A review by nathaniel_1206
Freehold by Michael Z. Williamson

3.0

This is a fairly ridiculous, enjoyable bubblegum military science fiction. Williamson is a perfect serviceable writer, and develops strong characters. The first half of the book is all getting to know the main players, and a pretty ridiculous, if not stereotypical, three person romantic relationship. Williamson does a good job making his characters likeable, and interesting. But the romantic relationships are not handled without much nuance, it's all titillation and heavy breathing. There is a middle section that adds the "military" to what science fiction there has been so far, and the the rest is war. Perfectly well written, high death toll, goes on far too long, war. For a while Williamson builds, just by sheer narrative neglect, a question if some of the main character survived the war. The neglect comes in handy, and Williamson is able to reincorporate them back in by stupid subplots. There's nothing new here, and some may find a few characters offensively stereotypical. It's enjoyable, service-ably written, military science fiction.

(If you have an ereader, I would highly recommendation going over to Baen's website and getting it for free.)