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in New HampshireA new libertarian writing star is born...great book!
Part of the value of this blog is given by informing people of great libertarian books. "Freehold," by Michael Z. Williamson, is a first book, and Williamson is a libertarian. He's destined to be a start writer in the years ahead. And if he's not a libertarian (or, like me, a libertarian-conservative, aka a "rational libertarian"), he certainly sounds like one in his sci-fi writing. This paperback is about a "colony world" that has become an independent libertarian polity. Freehold, as the planet is called, has little to no government in the Republic of Grainne. People who live there are required to be responsible for their own lives. Everyone is armed, all the time. There is no welfare. By contrast, Earth is run by the United Nations, which has become even more corrupt and authoritarian than it is today. Naturally, the U.N. hates the Republican of Grainne everything they stand for (such as liberty and individual rights). But the U.N. can't quite get a grip on Freehold because it's hard to subjugate a people who are independent, responsible, liberty-loving, and fully armed. So there's an uneasy standoff.
Enter a normal young lady named Kendra. She works in a cubicle job for the U.N., in the military logistics department, and performs her job admirably and honestly. Except when an honest person like Kendra collides with a world United Nations government, she must go down. Besides, she's a handy pawn to take the fall for millions of dollars of U.N. military fraud. She'll be lucky if she merely spends the rest of her life in prison. And the U.N. doesn't stint when it comes to interrogation and torture.
Fortunately, Kendra gets wind of her impending arrest just in the nick of time. But what to do? How do you run? The U.N. controls every planetary government and every colony world except one...Freehold. There is no privacy, and every citizen can easily be tracked and arrested. Not having much choice, she throws herself (literally) into the hands of the Freehold embassy security forces, with the U.N. cops hot on her tail. What do the Freehold people do? Turn her over to the U.N. thugs? They would if they found her to be guilty of a crime. But since she is not, and it's clear that she is a pawn in the corrupt U.N. scheme of things, she is given succor and allowed to go to Freehold, where she becomes an indentured servant, learns about individual liberty and responsibility, and eventually joins the Freehold military to fight against the U.N. Great story! Buy it and support Williamson (who ought to be invited to the next Porcupine gathering), if for no other reason than to get him to write more! (You can read lots of reviews on Freehold at the Amazon site.)
Enter a normal young lady named Kendra. She works in a cubicle job for the U.N., in the military logistics department, and performs her job admirably and honestly. Except when an honest person like Kendra collides with a world United Nations government, she must go down. Besides, she's a handy pawn to take the fall for millions of dollars of U.N. military fraud. She'll be lucky if she merely spends the rest of her life in prison. And the U.N. doesn't stint when it comes to interrogation and torture.
Fortunately, Kendra gets wind of her impending arrest just in the nick of time. But what to do? How do you run? The U.N. controls every planetary government and every colony world except one...Freehold. There is no privacy, and every citizen can easily be tracked and arrested. Not having much choice, she throws herself (literally) into the hands of the Freehold embassy security forces, with the U.N. cops hot on her tail. What do the Freehold people do? Turn her over to the U.N. thugs? They would if they found her to be guilty of a crime. But since she is not, and it's clear that she is a pawn in the corrupt U.N. scheme of things, she is given succor and allowed to go to Freehold, where she becomes an indentured servant, learns about individual liberty and responsibility, and eventually joins the Freehold military to fight against the U.N. Great story! Buy it and support Williamson (who ought to be invited to the next Porcupine gathering), if for no other reason than to get him to write more! (You can read lots of reviews on Freehold at the Amazon site.)
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