Rating: 
Summary: A great new start for a series
Review: After the Rowan Series fizzled out, I've been looking forward to
a new series by Anne McCaffrey. Freedom's Landing definately
met and surpassed my expectations. As with most McCaffrey novels,
the characters were compelling, and overshadowed the plot. She
writes of people who you want to meet and make friends with. I look forward to more books in this series.
Rating:
Summary: TRUE MCCAFFREY !!!!!
Review: Kristin Bjorsen is a woman that needs to prove herself,
and shes very capable. As she reluctently befriends an out-cast
overlord, she sees the need to keep him around, and feels the need
to keep him around. Tossed on a Tech planet, learning to need other lifeforms, becomes an emotional and heart-warming
story you will not soon forget. Hats off to Anne for another
book-hugging story. (What would it be like to kiss a cat-man?
hmmmmmmmm)
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding SF ala the Powers and Ship series'.
Review: Ms. McCaffrey has once again delighted us with outstanding
Science Fiction in the vein of her earlier "Powers that Be"
and "Ship" series. The entire adventure utilizes good plot
and character schemes without over-aweing the reader with
scientific jargon and explanations. Even in a genre so
overpopulated with titles, Anne McCaffrey has even managed
to add a few new twists to the plot.
This new novel will surely become the pilot of a new series
and I look forward to the next installment.
The stage is set, Earth has been enslaved and, as a show of
force, the populations of several large cities have been
captured and carted off to be slave labor to the masters,
the Catteni. One captured Terran is bent on escape but got
a bit more than she bargained for in gaining her freedom.
"Dropped" on a hostile planet with (over time) several
thousand other Terrans and a variety of alien races the
group must band together and struggle for survival, they
think. The exiles quickly learn that the planet provides
for them well, but they also learn that the entire planet
looks like someone's garden. Survival now depends on avoiding the "gardeners" (both organic and mechanical) left
behind by the previous owners, and learning just who would set up an entire planet to be a self-maintaining food factory?
Rating: 
Summary: Good plot, bad dialogue.
Review: My purchase of this Anne McCaffrey novel was an impulse buy off the dollar clearance rack at a local bargain book shop. My only forays into fantasy fiction up to this point were Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. What I discovered is that McCaffrey can create a very compelling plot, but her attempt to write young, "hip" characters is atrocious. The castoffs in Freedom's Landing are (unfortunately) archetypal and bland, including the two main characters Kris and Zainal. The tender connection they develop by the end of the novel is only believable if the reader chooses to ignore Zainal's suggestions of raping Kris during their first metting on Barevi. It is inconceivable that the brave and honorable Catteni who helped save the colony at Botany is the same pompous, testosterone driven slime who wanted to "reward" the Terran woman with unsolicited and undesired intercourse. Even more disconcerting is the lust with which McCaffrey's heroine eye's her unconscious near-rapist's "manhood" immediately after she has just struck him in self-defense. McCaffrey's novel would have been much better and more plausible had she begun with the dumping of the slaves on Botany, and left the entire first chapter on Barevi out of the book. Once the first chapter is out of the way (and consciously deleted from memory), the pioneers of Botany become important and interesting, despite their shallowness and in spite of their B-grade, action film type of dialogue. McCaffrey's novel ends abruptly, and I, being the sort of person who will stay awake through a groaningly bad television movie just to "see what happens," find myself willing to give the next installment a read...but only if I can find it on the clearance shelf.
Rating:
Summary: My first McCaffrey book and I thought it was great!
