Book 1, Freedom's Landing: Freedom Series

This novel is an excellent example of why the store reviews are worthless. Moronic reviewers giving one or two star reviews for idiotic reasons, heck, the ability to use proper grammar and composition deserve better than that. This along with those who give five star reviews to authors who apparently do no research, never took a composition course, and do no editing. This along with those who complain about this the author clearly disclose in the blurb to their book. That's why I rarely review unless a relatively unknown does an exceptional job or someone really lets me down with their second novel.

Loved this book and have downloaded the next two in the series.
It amazed me in its concept of sci fi which I had not thought about.
Kept me occupied reading it and could not put it down. I could go on, but
I dont want to spoil it for others.

Jeff.

Kris Bjornsen was stolen from Earth and used as a slave to the ruthless Catteni, an alien race only interested in subjugating everyone under their rule. Maltreated and abused as she was, she drew the line at being a bedmate for her master so she ran away, flying the air ship and hiding out in the jungles of the alien planet, far away from starvation and the metal whips the overlords used on their slaves. She spent six months minding her own business, learning to survive on what the local fauna ate and drinking fresh water straight from the river that split the valley in half. She was alone, but she was free.

Until the day an air craft, chased by other Catteni, crashed into her jungle and blew her solitude all to bits. When she found the survivor of the attack and subsequent crash, she discovered he was as Catteni as they come, but her sense of right and wrong wouldn't let him die in the jungle or get captured by those who were pursuing him. She took him in, cared for his cuts and bruises as best she could and would have been happy to let him go, until he decided he wanted take more than she was willing to offer. Catteni or not, she didn't want him in her jungle and decided to dump him back in the city they had both escaped from. It was a good plan too, until they both got caught up in the gassed riots and ended up on an interstellar ship to the back end of nowhere with little more than the clothes on their backs.

Now stranded on a penal planet, dumped along with thousands of other humans and aliens alike, Kris decides she had better keep an eye out for the Catteni named Zainal, for he was certain to end up killed by any number of human or alien who hated his Catteni guts. As the survivors gather together, they learn pretty quickly that the planet that their overlords believed to be empty is in fact full of many deadly dangers, and many from mechanical farmers that harvest the planet for an even greater, unknown alien race, more technically advanced and possibly more powerful than any of the known alien races combined.

And Kris and Zainal end up smack bang in the middle of it all.

I enjoyed Freedom's Landing, although it was a little slow in placed. The first The Catteni Sequence, a series of four books by Anne McCaffrey, it tells a story of how a race of beings have to work together to survive on a planet with only meager equipment the resources the planet has to offer.

Perfect for the boy scout or the girl guide who love action and adventure with a little bit of romance thrown in for good measure.

I gave the book four stars out of five as I think it was a little slow in places and I found the main character needed a bit more depth to her life and emotions.

This was a little bit outside what I normally read but I enjoyed it. The story has a nice blend of different species while remaining connected to humans and humanoid forms that it was easy to form appearances in one's minds eye. The plot is steady and has direction. Enough to know where the story might be heading. There is a lot of detail into these worlds and experiences to make it believable enough to comprehend easily. Good humor and opposition to make things interestingly tense. Underlying romance that slowly progresses and jealously that might get the best of some. Some racial discrimination and sexual harassment scenes, but nothing too serious.

In McCaffrey's Freedom's Landing, Earth has been conquered, subjugated by the Catteni, a race of aliens whose great physical strength stems from their own homeworld's intense gravity. Humans have been turned into slaves, forcibly performing whatever tasks their Catteni masters dictate to them.

Kris Bjornsen is a young woman who had the nerve to fight back, in her own small way, by stealing her Catteni master's personal transport. Living in hiding on the Catteni world of Barevi, Kris ultimately ends up meeting Zainal, a Catteni that winds up changing her life forever.

Now, because of a crime Zainal committed, both Kris and Zainal (along with many other humans, and several different species of aliens, too) wind up stranded on an uninhabited world.

