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    Freedom's Ransom
    Freedom's Ransom
    Freedom's Ransom
    Audiobook9 hours

    Freedom's Ransom

    Written by Anne McCaffrey

    Narrated by Dick Hill

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    When Kris Bjornsen and her fellow slaves were dumped on an uninhabited planet by the alien overlords called Catteni, there was no guarantee they would survive. Without the help of Zainal, a renegade Catteni exiled by his own people, they might all have been food for the predators of the new world. But they did survive, building a civilization and a home on the planet they named Botany. In time they were instrumental in driving the Catteni away from Earth and neighboring planets. Botany is free now, and so is the devastated Earth.

    The survivalist days are over, and the time has come for Botany to find its place in the power struggles of the newly configured universe. As an agricultural planet, rich in resources, Botany has more to offer than the colonists may have thought. A trip to Earth shows Kris and Zainal very dramatically how weakened the home planet is after years of Catteni domination, and how much Earth needs what Botany can give. Other worlds too have had their wealth skimmed away by the Catteni: the nearby planet of Barevi is little more than a corrupt bazaar, where bits and pieces of Earth's once powerful technology can be traded for grain and mineral ores. Earth needs food, and the resources to rebuild. Botany needs technology—from solar satellite panels to simple batteries—and, some say, the will to protect itself from being overrun by refugees who may or may not have strength and skills. As alien influence fades, the people of Botany must decide what kind of world they will become.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    Release dateMay 16, 2017
    ISBN9781543611465
    Freedom's Ransom
    Author

    Anne McCaffrey

    Anne McCaffrey, a multiple Hugo and Nebula Award winner, was one of the world's most beloved and bestselling science fiction and fantasy writers. She is known for her hugely successful Dragonriders of Pern books, as well as the fantasy series that she cowrote with Elizabeth A. Scarborough that began with Acorna: The Unicorn Girl.

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    Reviews for Freedom's Ransom

