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| Freehold | 
| Author: Michael Z. Williamson
Publisher: Baen
Category: Book
List Price: $7.99
Buy Used: $0.61
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Avg. Customer Rating:  45 reviews
Sales Rank: 270507
Media: Mass Market Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 688
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 6.6 x 4.1 x 1.5
ISBN: 0743471792
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780743471794
ASIN: 0743471792
Publication Date: January 1, 2004
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Standard used condition.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 40 more reviews...
 Two Cultural Viewpoints May 21, 2008
28 out of 28 found this review helpful
Freehold (2004) is the first SF novel in the Freehold universe. It is set several centuries in the future in an era of interstellar colonization. Freehold on Grainne has declared its independence, but the UN is unwilling to let it go. The very existence of an autonomous star nation is a threat to their hegemony.
In this novel, Sergeant Second Class Kendra Pacelli, UN Peace Force, has returned from her temporary deployment to Mtali and is finishing up the paperwork. She is a logistic admin tech who had been sent offworld to assist the Logistic Support Function to document unexplained losses in UNPF materiel. Large quantities of ammo, weapons and vehicles have disappeared from the UNPF stockpiles.
She is working when a phone call from her friend and lover Tom Anderson alerts her to an arrest order issued on herself. The UN Bureau of Security is not noted for its concern about the guilt or innocence of the people associated with criminal activities. Arrested suspects are assumed to be guilty and are interrogated (and tortured) until they confess.
Tom has packed her bag and provided some cash cards, putting the luggage in her car. Kendra leaves the office and drives her car offpost. Then she starts considering her options. She needs to get offworld and the only possible destination is Freehold.
After she gets into the Freehold embassy grounds, the troops guarding the compound search her and the car thoroughly. Kendra asks to see the ambassador, but she is told to stay quiet. Then she is escorted to a cell and left alone for some hours.
The ambassador eventually sees her and gets her story. Kendra is shown how the public media is handling the story and is both appalled and offended. A Freehold trooper is assigned as her escort and introduces her to other staff members.
After a thorough investigation, the ambassador is convinced Kendra is telling the truth. She tells Kendra that the transportation to Freehold will cost more than she has available, but Kendra is offered a means of paying off these costs. Kendra readily accepts the indenture and is provided a couple of escorts to take her to Grainne.
On the planet, her case is assigned to Citizen Hernandez and he explains the conditions of her residency. He provides her with the address of a job broker. When Kendra takes exception to the jobs offered the broker, Hernandez looks for other job skills that she has not previously considered.
Hernandez finds her a job as groundskeeper at Liberty Park. He also gets her an apartment and administers the Oath of Responsibility. When Kendra tries to find the apartment, she meets Robert McKay on the streets and discovers that he is the manager of her apartment building.
Bob has been to Earth and also to Mtali. He takes her out shopping and shows her the Park where she will be working. She finds Liberty Park to be huge, beautiful, and very clean.
In this story, Kendra is shocked by the number of people wearing weapons in the city. She is also amazed at the quality of the food and drinks. And then she is surprised at the amount of public nudity. She has to adjust to many things in Freehold.
Kendra becomes friends with Marta -- a popular and costly courtesan -- and visits some risque night spots with her. Gradually, Kendra begins to modify her viewpoints on public exposure and sex, but she never becomes comfortable with taking money for sexual activities. Yet she does become a sexual partner with both Bob and Marta.
Later, Kendra finds that her attitudes about crime are strange to the residents of Freehold. In particular, her acceptance of rape as just another hazard of city living is very repugnant to the local residents. When she expresses this viewpoint, the locals refuse to discuss the issue; they view rape as almost worst than murder.
This tale takes Kendra back into the army, but now in the Freehold Military Forces. Both Bob and Mara are reservists, so she has met many other reservists and active duty soldiers. With her prior experience, she is offered a guaranteed Corporal slot if she passes basic.