Kris and Zainal, along with several hundred other humans and aliens, must go to great lengths to survive this hostile world. And they do, using this new world to build a colony free from the watchful eye of their harsh Catteni overlords. But this world they have been stranded on is not all it seems, and its secrets may lead to their burgeoning colony's survival, or its ultimate destruction.

Freedom's Landing was my first sortie into an Anne McCaffrey created Universe. Despite some flaws, I enjoyed the overall premise and its intermingling plots.

The idea of using slave labor to explore/colonize a planet was an interesting concept, however, I thought the author could have gone a bit more into the moral/ethical issues of such a policy, instead of just using it as a guiding framework for her story.

Kris and Zainal's blossoming romance was artfully done, with each character clearly growing into the role of being comfortable as the other's partner. Kris and Zainal's very different backgrounds provide for a very interesting friction on their romantic progress.

I also found other, more minor details, to be extremely believable. The idea of putting together this new colony is a lot of awful hard work, and the author notes this in the fact that she is constantly emphasizing how tired the characters are at the end of each of their arduous days.

Despite McCaffrey's well-crafted story, some of the prose was a bit clumsy and hard to get through at times. Especially when it came to each individual character's own unique speech patterns. I commend the author on attempting to enhance each of her characters by providing them with (all too realistic) varying ways of speaking based on their backgrounds. But McCaffrey does not pull this detail off well, and it, at times, makes getting through characters' dialogue a bit tedious.

Despite some minor drawbacks, McCaffrey's tale was engaging and moved along quite well. I look forward to delving into this story's subsequent tales.

FREEDOM'S LANDING was first issued at a time when I was reading a lot of non-fiction and almost no novels so I missed it. As something new by Anne McCaffrey I would have been interested. Several years later it landed in my hands and I now count it among my science fiction favorites. I recently collected the three later books in the series and went back to the original to refresh the story in my mind before reading the others and it was just as enjoyable this time. I liked the unique collection of characters from Earth, especially Kristen Bjornsen, who shows considerable strength and survival skills. There is only one non-Earth person we really get to know, Zanial, who becomes more and more interesting as the story progresses. And, though he is a member of the race which enslaved the Earth humans, he becomes important to their (and his) freedom. FREEDOM'S LANDING opens up numerous questions which end up as mysteries to be solved in the following books so I suggest getting all of them.

Kris Bjornsen is a carefree student at Colorado University when the alien Catteni arrive on Earth. Then she becomes one of thousands kidnapped and transported to a Catteni planet, where she wakes from stasis to find herself a slave. Rebelling against her Catteni masters - something Terrans do a great deal more often than most enslaved species - earns her another trip aboard one of their ships, this time to a world that Catteni explorers have marked for eventual settlement. The Catteni method for confirming a new planet's suitability for colonization is both simple and brutal: they drop a substantial population of slaves there, with minimal supplies and survival gear, and then wait to see what happens.

The drop of Terrans and several other enslaved species on this planet also includes one Catteni, an aristocrat sentenced to exile. At first Kris, who already knows Zainal from encountering him while they were both fugitives from Catteni justice, is the only Terran not inclined to execute him as soon as the others discover his presence. But as the castaways struggle to stay alive on the world they decide to call Botany, they soon realize that Zainal's knowledge of this place - however sketchy, since he had no idea he'd wind up dropped there along with the slaves! - may well be all that makes their survival possible.

An old-fashioned yet decidedly romantic science fiction adventure that takes familiar themes and plot devices, and does such interesting things with them that I didn't mind its lack of originality one bit. I'm glad I've already got the next two books in this four-book series waiting on my "to be read" pile!

