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Book Review: Freehold (Freehold Series Book 1)

Erin Penn

Book Cover from Amazon

Freehold (Freehold Series Book 1) by Michael Z. Williamson

BOOK BLURB ON AMAZON

Sergeant Kendra Pacelli is innocent, but that doesn’t matter to the repressive government pursuing her. Mistakes might be made, but they are never acknowledged, especially when billions of embezzled dollars earned from illegal weapons sales are at stake. But where does one run when all Earth and most settled planets are under the aegis of one government? Answer: The Freehold of Grainne. There, one may seek asylum and build a new life in a society that doesn’t track its residents every move, which is just what Pacelli has done. But now things are about to go royally to hell. Because Earth’s government has found out where she is, and they want her back. Or dead.

 

MY REVIEW

First quarter of book is about Kendra leaving her home planet and integrating into Freehold society. We learn about it from her perspective. Mr. Williamson presents a new culture similar to Mr. Heinlein’s Starship Troopers, but brought into the new millennium and made his own. It idealizes extreme individualism, which one would expect from a recent colony; weak, stupid and average need not apply to this high gravity planet. (I had a lot more to say about whether I think this society is viable long-term (it’s not however much parts of it would be wishful-thinking nice) but that is more of a book group discussion than review material.) Discovering the world through her eyes, we learn both about Kendra’s new society and her old society (Earth North America). Some very, very nice worldbuilding takes place – layers upon layers.

Worldbuilding includes dealing with a higher gravity (tiring easier), air differences (constantly needing water in the dryer situation), individualism being important, how to pay for governmental projects without taxes (some things just have to be done on such a large scale governments or corporations need to organize them), etc. Still not exactly sure how the education system works – it wasn’t important to the full-grown immigrant Kendra, so not introduced here. A lot of the cultural description reads like a treatise, but then so did Heinlein’s stuff.

Second quarter of the book focuses on Kendra joining the military while tensions between her home planet and her adopted planet escalate. About the time she finally finishes specialist training, war erupts.

Leading to the third quarter of the book. I will stop here, because anything further will have spoilers. But war and the action begins. Takes a long time to get to this point. If you like non-stop action from the very beginning, this is not the book for you.

Note the main character is in a three-way relationship with a woman and a man, and several times this gets graphic. Plus it is open, so the three-way sometimes introduces other sexual relationships though no one steps away from the emotional commitment. Some readers might find this uncomfortable. (Like the culture, the sexual attitudes are very similar to Heinlein.)

Trigger Alert: There is a gang-rape in the second half of the book.

Flash: Cleansing Team (Part 2) – Target Up

Erin Penn

Picture from freedigitalphotos.net

A light glow emanated from a twitching hand. A hand that was never supposed to move again.

Unnaturals did not heal when unconscious. Knocked down, all they needed was a final bullet through the brain to put them out of mankind’s misery. … A big bullet.

If they woke up again, Unnaturals were cranky.

Andros tore his fingers loose from the hot metal, leaving being permanent fingerprints, and tried to realign the ammo without taking his eyes off the freak. When she pushed up, the broken bones on her shoulder pushed out even further until she found her balance and stood on the rubble. Ice black eyes holding the heat of stars met his plain brown; both his eyes and hers had tears flowing freely from them. Dust and panic drove his body to produce the salty fluid; Andros could not guess what the Unnatural felt, but her face emotion mimicked compassion.

Rapid fire needles tore up the floor until finding target. Parker must have thrown the now useless rail-gun aside and gone for his secondary weapon. None penetrated the woman.

Her right hand had closed in a fist and the light was growing brighter. Fire started licking up her arm, baking off the blood pattern and scorched her flesh black. The Unnatural took steps, each terrible and graceful, until she was off the bricks, stones, and metal pile which had been formed when she had been blasted through the building mere seconds ago.

Green breams burned through the dust. Dreanna’s laser had a new power pack. A stream of poison, a quarter the volume previously used, joined the dismal response against the Unnatural’s forward movement as Maron brought his reserves online. Andros did not know what the other three were doing, hopefully running for their lives while the rest of the team laid down theirs. Someone had to get the word out.

Andros raised his overheated gun, mirroring the young woman raising her right arm.

Her shoulder was nearly healed. Charred flesh flaked off her arm with baby pink skin showing for a second before burning too.

Too bright to look at, Andros forced his eyes back to her hand again and again trying to make out the stone she had picked up. It was black winking through her fingers … no, not black, but lack of light. A black hole in the middle of fire.

Ignoring his tears, the whimpering voice his mind refused to process, the trembling of every portion of his body but his independent hands, Andros clicked full release and pulled the trigger. The explosion left his gun, condensed amadium, the heaviest alloy known to man, pushed out at Mach four. Time slowed as he watched his barrel shatter and the projectile race sound toward the target.

