Freedom's Choice - Anne McCaffrey

Freedom's Choice
Anne McCaffrey
Ace Books
Copyright Date: 1998
978-0441005314

The amazon.com product description:

Abducted by the alien Catteni, Kristin Bjornsen was one of many humans brought to the planet Botany as part of an experiment to see if it could support life. Enslaved and forced to colonize a world not their own, the settlers have accepted Botany as their home—a home worth fighting for…

Kristin’s people have learned that the aliens responsible for their imprisonment are merely mercenaries, subjugated by the parasitic Eosi Race, and that Botany is being farmed remotely by some unknown species—a species that may be sympathetic to the colonists’ struggle for freedom.

The “Farmers” refuse to join the humans in their rebellion against the Catteni, but they agree to use their technological skills to shield Botany and hide it from its enemies—buying Kristin and the settlers time to build up their forces and liberate their world…

The second book in the "Freedom" series, this is the sequel to Freedom's Landing, which I raced through a couple of weeks ago. It's taken me until now to get to this book because I had to wait for it to arrive. The first, third, and fourth books in the series I had found at my favorite used bookstore. They didn't have this one though, so I ended up ordering a copy, which finally arrived on Friday.

That was a bit of a surprise too, because there are now some new covers for this series. I kind of like the new cover too, but at the same time, it's the odd one out because the other three all have the original cover art. As I've said before, I'm a bit odd about changing cover art in a series. Even more confusing, the Amazon listing for Freedom's Choice in the mass market edition still shows the original cover art. I had to pick up the correct cover image from the Kindle edition listing.

Anyway, the wait was worth it, although I'm now having a bit of trouble reviewing Freedom's Choice because I raced through it and then on to the third book, Freedom's Challenge, and I'm now well into the fourth and final book in the series, Freedom's Ransom.

There's plenty more universe-building going on, as well as more information about various things that were hinted at in the first book: the Farmers, also called the Mech-Makers, the Eosi; who they are and how they work etc.

Overall, a very fun read and a book I know I'll be re-reading again in the future.