Plots are interesting things. They can kill a good book or make a bad book ok (case in point, The Mandelorian Armor, good plot, bad writing), and this book's plot makes it unique. Said plot is about a woman who is abducted by aliens, and then deposited on a planet that the Cateni (abductors) want to have colonized. The aliens keep dropping more and more humans until they manage to get the planet under control, then they come back and take over again. The humans are given only short knives, ration bars, and some med kits to help them. About 1-2 hundred are dropped at one site, with many sites all over the planet.
One of the guys dropped is an ex military fellow who organizes people, gets them to all do one thing instead of one person trying to get all of the knives, or food, or whatever. Once this is accomplished, and everybody who isn't dead is awake, they start out for some rocks, someplace that would be safer than where they are. After a whole day of marching they ! arive at their destination and find some caves that they use to set up a sort of apartment for everyone to be in. While all this is rather interesting, it gets a little slow when they are marching along, and I began to wonder when they will get to something that will be interesting. Some of the characters at this point are rather annoying, and I find it difficult to not just skim over that part.
It does take them a while to actually start doing things that are interesting, like exploring, making their cave convenient, establishing who else is on the planet and things of that nature. While it does take close to half the book to really draw me in, I was pleasently suprised until the end, where it pretty much just cut off and ended. It was rather annoying. However, I can't wait to read the sequel. Maybe it wil get interesting earlier than the middle of the book.

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.

Thousands of present day humans are abducted and enslaved by aliens, and are eventually set loose on a sparsely populated world by the conquering aliens, with the apparent intention of helping the conquerers to "tame" the new world.

The main group of 500 or so humanoids, made up of 5 or 6 types of humanoid aliens, are let loose on the new planet and have to learn to fend for themselves in an alien environment. The human heroine of the story (Kris) has a fairly enduring but bland personality... and the rest of the characters are generally even less interesting.

Thankfully, the story itself moves along fairly rapidly, and while never very exciting, it is at least a quick read.

While this story has to be classified as Science Fiction, it is best to consider this a "survival story", as it presents no breakthru technologies, and the aliens are fairly unbelievable when viewed as a whole. Indeed, that there appears to be any kind of sexual attraction between the humans and Catteni seems absurd and somewhat juvenile. Any explanation of space travel technology is completely omitted, as the enslaved aliens spend all their time "asleep" when in transit between worlds.

Like Cherryh's long series of Atevi novels, I find it somewhat hard to understand how this series is so popular and numerous.

What was most fascinating about this book was that it started off almost in the middle of a story, as if you turned on the TV and watched a flick with out seeing the beginning. And then the book ended the same way, as if you turned the movie off with out seeing the conclusion. If I did not know that there were several other books in the series, I think that I would have been reviewing Freedom's Landing in a better light. I say this because this story felt more like a dream that you look back upon after waking. The beginning might be hazy and the end is where the alarm clock took over.

This is a pretty crazy tale; aliens invade earth and round up slaves from major cities. They use whips to force people into the ships as if they were cattle. If you read the book think about how strange some aspects of her story are. The dialogue is pretty bad, but then again, I think she was aiming towards a younger audience than myself, so I forgive her for that.

If you're looking for a good female science fiction writer and were seeing if McCaffrey was a starting point on that endeavor, pass her by for the time being. Instead concentrate on Connie Willis and her book 'To say nothing of the dog.'

I read the Freedom Series many, many years ago, when they were available in paper back books from our local library. I enjoyed the series immensely and have been waiting for the e-book version to be released, so I can read them again. Books 2,3 and 4 are now available in kindle version, but book 1 still isn't available! I'm getting annoyed by the lengthy delay. When will the store get this sorted????

I'd really like to read these books again, as they were among my first introductions to Anne McCaffrey's works, but they need to be read in sequence and I'm still waiting for the first book to become available !!!

The Dragons of Pern series, the Brain and Brawn series and also the Acorna series were also among my favourite books at that time. I enjoy Anne's style of writing and I'm sure that many of her books will become classics, to be read by future generations.