The fire streamed down her arm back to her hand, brightening the impossible light another magnitude, searing Andros’ eyes open. He saw his fatal projectile nearly reach her.

Then the Unnatural opened her hand.

(Words 496; first published 4/2/2014; republished new blog format 8/4/2019)

Other Cool Blogs: Magical Words 10/6/2008

Erin Penn

Image courtesy of Phil_Bird at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

A Post About Anachronism by David B. Coe is over at Magical Words. You know I had to be all over that one.

Anachronism is something out of time, such as my linen aprons with drawn thread embroidery circa 1530 being worked on 2019.

Mr. Coe warns about bringing anachronisms into a fantasy piece, which will throw a reader out of the story. The areas he focused on are worldbuilding, language, and dialogue. I’ve talked about this sort of thing before, mainly in Editing Rants complaining about fact-checking; Mr. Coe discusses it from the creative standpoint from inconsistent technology levels and POV observational limitations. Take a gander at it.  (“Take a gander” being an early 20th century phrase and should not be in a fantasy, an example of anachronistic language.)

Again, the link is:

This post can also be found at Mr. Coe’s website: https://davidbcoe.wordpress.com/2008/10/06/a-post-about-anachronism/

Flash: The Secrets of Cats

Erin Penn

Image provided by saphatthachat on FreeDigitalPhotos.net

“The cat slunk by, eyeing me suggestively.” The woman shifted positions, foot to foot. “I’m not saying this right. The expression the cat had said it had a secret, one I would want to know, but it wasn’t going to tell me. But, it might lead me to it.

“That is how I got here.” Maribeth wrapped arms tightly around herself as she waited for the answer from the six people pointing weapons at her. Shivering from the cold as much as fright, she tried to make out faces under the scarfs and furs of the hooded parkas. Her flipflops inadequacies in the ankle-deep snow were matched by her bikini top and the shorts she pulled on to hit the boardwalk. She had spotted the cat going doing an alley behind a seafood restaurant when she went to grab lunch after surfing.

A muffled voice, either emanating from the person directly in front of her holding the old fashion machine gun or from the person to the right holding a crossbow strung with two arrows, one-right on top of the other, asked, “You followed a cat?”

“A cat, yes. About so big,” She took her hands out of her arm pits and gestured, before returning them to the warmest place on her body. She shifted her feet again; they felt more like slush than flesh. “Down an alley.”

She heard laughter behind her.

“Pad.” The voice, clearer this time, came from the crossbow holder and cut like an ice dagger. The laughter stopped instantly. “Girl, go back.”

“I tried. I came out of that tree.” Maribeth risked frostbite again for her fingers, waving at a nearby tree with footprints surrounding it. “I tried and tried. The cat disappeared, and I can’t go home.” She held back sobs, barely, but wasn’t sure how much longer before she broke down entirely.

“Then come.”

The group moved as one, some in high leather boots and others in snow shoes, barely making a sound. Not wanting to be alone, Maribeth followed. One of the group fell behind her.

“Should we mark the tree or something, so I can try later?” she asked.

“We won’t be back.” The one behind her reported.

The college student stopped until the person pushed her, forcing her to follow the trail the others were breaking. “But, how do I get home?”

“That is the cat’s secret.”

(words 398; first published 7/28/2019)

Other Cool Blogs: Chuck Wendig 4/18/2017

Erin Penn

Photo by Jen Theodore on Unsplash
Meme words added by Erin Penn

House Fire or Hot Property? Why not both? That pretty much is the publishing industry in a nutshell, and those that like to hang out in it. An living example of this metaphor is Chuck Wendig.

On his birthday in 2017, Mr. Wendig did a retrospective on his blog – Terribleminds – “What I’ve Learned After 5 Years and 20 Books: 25 Lessons.”.

Three pieces that grabbed me from the twenty-five on the list:

  1. Writing advice is … largely the product of survivorship bias.
  2. A writing career is a little bit jazz.
  3. Give the proper amount of fucks.

You can find the list here: http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2017/04/18/what-ive-learned-after-5-years-and-20-books-25-lessons/

WRITING EXERCISE: Read the whole list of twenty-five and choose one that really strikes home. Write it up in a comment below explaining why it is important to you. By processing it out, explaining it, the concept will stick with you longer.

***

A writing career is a little bit jazz. 

I’m a plotter. Jazz is scary, improvisation jazz is even more scary. It’s structure isn’t a structure as much as a growth, layers of paint building from a pencil sketch which may or may not match what is in the mind but ends up so much more than I thought possible – or total dreck. Wendig wrote “You plan what you can, but the rest is experimentation.” Eek! 

And yet, jazz has its own beauty. Something beyond any plan. Adding a bit of jazz, a bit of music to a page to a book to a sentence. Create a canvas which people get lost in. The concept of a career having the same unsteady base is frightening and freeing.