The Weapon (Freehold Series)

The Weapon (2005) is the second SF novel in the Freehold series, following Freehold. In the previous volume, the UN lost the war, but tried to manipulate the peace talks. Colonel Naumann reminded them that Sidney was still standing, but that he had a team nearby. Kendra Pacelli was awarded a Citizen's Medal for her actions on Braided Ridge. Marta received a Valorous Service Medal. Then Robert McKay was found alive, but with an unknown nanotech ailment. In this novel, Kenneth Chinran enlisted in the Freehold Military Forces to get away from home. He was a teenager -- by standard time -- and he thought that his homelife was intolerably oppressive, so he joined the military. What a mistake! Ken soon learned that the military could be capricious as well as oppressive and intolerable, but he grew to like it. He signed up for combat communications, but the FMF looked at his test scores and convinced him to switch to Black Ops. Special Warfare training was risky, with various forms of death and injury expected. Naturally, he survived and became an Operative. While in basic training, Ken met Denise Harlett and developed a hard core of lust. After graduation from basic, the couple requited their lust and became friends. Ken served with Deni off and on for several years. Deni had no desire to return to her parents, so the pair took their first offpost liberty at Ken's home. While visiting his family, Ken found he was out of sync with his parents and other relatives. Somehow he had been molded into the military mindset. In this story, Ken and Deni report to Black Operations Team Three for their duty assignments. Unluckily, the Captain of Team Three -- Alan David Naumann -- had just grabbed the command slot of the Third Mobile Assault Regiment. While this situation was not rare, the other officers within the Third Mob were rather perturbed by this promotion. Being assigned to the Team didn't mean that their training was done. FMF troops are constantly acquiring other qualifications. Both Ken and Deni were sent to NCO Leadership School and other courses. They also had offworld duties. First Ken and two others were sent to Chersonesus to audit their Army Advanced Combat Assault Course. Then Ken and Deni were sent to Caledonia for embassy duty. This tale leads up to the war with Earth. Ken, Deni and other operatives are residing -- under cover identities -- on Earth when the war starts. They cause tremendous damage to the Earth infrastructure as payback for the UN atrocities on Grainne. This story overlaps the first novel, starting earlier, but ending at about the same time. Several characters also appear in both novels, including the main protagonists. However, the most important person in both books is Naumann, who becomes acting Commander of all FMF units during the war with Earth. Highly recommended for Williamson fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of close combat, political intrigue and supertough troopers. -Arthur

On one hand, this an excellent military science-fiction novel dealing with "the trooper, in training and in battle," even when the battle is behind enemy lines and under deep cover. However, it's also what the Germans call a "bildungsroman", "a novel which traces the spiritual, moral, psychological, or social development and growth of the main character from (usually) childhood to maturity." The military science fiction aspects are handled more than competently. Every such novel, done right, covers such things as "Where does the trooper come from?","How is he recruited, trained, disciplined, led?", "How does he function in battle?" and finally, "What happens when the war is over?" We get to watch all of this and more, and there are aspects to the answers for these questions that are both realistic and NOT for the squeamish. I agree that, as a military science fiction novel, this one ranks evenly with Heinlein's masterpiece and in some ways is even better written. But Michael Williamson has a gift I've found to be rare in writers. He can get you into the hero's heart and mind and feel what it's like, not just to DO the things the hero does, but to BE the hero, and see every event not just through his eyes, but his heart. You do get warned, very early, what the book is about, when Chinran announces "I'm the man who destroyed most of Earth." But Chinran is NOT a monster. He is very much a warm and loving man who merely happens to be an unstoppable weapon. I read this book not knowing much more than the above quotation and the fact that I'd already enjoyed every other thing of Williamson's I have read. This one is the best yet. The writing is smoother than ever, the humor, if possible, even viler, and the story riveting. I was enthralled all the way from chapter one to the end of the roller-coaster ride. And I plan to read it again. With the "Surgeon General's Warning" completed, I urge you to get this book and read it. Meet the kind of man you'd trust to be at your back in a dark alley, to babysit your kids, and keep his promises regardless of cost. He's also the kind of man a people, if they're really lucky, will never need to turn loose on their enemies. NO culture has ever been THAT lucky. Enjoy. Thank you, Michael. Please keep 'em coming.

The story finishes by setting up another book proposition to explicate how the daughter of Captain Kenneth Chinran develops into a force of her own. If the writer takes this route, I'll be an immediate buyer. The story builds up a detailed, richly cathartic, and barely fictional expression of how disciplined and trained members of the professional military apply courage and tactics to whump tribal theocracy. All right! Then it shifts up to the morality of confrontation with the galatic elites, the iron rule of the few over the many, based on our future Earth, where freedom and justice are mere vestiges of old ideals. It is a shocking and unsettling juxtaposition, and one that comprises the essence of the story. The battles and terror tactics are horribly plausible, although artfully premised on one more leap into future weapons development and not on things that would represent a recipe or textbook for terroristic criminality today. In the phobic world now surrounding us, the writer shows notable personal courage to carry out his creative efforts to tell the story the way he did.

Michael Z. Williamson's "Freehold War" universe is a well-written mirror of our own. Various real countries have placed on extrasolar planets. Realistic, well-imagined technologies make life simpler but not alien. But, stripped of its sci-fi decor, the story asks this question-what happens when a bureaucratic juggernaut, well-blooded from ceaseless wars with weak, poor, disorganized nations, decides to attack a strong, wealthy, civilized one, however small? In "Freehold" we get the answer-the bureaucracy gets a harsh lesson in the horrifying realities of war. And those who depend on it and support it suffer along with it. But, these stories aren't as much about societies as they are about soldiers. Freehold is about a soldier defending her home, about the trials and tribulations of defending one's home from a ruthless, powerful invader. The Weapon is about a soldier bringing the war to the invader, about living in a place alien to him, about learning about it solely to destroy it, and how he suffers from the guilt of the actions he takes to defeat his enemy. Williamson is a soldier, and proud of it. Proud of his training, proud of his fellow soldiers, proud of his county. But he also knows that war does not determine who is right, it determines who is left. He knows that war is hell. Because he is a soldier. And above all, his books are about soldiers.

Mad Mike Williamson's debut novel Freehold was fantastic, with its tale of a woman's journey from patsy to hero, from moral infant to adult citizen. The Weapon is the second novel in Williamson's series about the Freehold War. The biggest difference between this book and Freehold is that in Freehold there are winners. In The Weapon, there are only survivors. Nobody wins. Williamson is uncompromising in his portrayal of a ruthless patriot, capable of destroying half of Earth to preserve his planet, yet who shows that he can love and be loved. There is simply no sentimentality in this book. Thomas Jefferson said, "The Tree of Liberty must be refreshed from time to time..." and Williamson explains in detail how that happens. If you expect a happy ending, you will be disappointed. But if you want the real thing, this is it. Excellent writing, excellent characterization, excellent plot and vibrant story. When Williamson really gets his career cooking, he is going to be one to watch. Walt Boyes The Bananaslug. at Baen's Bar