Review: I didn't really expect too much when I picked this book up (after hearing some less than encouraging remarks reguarding other works of McCaffrey), but I was pleasantly surprised to find that I almost immediately got caught up in this one and ejoyed it the whole way through. While its true that the editing job was insufficient (or maybe it wasn't even proof-read after the type-setting?), I didn't think that it really took too much away from the overall story. The characters were great (I especially liked Sergent Mitford) and McCaffrey was able to keep the excitment level at a fairly high point throughout the book. My favorite thing about the book is the concept of world building. Its cool as hell that the characters were able to start from basically nothing and progress over such a short period of time (3 weeks?) to become nearly self-sufficient. This isn't so outrageous as some others (see other reviews) would have you believe either, since the world already contained much of what the people needed including: housing, food, electricity, mechanicals, and electronics. Basically, this is a great book with tons to be praised and little to be criticized. The relationships between the different alien species and the remarkable tale of human survivorship make for a thrilling read. I strongly reccomend this book and plan on reading other McCaffrey books in the near future.
Rating: 
Summary: Different, but Still Excellent
Review: I have to dissagree with some of the reviews i read. I found few problems With this book. I immediatly fell in love with the main character, a heroin named Kris and her strange but somehow intruiging relationship with Zainal. The voice the book is written in is not what i was used to and i was a bit skeptical when i began to read it. I thought the dialougue needed anouther looking over and Kris' inner thoughts often left something to be desired, but all in all, as soon as i picked it up, i couldnt put it down and finnished it that day.
Yes, i did think it almost improbable how fast the human's and their alien allies settled after being dumped on the planet with next to no supplies, but it is science fiction and thus classified as being highly imaginative, slightly impossible, and based on a small amount of futuristic fact.
It was an excellent book, and i highly recommend it to anyone. Ive never read anything else by Anne McCaffrey, so i cant really relate it to any of her other work. But this book has certainly left me wanting to read a few more of her series.
Rating: 
Summary: Disturbing
Review: Aside from the fact that this book was poorly written, poorly developed, and peopled with uninteresting flat characters, I was very disturbed by the misogynistic and chauvinistic themes in this book. Are we really to believe that hundreds of women would agree to forced pregnancies simply to stake a claim on an alien planet? Reproductive control is one of the main tenets of female equality; how could McCaffery strip that right away and continue to believe that her female characters would remain viable?
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Series
Review: I'll admit, I didn't notice the errors that the previous reviewer was irritated by, perhaps it only happened in the paperback edition? Never-the-less, this was a great read. Though best known for her Dragonriders of Pern series of books, I like Anne's work that is based in a world similar to ours. The Catteni Sequence delivers. What would happen if Earth were invaded, and humanity enslaved? If you enjoyed Independence Day, you'll like this series. I also highly recommend Susan Wright's SLAVE TRADE trilogy (don't be fooled by the provocative title--good for young adults too).
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.
Rating:
Summary: Double Disappointment
Review: As a longtime fan of Anne McCaffrey's Pern series, I was bitterly disappointed by Freedom's Landing. Despite a strong female protagonist and an intriging romantic interest, the book is mediocre. Worse than that, it's offensive. It's a mediocre example of science fiction because of the cardboard characterization of most of the cast, the predictability of the plot, and the total lack of originality of ideas. Nothing surprises, nothing intrigues, nothing challenges. In over 300 pages, the only "suspense" was wondering how long it would take the heroine to bed the hero. The book is also very offensive due to its racial and ethnic stereotyping. The Catteni have supposedly captured the inhabitants of cities all around Earth--yet all the captives turn out to be white folks (Australians, Norwegians, Russians, etc.). Oh, yes, one American is described as "dark-skinned"; he's a cook who says things like "I wouldn't stand on no ceremony was I you." (Gee, did a character from Amos & Andy wander by mistake into her book?) The white folks are also described in stereotypical ways, of course; the Australians are blunt & outdoorsy, the Norwegians blond & athletic, the Doyle brothers, "being Irish", "seemed to get along with anyone". And then there's the description of the "bad guy" conquerors, the Catteni: "brutish coarse features" and "thick blubbery lips"--except the single good Catteni, who of course has "a straight almost patrician nose" and "a wide well-shaped mouth". In other words, he looks like the white folks; no wonder our heroine falls in love with him! Anne McCaffrey has never written science fiction of the the highest quality, but she has sunk to a new low with this series.
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