UPDATE;
I gave up waiting for a Kindle version of Freedom's Landing and bought the Audio Book, so that I could re-read the series from start to finish. This series is just as good as I remembered and I think I've enjoyed it even more, the second time around.

But Please, Please, the store. Get this book out in Kindle version, so more people can enjoy it. It's a great series.

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!

the plot was less interesting to me then the characters. Bottom line is that captured species including humans and one member of the capturing species end up on a planet to be forceably colonized. the book focuses on the interaction of the members of the colony and less on a actual plot.

the villian of the group is a hu-man who 'hits' on the girls to have sex with them. for this he is put in stocks, abused, threatened with being castrated, and at one point forceably bound and carried up a cliff while terrified, where upon he wets himself, bringing more abuse on himself.

the other human males in the group are somewhat sexually neutral, although the 'girls' can and do 'pair' off with some men but apparantley never with a man that might want sex with them as there is no discussion of any sexual activity among humans. Mostly the value of the men in this story is their ability to be useful to the colony, doctors, engineers, etc. but the average male is rare to find in the book.

where the book gets 'racy' is the sexual antics of the lead female with a species of people that look 'human' but arent. actual human males dont seem to 'come up' to the standards of the 'cat' man and there is a graphic description of of a sexual encounter with the non-human species with the lead human female, as well as discussions by human females about how well endowed the 'cat men' are in general.

i wont give away the ending since there really isnt any, but by the end of the book i was convinced that in McCaffrey world, human men werent worth much except and unless they contribute to the comfort and care of the females, and 'cat' men would be every girls dream.

who would this book be for? hmmmm maybe jaded females who hate men and love cats. everyone else, forget it.

You know sometimes McCaffery writes so well you can picture yourself there and just emotionally connect with the characters? This book is about as far from that ideal as you can get.

The Catteni invaded Earth, and the main character is an escaped slave. She's recaptured along with the Catteni whose life she saved (and knocked out trying to rape her) and they get dumped on a hostile world and become great friends. The book ends with no resolution. Freedom's Choice: Freedom Series, Book 2 is next, and it summarizes the entire book one in the first five pages.

The characters are uniformly flat with one personality trait, be it 'lechery', 'timidity', 'leadership', or 'alien'. No shades of gray. McCaffery enjoys overusing slang; repeated use of 'boy, oh boy!', 'eyeteeth', 'yonks', plus characters speak in accents. Catteni are not written as alien; I had a hard picturing them as anything other than large gray humans.

Freedom's Landing is a superb book by Anne McAffrey about the struggle of different species to survive together in an unfamiliar world. The Eosi are an alien species that invade weaker planets and use the people on them as slaves to either work for them or colonize new lands. Kris Bjorsen is a human who was taken when the Eosi attacked Earth. She escaped being a slave, only to be recaptured while trying to help a refugee Eosi. She is taken to a new planet along with about 800 others and forced to survive with limited food, tools and lots of unknown dangers. The colonists name "their" planet Botany after the English ship that helped colonize Australia with convicts, and together build a new society based on exploration, hope and freedom.

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.

Anne McCaffrey has moved on from Pern and now has a group dropped down (unwilling) on a new planet, Botany. Unfortunately, the book has the characteristics of a book rushed into print by an established author for her publisher. The story starts out well but then goes downhill. The involuntary colonists, dropped down into a hostile environment, magically accomplish things in weeks that would take normal people years. This seems to be another case of an author that has lost all sense of time (perhaps bored with a slow pace and rushing to move on). The story is left unfinished, leading into another book to be written. I read what must have been the first printing of the hard cover edition and the editing, in places, was atrocious. Don't publishers edit for basic grammar anymore?

