Michael Z. Williamson

Williamson was born in 1967 in Birkenhead, England.[16][17] His family moved to Canada, then to Newark, Ohio, where he graduated from Newark High School in 1985. After high school, he joined the military and served in a support role in the Air Force for 5 years, then in the Air and Army National Guard, for a total of 22 years.[15][18] Williamson's military career included service with the US Air Force in deployments in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.[15] Williamson has three children and is married.[19]

Williamson's first book, Freehold, was released in January 2004 and made #3 on the April 2004 Locus Bestsellers list for science-fiction and fantasy paperbacks.[18][20] Freehold tells the story of Kendra Pacelli, a young soldier who begins the book in the service of a world-dominant, authoritarian United Nations. Accused of a crime she did not commit, she flees Earth for the Freehold of Grainne where she struggles to adapt to the climate and culture of an ultra-libertarian planet. She eventually joins the Freehold military and fights in a war against a UN invasion.[21] Williamson has remarked that the main character is partially based on himself and his experience immigrating from the UK to Canada and the United States.[22]

Don D'Ammassa criticized Freehold as a political tract with an oversimplified and unrealistic view of humanity calling it a "very long but frankly not very entertaining diatribe".[23] Michael M. Jones of SF Site conversely called Williamson's portrayal of a libertarian society "sound and believable" and described the book as "a satisfactory debut".[24] Ginger Armstrong of Kliatt called Freehold a "highly readable SF adventure" with "a strong female protagonist".[25] Carolyn Cushman of Locus noted heavy emphasis on the exposition of Libertarian ideology with plotting and pacing taking a back seat but described the novel as "amazingly entertaining".[26]

Many of Williamson's other works are set in the universe established in Freehold. One is Contact with Chaos (2009) where humanity has first contact with alien beings. This becomes a further source of conflict between the United Nations and the Freeholders. In a review of the book, Joseph T. Major praised Williamson for refraining from heavy-handed political messages and instead creating "a diverse, varied human interplanetary society ... trying to understand an exotic, alternative nonhuman society".[2] Other novels set in the Freehold universe include Better to Beg Forgiveness... (2007) which Mark Lardas of the Galveston Daily News praised as an "exciting and violent adventure"[27] and Rogue (2011) which he described as Williamson setting "a new, higher standard for himself".[28] The novel Do Unto Others (2010) made the Wall Street Journal best-seller list in hardcover science fiction[29] and Angeleyes (2016) sold in more than 100,000 copies.[30]

Williamson was the editor of Forged in Blood, which was released in September 2017.[3] The book is set in Williamson's Freehold universe and he also wrote or co-wrote five of its 16 stories; other contributors included Larry Correia, Tony Daniel, and Tom Kratman.[3] The stories are linked as they trace the history of a single sword, from its forging in Japan in the third century BC through to Williamson's Freehold of Grainne in the 24th century. Mark Lardas praised the authors for creating a coherent anthology while attempting "something original [by] telling a story through an object." He described the result as an "engaging book".[4] The science fiction review magazine Tangent described the work as a celebration of "soldiers and their tools" that is satisfying to those for whom that premise appeals.[31] A further anthology, Freehold: Resistance, was released in December 2019. Reviewers praised the tight braiding together of the different contributions to form "a mosaic novel masquerading as an anthology".[5][6]

Among works not set in the Freehold universe is Williamson's second novel, The Hero (2004), which was written with John Ringo and made the Locus Bestseller list in February 2006.[32] The book is a part of the Legacy of the Aldenata series. It appeared in German as Invasion – Heldentaten and in Russian as Герой.[33][34] Williamson has also written the Target: Terror (2004–2005) military fiction series which is set in the world of the Target: Terror arcade game. His stand-alone novels include the time-travel story A Long Time Until Now (2014) which was praised for its characterization and survivalist elements.[7][8][9] As of 2016, Williamson's books had sold half a million copies.[15]

Williamson has contributed short fiction to numerous anthologies, including many which take place in the Valdemar and Elemental Masters shared universes created by Mercedes Lackey. He has also contributed stories to the Heroes in Hell shared universe and to many anthologies of military science fiction published by Baen. An anthology of Williamson's short fiction, Tour of Duty (2013), was reviewed by Publishers Weekly which singled out "The Humans call it Duty" as "strong" and "Desert Blues" as "subtly haunting".[35]

In 2015, Baen Books released an anthology, The Year's Best Military SF & Space Opera, which was described by Don Sakers of Analog as "long overdue".[36] Baen Books invited readers to vote for the best story from the volume. Sakers commented: "We can only hope that the award, like the anthology, will become an annual event."[36] Williamson won the readers' poll for the short story "Soft Casualty" and was presented with an award at Dragon Con.[11][37] The story deals with psychological warfare as an occupying force encounters harsh resistance tactics.[10][38]

Williamson's Wisdom from My Internet (2014), a collection of witticisms and political polemic from the Internet, was nominated for a Hugo Award for Best Related Work in 2015,[12][39] as a result of the Sad Puppies ballot manipulation campaign.[40][41][42][14][13] Hugo voters ranked Wisdom from My Internet below "No Award".[43][12] Williamson himself stated while the poll was underway that he had voted for no award in all categories, including the one in which his own work appeared.[44]

Williamson was recruited as an author by ex-soldier and publisher Jim Baen who "recruited a batch of younger, like-minded authors from similar backgrounds";[45] Williamson, David Drake, John Ringo and Tom Kratman.[45] Commonalities in the works of these authors include the setting of a civilization in decline with heroes battling against conventional wisdom.[45] John Clute comments in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction that a pattern running through the works of Williamson is a fight to maintain freedom against external enemies with the heroes adhering to libertarian principles.[1] Clute notes the frequent presence of female heroes in Williamson's works and feminist critic Liz Bourke describes Williamson's treatment of female characters as "less clearly marginalizing" than that of John Ringo and Tom Kratman.[46]

Blair Nicholson, in a doctoral thesis from the University of Waikato, points out commonalities in the authorial stances of Williamson and David Weber who both emphasize that in military science fiction, the hypothesized military environment must be depicted in realistic detail down to details of strategy and tactics. According to Williamson the work should then seek to "explore the proposed system, and its interactions with the people – soldiers and civilians – involved".[47]^: 23 Nicholson notes that Williamson depicts the United Nations as an enemy, and particularly so in his Freehold (2004) novel, where the United Nations appears as an authoritarian oppressor. This depiction of the United Nations has parallels in the Marine in Space series by Ian Douglas and in the works of Tom Kratman[47]^{: 219–220} and is reflective of a negative right-wing popular opinion on the institution.[47]^: 234

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Michael Z. Williamson.

• Official website
• Michael Z. Williamson at Library of Congress, with 23 library catalog records
• Michael Z. Williamson at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• Williamson, Michael Z at The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction
• Williamson publications at publisher Baen Books