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Khi To Freedom
When Hale Enbo, a planetary scout enslaved by aliens, discovers the evil plans of his masters, he struggles to escape from their power
- GenresScience FictionFantasy
248 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published May 1, 1983
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36 people want to read
About the author
Ardath Mayhar
141 books28 followersArdath Frances Hurst Mayhar was an American writer and poet. She began writing science fiction in 1979 after returning with her family to Texas from Oregon. She was nominated for the Mark Twain Award, and won the Balrog Award for a horror narrative poem in Masques I.
She had numerous other nominations for awards in almost every fiction genre, and won many awards for poetry. In 2008 she was honored by Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America as an Author Emeritus.
Mayhar wrote over 60 books ranging from science fiction to horror to young adult to historical to westerns; with some work under the pseudonyms Frank Cannon, Frances Hurst, John Killdeer, Ardath P. Mayhar. Joe R. Lansdale wrote simply: "Ardath Mayhar writes damn fine books!"
She had numerous other nominations for awards in almost every fiction genre, and won many awards for poetry. In 2008 she was honored by Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America as an Author Emeritus.
Mayhar wrote over 60 books ranging from science fiction to horror to young adult to historical to westerns; with some work under the pseudonyms Frank Cannon, Frances Hurst, John Killdeer, Ardath P. Mayhar. Joe R. Lansdale wrote simply: "Ardath Mayhar writes damn fine books!"
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
September 3, 2021
This....this was a weird one. It's actually kind of hard to describe this book, but i'll do my best.
So the story is about this guy named Hale who's a scout for this alien race that basically owns him. He sees the aliens vivisecting a live alien and freaks out, escaping on a ship to the planet below to get away from them. The next 50 pages are standard fare. he has to survive on the jungle planet, meets new species, etc. then all of a sudden, things go into left field bat-shit craziness.
Suddenly he meets these god like entities called the Khi who send him back to the beginning of his quest on the planet to do it all over again. this time with some magical macguffin godlike power called "folding" basically it's like being able to teleport anything or anyone anywhere. So yes, it's a broken power.
By the ~130 page mark, he shows the evil aliens the error of their ways by teleporting them all to a room and blasting their minds with the truth.
The khi are like "you want to be a god?" and he's like "nah, i'm good as a human for now"
and goes back to adventuring.
So you think, okay, that's a short book, but it tells a story and wraps it up. But then you realize there's still ~100 pages of book left and you're thinking to yourself "but...but they wrapped up the entire story. what else could possibly happen?"
Turns out we have another mini-adventure where Hale gets captured by some people and put in a prison. he learns their language and escapes after about 6 months. the Khi then ask him to beat a giant tornado creature which he does. he then turns down being a god again and goes back to adventuring.
That's basically the book.
Okay, so let's see if i can break this down.
So first and foremost, Hale is a very dull personality. He's your standard Good character. He has no personality other than doing the right thing and being congenial. So all in all, he's very dull.
The problem in addition to this is that the author is REALLY full of himself with the language. like he can't stop talking about how hale's enlightenment or "one with the universeness" and the depths in which he goes into it makes for very very dull reading that my brain unintentionally skipped over (There was a lot of zoning out in this book).
The rest of the characters came and went. you think that this character Lime would be a main character? nope. he leaves. you think this cat lady would be a main character? nope she leaves. Side characters come and go REALLY fast in this story. one of the only deaths in this story is a gas cloud at the end but i literally only knew him for 30 pages as he didn't show up until the second story, so i didn't really care that much when it happened.
The positives i can say about the book were, with the exception of one alien in the beginning and the gas cloud at the end, there's really no character death. even the bad guys just get teleported away and they mention how the gas cloud guy is going to be reborn. It's very interesting to see a sci-fi book with hardly any death whatsoever. Kind of refreshing.
The length of the chapters was very helpful. The POV would switch between some chapters, and most chapters were only about 3-4 pages which was very nice. I'm always a fan of shorter chapters.
The main character was inoffensive, if very bland.