Freedom's Landing is a superb book by Anne McAffrey about the struggle of different species to survive together in an unfamiliar world. The Eosi are an alien species that invade weaker planets and use the people on them as slaves to either work for them or colonize new lands. Kris Bjorsen is a human who was taken when the Eosi attacked Earth. She escaped being a slave, only to be recaptured while trying to help a refugee Eosi. She is taken to a new planet along with about 800 others and forced to survive with limited food, tools and lots of unknown dangers. The colonists name "their" planet Botany after the English ship that helped colonize Australia with convicts, and together build a new society based on exploration, hope and freedom.

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.

Anne McCaffrey has moved on from Pern and now has a group dropped down (unwilling) on a new planet, Botany. Unfortunately, the book has the characteristics of a book rushed into print by an established author for her publisher. The story starts out well but then goes downhill. The involuntary colonists, dropped down into a hostile environment, magically accomplish things in weeks that would take normal people years. This seems to be another case of an author that has lost all sense of time (perhaps bored with a slow pace and rushing to move on). The story is left unfinished, leading into another book to be written. I read what must have been the first printing of the hard cover edition and the editing, in places, was atrocious. Don't publishers edit for basic grammar anymore?

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.

I disagree with the previous reviewer who called this a book for 12 year olds. It is well written and enjoyable. McCaffrey has an immense talent for writing books for both ages, children and adults. This is definately for adults.
My only fault with the book, and to be honest, I'm not sure it is a fault, is that McCaffrey's plots usually consist of someone being put in a bad situation, and their ability to cope. There is not usually a major obstacle to overcome or a quest to achieve. More often, her stories tend to focus on minor obstacles the characters face in a setting strange to them. Enjoyable, but it makes for rather anti-climatic endings.

Kristin Bjornsen was a student in Denver before she was kidnapped and enslaved by the Catteni, a race of war-mongering giant humanoids. She escapes from slavery on the planet Barevi, lives off the land, then is captured again. She and a multitude of others are dumped on an unknown planet where they must fend for themselves. Most of the writing is spent on scouting expeditions and the mechanics of survival and food procurement. Too boring for words. If you are looking for character development or plot, look elsewhere. So bad I couldn't force myself to finish.

Is it just me, or have Anne McCaffrey's books gone to hell since the loss of Judi-Lynn Del Rey? Just shows you what a good editor can do.

Anne McCaffrey has always been my favorite author. Her Pern series being the most prominent in her collection of works overshadows some of her smaller series. The Freedom Series is possibly one of my second favorite series after the Pern collection. Ms McCaffrey has an excellent way of putting you into the story and allowing the reader to enter a whole new world. I would highly recommend this series, especially to science fiction fans who enjoy more of the sci-fi aspect then the fantasy aspect.

This is another expanded short story from GET OFF THE UNICORN. This time, it's "The Thorns of Barevi", which Ms. McCaffrey called "...an attempt to cash in on the lucrative market for soft- and hard-core pornography in the '60s." Need I say more? This expansion into a trilogy stretches a thin story past the breaking point. The unreal speed of technological development was especially irritating (left on the planet with axes, knives, and blankets, less than two months later they're rebuilding circuit boards to put a cell phone net up? Not likely!) McCaffrey has never been a technology-driven author, but this is ridiculous! Her anti-military prejudice shows throughout, and the social dynamics in the group can charitably be called unlikely (who really thinks Aarens wouldn't have suffered a fatal "accident" shortly after being rescued?) The remaining books in the trilogy go downhill from here. Overall, leave this series alone.

I truly enjoyed Freedom's Landing. While I agree that in terms of 'quality' writing, this novel does not quite compare with the classics, I found reading it to be very enjoyable. Once again I was carried away to an Anne McCaffrey world.

I found myself whisked into the story, truly enjoying some of the character development, including that of Kris Bjornsen, Chuck Mitford, and Zainal. I found both Chuck and Kris compelling characters, and their personal strength and the ingenuity of all of the characters appealing. *WARNING -- mild spoiling* I have to agree that the intial characterization of Zainal as a rapist was disturbing, and that his complete turn-around to a gentle, kind, and even honorable lover of Kris is irrational. However, I do not find this so disturbing or inconcievable that it ruins the book. *spoiling done*

I found the plot intriguing. Anne McCaffrey has again built a wonderful world for our imaginations. I think the idea of the existance of a planet such as Botany to be fascinating. I really enjoyed reading of Kris's adventures and the amazing development of a new society on a new world.

