A review by spentcello
Freedom's Choice by Anne McCaffrey

2.75

I always think of Anne McCaffrey's books as comfort food - nothing particularly bad happens, all plans go well and there are generally very few complications. This series has those elements but I think I prefer Pern more. This is more like comfort food with a strong military dressing which is not a particularly pleasant result. Setting it in modern day Earth time allows for a lot of popular culture references, which are sometimes funny, but often come across as silly and cheap.

I find the ethnographic angle of detailing the set-up of a colony a unique way of exploring the more positive sides of human nature but I find someone like Ursula K. Le Guin's exploration deeper and more satisfying. I also have a slight issue with setting up what I would call 'cosy colonialism' where all the ethical problems traditionally associated with colonialism are removed. Doing this validates colonialist ideals and promotes a one-sided view of colonialism and human expansion which I don't personally agree with. However, this is a recurrent theme in almost all of McCaffrey's books and I still enjoy them a lot. While I wasn't particularly impressed with this book in the series, I'm interested to see where she takes it in the later books.