Freedom's Landing

Anne McCaffrey

12/6/1999

This is another of McCaffrey's novels based on a short story she wrote around 30 years ago. She took it a completely different direction than I would have guessed. The short story starts with Kris, a prisoner taken from Earth and now hiding out on another planet. One of the aliens of the capturing race is running from his contemporaries. She aids him. Before she can return him to his own people, both are captured and transported to yet another planet. They are part of a colonization group.

Kris, Zainal the Catteni, other humans, and other aliens all find themselves dumped on an unihabited planet with a few basic supplies. They need to rally together to avoid the inherant dangers of the planet they call Botany and to survive. To survive, they are realistic. They start working together looking for other refugees and trying to make a place for themselves to start their new life.

As they survive they discover there are more problems than first anticipated. Besides the flying beasts that will eat them or the crawling night creatures that leave nothing behind, it appears the planet has already been inhabited. It seems to be a farming planet run by robots. The Catteni continue to try to conquer Earth. They continue to bring human refugees to Botany. Zainal points out there is another race ruling the Catteni. And who is the unknown race that farms this world?

Once again I am pulled into Anne McCaffrey's wonderful imaginative world. The humans survive remarkably well and start building a civilization of sorts much too quickly to be believed. Kris immediately proves her worth. Zainal, as a Catteni, has to overcome the natural prejudice of the other colonists. They all have to learn how to survive.

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