I have been a fan of Anne McCaffrey's works for quite some time. In fact, I have voraciously read nearly everything I could get my hands on. I found Freedom's Landing to be a wonderfully fun and fascinating novel and beginning of a series.

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)

A. McCaffrey is not an author whose books you should automatically purchase. Sometimes she can write well (Restoree, The Ship Who Sang, The Ring of Fear), but most of the time she seems to be as alien to the English language as the Catteni. Needing a sci-fi fix, I bought the Crystal Singer series and this book. What horrible, horrible fiction. In all of them, they start out good,but soon McC. alienates her readers with underdeveloped, one-dimensional characters and innane dialogue ("Hey, look at that big bird,Zainal." "Yep, that is a big bird, even a Catteni like me think so.").I skimmed most of this book just to follow the plot. Kris (who I unfortunately share a name with) is a [fool]. Here she is, dumped down in this alien world, Earth taken over by aliens, and there is absolutely very little reaction from her about this. No real grief, etc. It is all very commonplace to her. The sex scene with Kris and Zainal was lackluster. My advice to McC.: if you can't write a good one, don't write one that is really, really bad. Leave it out! Fade to black! I am not even going to read the rest of the series because the characters are so boring that I don't care if they overthrow the Catteni/Esoi, survive a visit from the unknown aliens who "own" the planet where they are now, or build a Disneyland there. They seem to be able to do everything else (I find that unrealistic too--wouldn't there be some fighting, disorganization, confusion? Just because Mitford is military extraordinaire doesn't mean he can conquer all negative human qualities). My advice: Don't buy or even borrow this book to read. It is not worth the time. Go for some good sci-fi in which the authors take the time to develop realistic, interesting characters in well-defined alien worlds--not something that is not called Earth, but gee, looks a lot like it (aside from the scavenger things). (I also didn't like how eager they were to always kill the life forms there--whether they needed to eat or not. It was like NRA let loose in Wild Kingdom. Didn't they have any vegetarians? Besides, after awhile the rocksquats or whatever would have been more wary of the humans/aliens and less easy to find/kill.)Horrible book!!!! (the Crystal singer series was just as bad.)

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?

Unaware that this was a series, I picked this audio book up from the public library and was pleasantly surprised by the richness of the characters and plot. The audio version puts the listener right into the action and really brought out each of the character's personalities. I loved it! I immediately purchased the other installments (in unabridged audio format of course). Now I understand there's a fourth installment, Freedoms Ransom, due out in June...can't wait.

(for an infinitely better read on a similar theme, try "The Earth Abides")

Anne McCaffrey can write(see her Dragon series), but she doesn't demonstrate her talents here. Most of this poorly thought out and illogical book is written in an embarrassingly inept attempt at a smartassed American dialect. Her grasp of American idiom is poor at best and is so gratingly "off" it spoils whatever moment McCaffrey is trying to construct. It's like listening to very loud, very acid rock played on a very bad transistor. Characters are shallow and badly constructed. Plot is random, heading apparently nowhere, and the book is a patent first installment in a series...perish the thought! Shame on McCaffrey and her editors for this pulpy piece of trash, particularly as her readership has every reason to expect a higher quality work. This book makes a case for book burning as a form of public service.

I didn't expect any serious work from Anne McCaffrey, but even for light reading this was really too much. The book is on the level for teenagers, and what additionally annoyed me was "lets build a colony, everybody should have at least two babies, misterious aliens (tha farmers) don't matter, and stupid Catteni and Eosi overlords don't matter either, brave, intelligent, tolerant and compassionate humans will win". Yuck!