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.
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.
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: Better than average for McCaffrey nowadays...
Review: Freedom's Landing is a workable SF/fantasy/survival book with interesting characters, a fairly decent plot, and a good SF environment. Whether this lasts into the rest of the 'Freedom' books is another question!Since Ms. McCaffrey lost her editor (sometime around the nth Pern book), she seems to be doing her best writing when it's the first book in a series. This is an example of that. She has to introduce us to lots of characters, multiple alien races, an entire planet, and all kinds of technologies so she manages to avoid being as repetitious and tangential as she usually is nowadays. Her use of vernacular English is as usual laughable and the fact that she's been leaning more towards 'bodice ripper' romance than SF lately is pretty evident in the first chapter, but since I only paid [dollar amount] for it I can live with it. The rest of the books, however, I'm getting from the library as I refuse to pay list price for any McCaffrey book anymore. Too many disappointments!
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: 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: unique
Review: I have read all of Anne McCaffrey's books and I think that the Freedom Series is one of her best. I love the originality that Anne McCaffrey exhibits in her books. These books are based on an American that gets taken along with many others from Earth, by an alien race that is trying to take over. She is turned into a slave on a distant planet, but escapes into the wilderness on the planet. She lives there for months before she has contact with Zainal, an alien of the race that has captured her. Only it is not what she would have suspected becuase he was being chased by other people of his race, Catteni, that were trying to kill him. She helped him escape from them but when she trys to return him into the city they are caught. They are dropped on a planet with many humans and some other aliens to colonize the planet for the Catteni. And that is the beggining of their adventure to try and escape from the Catteni dominance. I love these books but that is me, and not everybodys tastes are the same.
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: 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: 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.
|