Kendra finds the FMF training to be much more difficult -- and better -- than the UNPF version. She finishes her training and returns to the world of military logistics. None of the methods are too unfamiliar and most of the troopers are first class. A few, however, are scumbags and she helps to get one such out of the service.
The story leads up to -- and through -- the war with Earth. Kendra is accidentally directed to the wrong plane during evacuation of the base and finds herself alone in the boonies. While expecting work as a logistic tech, she adjusts to leading the local farmers in guerrilla warfare against the UNPF.
This plot starts with Kendra's accommodation to a new world and then turns into a war story. The first part is fascinating in the wide differences between the socialistic United States and the libertarian Freehold. The second part is filled with action and violence. Enjoy!
Highly recommended for Williamson fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of cultural shock, military affairs, and a budding romance.
-Arthur W. Jordin
A Vision of the Possible May 12, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I read lots of books and remember few of them. Freehold is a book I have thought about nearly every day over the past two years. Michael Williamson shows us a society that has not traded their liberty for a little security and the promises of politicians.
The book blew me away, not the plot or action - which wasn't bad, but for the vision. It also shamed me. I swore to protect and uphold the Constitution when I enlisted, and I failed. We really aren't free people any longer. I would pack up the family and head for Freehold tomorrow if I could.
 not a masterpiece January 21, 2008
0 out of 3 found this review helpful
The book is an easy read, but not great. If you liked the movie Red Dawn, you'd like this book. The good guys are good, the bad guys are incompetent and bad. There is very little character development despite the length of the book, mostly its just action, unrealistic action, but action. The good guys can stand in the middle of nuclear blast and come out with a flesh wound, the good guys can hit the enemy by firing into the air. I'll finish the book, but most likely won't read others by the same author.
Freehold rocks!!! Read the book, now I want to move there! November 14, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I read Michael Z. Williamson's The Weapon before I read Freehold. Both take place in the same time and world with some of the same characters but Freehold was published before The Weapon. The Weapon isn't what I'd consider a direct sequel so reading the newer novel first didn't ruin reading Freehold for me. Both these novels are incredible and I haven't enjoyed any sci-fi novels this much in the last 10 years. This guy writes sci-fi like the masters I grew up reading and devouring every new novel they'd come out with. The likes of Heinlien, Asimov and Clarke with a kind of edge reminiscent of Harlan Ellison. I just got his newest novel, Better to Beg Forgiveness which just came out in hardcover and I'm psyched up now. Can't recommend these books highly enough. If you liked Starship Troopers by Heinlien or The Forever War by Haldeman then you'll love Freehold and The Weapon.
 Problems, and yet... October 2, 2007
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
This book is rife with issues that make the writing feel amateurish. You can tell that the author, Mike Williamson, is obviously an intelligent individual with many interesting ideas. Yet he writes in a disorganized fashion, starting us down little side trails of plot and never going anywhere with them. His character development isn't the best, only the main character felt "real" to me. Plus, the book's a bit preachy, although he tries to weave it into the story.
And yet...it is a pretty easy read, he talks to the reader instead of at the reader. Around the corner of almost every page there's a new twist that sparkles the reader's imagination. In contract to the others, the main character was well-developed and I could empathize with her. And the action keeps you drawn in. A long book but it didn't seem so.
I can say one other thing about this book. For me, it ranks among an elite few for doing something that only 5 or 6 novels out of thousands that I have read have done. It brought tears to my eyes. And, man, did that sneak up on me. I didn't even realize how emotionally invested in her I had become until one scene near the end that just brought it all home and, what do you know, the sobs arrived!
For being able to launch an emotional sneak attack like that, I want to give it 5 stars. Yet for the other flaws, especially the disorganization and hanging plot threads, it earns at best a 3. So, sadly, we must compromise at 4.
I'll be giving Mike another chance in the future and will definitely read something else of his. Probably something written later in the hopes that his style has improved, without taking away any of that undefinable magic that makes Freehold so powerful.
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