    3.5/5

    232 ratings10 reviews

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    • 3/5
      This book is pretty much one long resolution, what happened next, to the original Cattle trilogy. It's a nice ending, but there isn't much in the way of climax and such.
    • 5/5
      A satisfying end to the series. Ann McCaffrey does it again.
    • 3/5
      This is sci-fi equivalent of a cozy mystery; decent, but I'm not tempted to reread it. There were so many missed opportunities for drama that I very nearly got angry with the book. The issue with too many names, too many convenient coincidences, and lack of tension persists into the fourth installment of the Catteni Series. This book wraps up many of the plot threads while leaving enough open-ended to suggest the possibility of more in the series, which will probably never be written. I'm sorry to say that I don't feel any sense of loss at that prospect. Even a visit to post-invasion Earth was not particularly interesting. Things picked up a little when a group from Botany goes to the Catteni trading planet Baveri to ransom back materials stolen from Earth, but even that ends up falling flat from lack of dramatic tension. Problems get resolved way too easily and the characters are too one-dimensional to carry the story without a stronger or more compelling plot. Some folks may enjoy the Catteni series, but they just weren't interesting enough for my tastes. (I first book, "Freedom's Landing," was the best of the lot.)
    • 4/5
      *Book source ~ Home libraryHaving overthrown the Eosi overlords in Freedom’s Challenge, the survivors on Botany, Earth and all the other newly free planets must figure out a way to do more than survive. They need to thrive and in order to do that they need things that the Catteni have looted for the Eosi. Once again, Zainal steps into the breach and comes up with a plan to help all the planets. But is it too far of a reach?Being free of the Eosi is only the first step and who knew what it would take to get Earth up and running again, not to mention finding what the people of Botany need in order to stay in communication with Earth, Catten and the other planets. I sure didn’t grasp the massive undertaking until Zainal, Kris and everyone else had to tackle it in this book. The clever way they go about it is ingenious and the fact that coffee has become a major form of payment says a lot for its caffeine addictive qualities. I personally can’t stand the stuff, but if it can addict the Catteni enough to use it as payment for much needed technological goods then have it I say. All of the bargaining and trading and rebuilding is endlessly interesting. And the idea of using Botany as a vacation planet has merit. All-in-all a great ending to a favorite series.
    • 4/5
      While not as gripping as some of the earlier books in this series, I still found the events described in the book interesting. The previous book felt like a good conclusion, so this book felt almost like an epilogue (a book length epilogue!). Its describes the fallout after the defeat of the Eosi, in particular, how both Catteni and human cultures are trying to recover from the Eosi domination. Share and share-alike is not the motto of either the Catteni, or the humans remaining on earth, and the Botany folk have to barter to get the materials needed to get both themselves, and the humans on earth, back into regular interstelllar contact, and to establish much needed trade.
    • 3/5
      Freedoms ransom always felt like a tie into a new story, as if there were supposed to be books following it to open up a new mystery. Unfortunately now that we have sadly lost Ann we will never know what she may have dreamed up.
    • 3/5
      Dealing with some loose ends, in such a way that there's a lot more story possible...I don't think it will happen, though, and I'm glad of it. A _lot_ of typos and thinkos in here, enough to throw me out of the story far too frequently - especially missing spaces, so that two or three words ran together (come on, spell check can catch those!). The thinkos were mostly wrong names - nobody reread the previous books when this one was written. The name of the bushes - though that may be just a re-spelling - and the wrong Mentat (Pe instead of Ix, when Ix was such a big deal through Choice and Challenge...). Zainal's sons rejoin the main group of Botanists; Botany starts dealing more with Earth and with the merchants on Barevi who don't want to give up the Earth goods they have. I kept waiting for them to set up a triangle trade, but they came up with a different solution. The people on Earth were interesting, though the Coord system sounds ripe for corruption (where's the checks and balances?). I actually liked Natchi and Erdri on Barevi better than anyone they dealt with on Earth - more interesting. The trading on Barevi was also interesting, though Zainal still owes Kadash - should get him ousted and someone better in! The book ends with things just beginning to gel in lots of different directions, but that's OK. I don't really need to see the details of the trading system, or Catteni politics, or Earth politics (would have liked to see more of Dystopia and NoName, though). OK, not wonderful.
    • 3/5
      Dull. Shopping in space. No better or worse than any of the preceeding novels, with all the same unbelivable plotting. Obviously tacked onto the end of the series which ended last book.Although the Eosi are no longer running the galaxy the friendly Cats still aren't shipping goods to Earth and repairing all their damage so Zanial organises a shopping trip to satisy his sense of duty that he didn't have in the earlier books when he was avoiding Eosi duties. Fortunetly the chip and readily available coffee bean makes a wonderful replacement for the annoying difficult and rare gold standard. Yes you can have your money and eat (ok drink) it at the same time. This is perhaps almost belivable, I could see fragmented communities rejecting gold instead of a more useful barter system. But coffee? really? It doesn't keep well and is horrendously bulky. And then when offered weight for weight against heavy satellite parts just doesn't seem sensible. However with a few hiccups all goes according to plan and the world is saved.What happened to the Deskis and other aliens? Completely ignored troughout this book?! The only belivable character is the Market manager Kabalash. I'm very glad Mccaffery made no attempt anywhere in the series to describe the Cat's ships engines because she'd have made a complete pigs ear of it, but they were pretty unbelivable too - especially the way they don't take any account of just how vast space actually is.Although the ending seems ripe to scratch another sequel out of the series, for the time being this is it. Worth reading only if you really like Mccaffery, have read the others, and like shopping.
    • 2/5
      Freedom’s Ransom gives an update on some actions by the characters of the earlier novels in the series. If you are a fan of the series, it is worthwhile, but lacks the intensity and action of the other volumes. Readers do get some feeling and view of recovery on earth, progress on Botany Bay and Barevi, and some of the problems faced in an emerging Catteni society free of Eosi domination. But many features of a mixed, multi-sentient society are not revived. In terms of being a page-turner this is much weaker than the first three novels. If this is your first read in the series you are not likely to become a fan.
    • 1/5
      Final book in the Catteni/Botany series. This was not one of Anne's better books.