and the moral is?

[snugglekitty]

A few days ago, I finished Freehold by Michael Z. Williamson. I took it out of the library, but you may wish to know that it is available free online.

I wish to say first that the cover of this book is very misleading. It looks like a light and fluffy space opera from the cover. It's not. Kendra Pacelli has been framed for embezzlement from the military. Rather than being caught, she chooses to flee the MP and seek asylum with the Freehold of Grainne, a planet that has refused to join the corrupt and beauracratic UN. When she gets there, however, everything that she has ever known is called into question. She is living on a world with the bare minimum of government - something like an anarchist utopia.



This book kind of goes from weird to weirder. First, Lieutenant Pacelli is on the run from the law. Then she is trying to adjust to life in anarchist community. She gets comfortable with nudity, starts trying drugs (everything is legal on Grainne), and carrying a handgun (standard accessory for anyone over the age of ten). She develops a triad with two of the first people she meets on the planet. One seems to be just a mild-mannered building manager, and the other is a courtesan, but surprise! they both actually work for the military. She enlists in the military herself, and then her old home (Earth) invades her new home (Grainne). Horrible atrocities are committed on both sides. Her boyfriend is infected with a nanovirus that makes him unable to leave a hallucinatory dream state. Her girlfriend is a POW and is tortured and gang-raped by UN military. She herself winds up taking part in an attack on civilian targets of her own native world. The Freehold triumphs over the UN, the sweeties all find each other and try to start the healing process. The end.

I found this book kind of confusing. Williamson seems to be trying to portray Freehold as an anarchist utopia, but I don't think he did a great job. On the one hand, he claims that the crime rate on Freehold is much lower than that of Earth. On the other hand, he claims that the cities get most of their unskilled municipal labor from petty criminals. On one hand, he claims that rape is nearly unheard of on the planet, on the other, that pre-pubescent girls there are justified in carrying handguns to protect themselves from rape. I could go on. In essence, I felt there were too many inconsistencies, and I didn't get the point of the book, if there was one.



I can give it three stars, because it was interesting just to see where he would go next, but I'm not going to read more of his work. Too odd and disturbing.

I think this book would be enjoyed most by folks interested in anarchist philosophy and fans of military sci fi.

Comments

[bossym.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the review! This sounds interesting, if disturbing. I might be bothered by the badly-done utopia, but I might check it out nonetheless. I wonder whether naming the anarchist planet after the Irish mythic heroine was deliberate?

[kpram.livejournal.com]

My take on Williamson's books is that he cares more about bashing his UN/Earth dystopia than showing, or even thinking through, his libertarian society. You could have high crime rates and STILL be lower than 'every woman gets raped sometimes, why report it?' Earth society.

I liked the military/gun porn bits of the book, although he did it better in "The Weapon".

[lady-anemone.livejournal.com]

I feel certain it was deliberate. The book may be many things, but "hastily conceived" is definitely not one of them. Even the ships are significantly named.

[lady-anemone.livejournal.com]

I think that's a reasonable take on the book. I wish he had spent more time on how the society worked, I think it would have been interesting.