As many books by men as I've been reading in the early goings on of this 2012 reading challenge, it was a nice change to read Anne McCaffrey's Freedom's Landing, which had a female protagonist who wasn't at all pathetic or damsel in distress oriented. I'm going to order the next four books in the series.
One of the reasons I like science fiction, and have since I was a kid, is that women are not always pathetic as is true in so much popular fiction. Kristen Bjornsen, Kris to everyone, starts off as a typical American college student forced into the situation of becoming an escaped slave when Earth is taken over by the Catteni and she is transported to another planet, with no idea what happened to the people she loved.
But, like me, whatever situations may due to Kris, she can stop being a good Samaritan. In fact, she gets herself recaptured by helping a Catteni, who she had first thinks is another escaped slave, escape from his country men's vengeance. Then she ends up on a spaceship to a supposedly uninhabited world that turns out to be not so uninhabited, along with the Catteni she rescued.
They, and the rest of their shipmates, must learn to get along and deal with the trials and tribulations of interspecies communication, self-government, and post slave mentality. The fact that McCaffrey just doesn't gloss over these details in pursuit of a great adventure story is what makes in my somewhat sexist opinion, but as a writer I feel like it has some merits, the difference clear between the way men and the way women tell stories. Women, in my opinion, want to delve into the relationships, the details, the mess… Men not so much!
I rate the story and eight out of 10 and must say that I liked the ending very much and I'm off to download the next book now. That should tell you how eager I am to continue this series.
No comments:
Post a Comment