Book Review: 'Fires of Freedom' by Jerry Pournelle
'Fires of Freedom' (616 pp.) was published by Baen Books in July, 2010, and features cover art by Kurt Miller.
'Fires' is a compilation of two early novels from Pournelle: 'Birth of Fire', and 'King David's Spaceship'.
'Birth of Fire' first was published in March 1976 by Laser Books. As the novel opens, protagonist Garrett Pittson is involved in a gang fight among the decaying cityscape of a 21st century Baltimore, Maryland. Police intervention sees Pittson arrested, and given the choice of 'volunteering' to join the Federation colony on Mars, there to start life over as an indentured servant to the corporate firms conducting mining and other businesses.
Resigned to never seeing Earth again, Pittson decides to make the best of his situation on Mars, where, if nothing else, one's past history is not held against someone. In due course, Pittson makes the acquaintance of some 'Marsmen' and embarks on a hard-working path towards advancement in the bleak, windswept territories outside the city of Hellastown.
But as he works towards a future on Mars, Pittson becomes aware that all is not well between the hardy colonists staking claims in the wilderness, and the corporate entities who levy taxes and direct energy development. When the corporate hand weighs too heavily, the colonists revolt.........and a civil war erupts on Mars.
Compared to the Federation and corporate police, the Marsmen are undergunned. But they have a firsthand knowledge of surviving in a hostile environment, and they plan to use that knowledge to their advantage.........
'Birth of Fire' is a competent action-adventure sci-fi tale. For the first-person narration, Pournelle adopts the clipped diction of a private-eye or suspense novel, an approach to storytelling that was - depending on your point of view - either reactionary, or transgressive, in 1976 during the height of the New Wave era.
'Birth of Fire' is adept at incorporating scientific knowledge of Mars, circa 1976, into its plot. There are no life forms, or 'canals', or ancient ruins on the Mars of 'Birth', just geological formations that are portrayed as attention-worthy entities in their own right. Curiously, in its closing chapters 'Birth' incorporates a plot device that is reminiscent of that deployed in the 1990 film Total Recall.
'King David's Spaceship' is a revised version of Pournelle's 1973 novel, 'A Spaceship for the King', which I reviewed here. As best as I can tell, the revisions made to 'King David's Spaceship' were designed to incorporate the novel into the CoDominium / Moties franchise, and in particular synchronize the 'Spaceship' narrative with that of Pournelle's 1974 novel 'The Mote in God's Eye'.
I can't say that the expanded text introduced in 'King David's Spaceship' improves on 'A Spaceship for the King' all that much, and I finished 'King David's Spaceship' content with retaining the four-star rating I gave to the original novel.
Summing up, those who like action-oriented, military science fiction with an unashamedly conservative flavoring probably will find 'Fires of Freedom' rewarding.
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