslave them. The main character around which the story swirls, Kendra, is a female from earth who flees to Grainne (the Freehold) to escape a plot to scapegoat her in a typical military/corporate scandal. She is shocked at the unbridled freedom she enounters in her new home but slowly adjusts to her new found liberty. In the end does our hero go back to Earth and slavery or stay on Grainne and remain free? Does the Freehold remain free or do the forces of tyranny prevail? You'll have to find out for yourself in this page turner! I couldn't put it down.

Rating:
Summary: Really, really good SF
Review: This book is all about a libertarian paradise called Freehold that gets invaded by a welfare-state Earth government. It's great because the author seems to know all about everything, you can tell he's really done his research on stuff like future economics and military combat, either that or maybe he's a veteran.

Good action scenes and some really good sex too, but it's a bit explicit, not porn or anything of course. I liked them myself. And it's realistic, I mean he's described interplanetary jet lag like it probably is, as well as culture shock and everything. Overall a [good] book

Rating:
Summary: Freedom in the Future
Review: This book is an excellent view of a possible future. Shying away from the over used "Utopian" view, Williamson has created a future society rich in freedoms...complete with the flaws any human society will have...and produces an antagonistic society by simply expanding on current liberalistic trends in the present.

On top of that, it is a great tale, suberbly told. It will keep you glued to your seat, flipping pages until you have devoured the book as quickly as you can.

Rating:
Summary: A Harlequin romance for the testosterone-overloaded!
Review: This book is so dumb, it's actually funny. It's like male adolescent fantasy run amok.

The plot is the same one you read in most science fiction: Earth is now a (yawn) totalitarian Big Brother - admittedly most sci fi authors seem to be lefties, and make the Religious Right the cause of the Earth Is Now A Totalitarian Evil Place, but this guy's a right-winger, so the U.N. is the official Evil - it's still the same old, though; can't anyone come up with a new villain, just for a change?

Our beautiful but dumb heroine, wrongly accused of a crime, flees to a planet that is obviously meant to be some sort of Utopia. The heroine is tall and of course unusually sexy, has a complete military training - yet still turns all mushy and helpless in the arms of the first Manly Man she meets (it seems she can't figure out how to find her apartment without a Man to rescue her. Obviously someone forgot that *women* aren't ashamed of asking for directions...).

Of course, being very Manly, our hero is the sort of guy who chomps down hotter-than-halepenos without flinching. He takes her out to dinner - on this world accepting an invitation for dinner implies sex afterwards. Surprise! But, he doesn't take advantage.

Whatta guy.

Still, you can clearly see that it's only a matter of pages - maybe paragraphs. Not that she has any reason to want to jump into bed with him...but, let's face it, this clearly isn't a book written for female types.

The real purpose, in fact, that this book was written, is to share the author's inspirational vision of Utopia, which is what the book is really about: they've found Eden, and the big bad UN is gonna come take it away. The problem with this is in the details.

Apparently, all one needs to do to create Paradise is abolish all laws and regulations. In a bizarre right-wing twist on the Communist Manifesto, as soon as the Evil is eradicated, people will suddenly start living in perfect harmony. They may walk around armed to the teeth, flaunting their ostentatiously displayed guns and knives, but there's no crime on this world - only on the bad UN world where Big Brother monitors everyone is there crime all over the place (?huh?). Not that being from a high-crime world teaches our heroine not to just throw herself into the first stranger she meets; she's amazingly able to trust without adequate reason or motive.

Anyway.

Although on this Utopia there are no tariffs, no business regulations of any kind, nobody would dream of taking advantage or attempting "unfair" competition - there are no economies of scale here, no monopolistic impulses. Even ol' Adam Smith would be shocked....all the businesses are small and friendly, and the lack of business licenses means that consumers get nothing but the best, tastiest, freshest produce.

It's a capitalist world where nobody knows how to capitalize.

And on and on it goes; obviously yet another science fiction writer who spends months or years researching every last detail of the hardware, the physics, the genetics - and doesn't bother with those "soft" sciences. The problem here, though, is that this is more a political rant than a story (as if to drive this point home, he even litters the text with political quotes that sound increasingly like lectures). So, it's not appropriate to have contempt for the soft sciences; they may not be as demonstrable as Newtonian laws, but they're still the subject matter.

To the author: go get yourself some introductory textbooks: political science, business, financial markets, international trade, diplomacy, maybe sociology, something on psychology - not the old style Freudian(gak!)stuff, but the neurologically based new work - economics...history, in particularly history of the tendency toward overly centralized governments. The details are all wrong; there's an argument to be made in this book - probably a good one - but if the "science" in the fiction is to be the "science" of politics and economics - of "freedom" - who cares if you know exactly how the spaceship that gets her from planet A to planet B takes off?

Rating:
Summary: Excellent first contact novel with an unusual plot
Review: This book kept me reading late into the night, till my eyes wouldn't focus anymore.
It is, for one, a great first contact novel: the main character leaves Earth for elsewhere and finds her new home to be strange and oft disagreable. Just as she assimilates, her former home world attacks and she has to fight against former compatriots.
Secondly, it is an excellent companion to such books as "Moon is a Harsh Mistress" and "Alongside Night" in its detailed rendering of the economic realities of life. It shows the advantages as well as the warts of societies more free than our own.
Thirdly, it is splendid military fiction, written by an author who understands war and insurgencies. Both tactical and strategic aspects of future war are shown in gripping, realistic detail. Moreover, the heroes of this tale are complex, imperfect and very scary people. Williamson manages to deal in moral absolutes and shades of evil concurrently.
Lastly, it is one of the few books which puts human sexuality into a science fiction plot as an intergral, subtly-written aspect of the character development. "Freehold" reminds me of the book "Charlotte Grey" in its warm but uncompromising portrayal of veterans as a social group.
Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Intruiging
Review: This story is sound, the action is never sacrificed at the expense of the political commentary, and the commentary makes lots of sense. I like.

Rating:
Summary: Proper Sc-Fi
Review: Up there with Heinlein, Niven et al. Can't say enough good things about this book, exciting, tense, action packed and good alround fun. I have bought all his books on the strength of this one. Best scfi for years.