For the negatives,
The plot, while i could see what they were trying to do, was very muddled. instead of just telling a straightforward story, the author felt he had to describe every part of the jungle, the spirit world, with more than a bit of purple prose. that works when a book is 600 pages, but when a story is literally 230 pages, you don't have the time for 1/2 your book to be descriptive.
About 1/3 of the way through, Hale basically gets the broken godlike power to teleport anything anywhere, so you're like, okay, well the story's over. literally nothing can stop him. But after he resolves the first problem, he loses his powers and has to escape from a prison. Which is weird, because i can't even tell you WHY he's in prison.
Once you give a guy godlike powers, it's hard to reign it back in to make the guy normal again.
The second story felt VERY tacked on. it really felt like the author wrote a 130 page book (it even had an epilogue) and then the publisher was like "nah, that's too short. we're not doing novellas here. go back and write more" and the author had to pull another 100 page story out of his butt. This REALLY felt like it should have a been a novella duology and the first and second story really aren't connected in any way other than the setting and main character. the two stories didn't cross over at all.
Also, i know this is an odd thing to nitpick over, but OH MY GOD. I have literally never read a book in my life talk about a guy eating more than this one. I don't know WHY but the author tells us about what he eats more times than i thought was humanely possible. It makes a sue grafton novel look like the hunger games. Like i said, weird nitpick, but if you read it, you'll see what i mean.
Overall, the book was...fine? it was a clearance find for $1.00 at a half price books. and honestly, that's exactly what's it's worth. $1. it was fine, inoffensive, and didn't challenge anything. I really feel like the author was trying to put on his big boy pants and go "ooh! look at me and my fancy talk about god-like entities and the universe!"
I REALLY wish i could give 1/2 stars as this book is 100% a 2.5 out of 5. But since i can't.......eh. i'll give it a 3. I wouldn't ever read it again, but i finished it because i wanted to see where it was going, it was short, and overall, not terrible.
2.5/5 rounded up to a 3.
So the story is about this guy named Hale who's a scout for this alien race that basically owns him. He sees the aliens vivisecting a live alien and freaks out, escaping on a ship to the planet below to get away from them. The next 50 pages are standard fare. he has to survive on the jungle planet, meets new species, etc. then all of a sudden, things go into left field bat-shit craziness.
Suddenly he meets these god like entities called the Khi who send him back to the beginning of his quest on the planet to do it all over again. this time with some magical macguffin godlike power called "folding" basically it's like being able to teleport anything or anyone anywhere. So yes, it's a broken power.
By the ~130 page mark, he shows the evil aliens the error of their ways by teleporting them all to a room and blasting their minds with the truth.
The khi are like "you want to be a god?" and he's like "nah, i'm good as a human for now"
and goes back to adventuring.
So you think, okay, that's a short book, but it tells a story and wraps it up. But then you realize there's still ~100 pages of book left and you're thinking to yourself "but...but they wrapped up the entire story. what else could possibly happen?"
Turns out we have another mini-adventure where Hale gets captured by some people and put in a prison. he learns their language and escapes after about 6 months. the Khi then ask him to beat a giant tornado creature which he does. he then turns down being a god again and goes back to adventuring.
That's basically the book.
Okay, so let's see if i can break this down.
So first and foremost, Hale is a very dull personality. He's your standard Good character. He has no personality other than doing the right thing and being congenial. So all in all, he's very dull.
The problem in addition to this is that the author is REALLY full of himself with the language. like he can't stop talking about how hale's enlightenment or "one with the universeness" and the depths in which he goes into it makes for very very dull reading that my brain unintentionally skipped over (There was a lot of zoning out in this book).
The rest of the characters came and went. you think that this character Lime would be a main character? nope. he leaves. you think this cat lady would be a main character? nope she leaves. Side characters come and go REALLY fast in this story. one of the only deaths in this story is a gas cloud at the end but i literally only knew him for 30 pages as he didn't show up until the second story, so i didn't really care that much when it happened.
The positives i can say about the book were, with the exception of one alien in the beginning and the gas cloud at the end, there's really no character death. even the bad guys just get teleported away and they mention how the gas cloud guy is going to be reborn. It's very interesting to see a sci-fi book with hardly any death whatsoever. Kind of refreshing.
