Wednesday, July 14, 2004
Freedom's Ransom by Anne McCaffrey
Freedom's Ransom is the fourth in the Freedom series by Anne McCaffrey. Freedom's Landing, Freedom's Choice, and Freedom's Challenge are the other books in the series.
It's a complicated series with many different species of aliens (and humans) fighting and/or working together and not always species by species...some groups of one species may join forces against their own side. So the alliances are complicated, the personal relationships are complicated (small world, small groupings of persons, romance may not select the same pairing as mating to expand the genepool), and politics are complicated. In past books this colony has struggled to survive but now they are working to make a better life and to thrive as a trading group.
One of the strengths of McCaffreys writing is the dignity of her characters and the work that they (and she) put into respecting the different parts of different cultures. Yes, the Barevi are warriors and oppressors but their trade traditions are beautifully complicated and solidly built as are their social structure and educational heritage. Another strength, IMO, is that no entire people is "bad"; individual people are evil or greedy but there are some of those in every group of people.
I would recommend this to 14, 12, and 11 year old boys, and people who liked Pern but want something less dragony.
It's a complicated series with many different species of aliens (and humans) fighting and/or working together and not always species by species...some groups of one species may join forces against their own side. So the alliances are complicated, the personal relationships are complicated (small world, small groupings of persons, romance may not select the same pairing as mating to expand the genepool), and politics are complicated. In past books this colony has struggled to survive but now they are working to make a better life and to thrive as a trading group.
One of the strengths of McCaffreys writing is the dignity of her characters and the work that they (and she) put into respecting the different parts of different cultures. Yes, the Barevi are warriors and oppressors but their trade traditions are beautifully complicated and solidly built as are their social structure and educational heritage. Another strength, IMO, is that no entire people is "bad"; individual people are evil or greedy but there are some of those in every group of people.
I would recommend this to 14, 12, and 11 year old boys, and people who liked Pern but want something less dragony.
# posted by JJ @ 4:44 PM 