The length of the chapters was very helpful. The POV would switch between some chapters, and most chapters were only about 3-4 pages which was very nice. I'm always a fan of shorter chapters.
The main character was inoffensive, if very bland.
For the negatives,
The plot, while i could see what they were trying to do, was very muddled. instead of just telling a straightforward story, the author felt he had to describe every part of the jungle, the spirit world, with more than a bit of purple prose. that works when a book is 600 pages, but when a story is literally 230 pages, you don't have the time for 1/2 your book to be descriptive.
About 1/3 of the way through, Hale basically gets the broken godlike power to teleport anything anywhere, so you're like, okay, well the story's over. literally nothing can stop him. But after he resolves the first problem, he loses his powers and has to escape from a prison. Which is weird, because i can't even tell you WHY he's in prison.
Once you give a guy godlike powers, it's hard to reign it back in to make the guy normal again.
The second story felt VERY tacked on. it really felt like the author wrote a 130 page book (it even had an epilogue) and then the publisher was like "nah, that's too short. we're not doing novellas here. go back and write more" and the author had to pull another 100 page story out of his butt. This REALLY felt like it should have a been a novella duology and the first and second story really aren't connected in any way other than the setting and main character. the two stories didn't cross over at all.
Also, i know this is an odd thing to nitpick over, but OH MY GOD. I have literally never read a book in my life talk about a guy eating more than this one. I don't know WHY but the author tells us about what he eats more times than i thought was humanely possible. It makes a sue grafton novel look like the hunger games. Like i said, weird nitpick, but if you read it, you'll see what i mean.
Overall, the book was...fine? it was a clearance find for $1.00 at a half price books. and honestly, that's exactly what's it's worth. $1. it was fine, inoffensive, and didn't challenge anything. I really feel like the author was trying to put on his big boy pants and go "ooh! look at me and my fancy talk about god-like entities and the universe!"
I REALLY wish i could give 1/2 stars as this book is 100% a 2.5 out of 5. But since i can't.......eh. i'll give it a 3. I wouldn't ever read it again, but i finished it because i wanted to see where it was going, it was short, and overall, not terrible.
2.5/5 rounded up to a 3.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 4, 2024
This book is a combination of mostly fantasy and a little science fiction. While the initial chapters were very engaging, the excitement drastically waned as the story progressed.
I personally found the multiple perspectives very distracting, especially with the primarily use of a recap of the events from the previous chapter from different character viewpoints for the entirety of the book.
1⭐️ DNF or Forced myself to Finish
2⭐️ It's Just a book
3⭐️ A Good Book
4⭐️ On My Reread List
5⭐️ god mode
I personally found the multiple perspectives very distracting, especially with the primarily use of a recap of the events from the previous chapter from different character viewpoints for the entirety of the book.
1⭐️ DNF or Forced myself to Finish
2⭐️ It's Just a book
3⭐️ A Good Book
4⭐️ On My Reread List
5⭐️ god mode
January 10, 2023
The first ~145 pages were 4-star or even more...the last 100 were barely 2 -star worthy...felt at times like an acid-trip
March 17, 2025
I think it's safe to say I'm not a fan of Ardath at this point...
December 31, 2009
Sounds like an Andre Norton novel and is to a degree. Hale Enbo is a planetary scount, indentured to the Ginli, an alien species, who regard other species as lesser species. Hale liked his life but felt he had to leave when he found one of his friends on a vivisection table.
He finds himself on a planet where his life changes and embarks on adventures to learn more. His life is about to be very different.
It's not bad but somehow it really has an idea that's interesting but the characters don't really catch me. I didn't really care enough about what was happening to Hale and didn't really see that he had a huge motivation to continue.
He finds himself on a planet where his life changes and embarks on adventures to learn more. His life is about to be very different.
It's not bad but somehow it really has an idea that's interesting but the characters don't really catch me. I didn't really care enough about what was happening to Hale and didn't really see that he had a huge motivation to continue.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews