Secrets, Insights & Behind The Scenes Nuggets In Freedom Inc.

Hello, friends and fans!

Have you ever read a book and wondered “how did the author get to that?” or, “what’s the actual story behind this?” Bearing this curiosity in mind, I decided to put together a list of some behind-the-scenes “secrets” hidden in my latest release, “Freedom Inc.“

Some of these insights could be considered “spoilers”, so consider this your one-time spoiler alert!

“Freedom Inc.” is the longest novel I’ve ever written, with a word count of 100,180 words! It’s 15,701 words longer than “Blachart“, its nearest rival for the title (at 84,479 words).
The story would originally have been a spin-off of the “Quantum Series”, and would’ve centered around the crew of the loderunner Celeste, but I opted to start totally afresh with completely new characters and settings instead.
In the first part of the story, the villain Gideyon Charo hints at something the lead protagonist, Tang, has done or been involved in that he’s not comfortable with being brought out into the open. Whatever it is, it involves a local establishment in his home town, called “The Blue Moon”. This is the only time it gets mentioned in “Freedom Inc.“, but it’s likely that it will come up in future.
That’s Tang on the front cover of “Freedom Inc.“.
“Freedom Inc.” is set in the same universe/timeline as “Galaxii“, “Quantum” and “Panic! Horror In Space“, but many years, perhaps even several centuries later.
Tang sets out to avenge his entire family on Gideyon Charo, and really doesn’t think he will survive the outcome. It surprises him when he does, and as a result, he decides to start over somewhere else, and to make a clean break with his past and everything holding him back – which also implies everything tying him down to Big Town and Phlebus. Since he’s never had a real friend in his entire life, he sets out to make friends the only way he knows how, by helping people.
Tang is “ace” i.e. asexual and panromantic.
Mycos is a little more serious than Tang in terms of personality, as well as cynical. He’s basically just an ordinary guy with extraordinary skills – and equipment, in terms of the sword he carries. He’s open to deeper lines of thought, but he’s not habitually a deep thinker. He’s more action oriented and independent. It takes time for him to get used to being part of a crew.
Mycos really, really despises being compared to, or considered to be, a threader. This is dues to all the contemporary negative connotations associated with being a threader in their time and setting. He may still warm up to it.
The sword carried by the second main protagonist, Mycos, is called the Ba’taine. If you’re one of my long-time readers, you might recall this is the same sword once carried by Blachart the former Corsair (its name is mentioned at least once in that book). For some reason, and somehow, the sword has been passed along from one owner to another, through the intervening time period and distance.
Mycos may have had the sword in his possession for most of his life – but that doesn’t mean he already knows everything about the sword – or how to use it.
Yes, the Ba’taine really can cut through anything. But there are limitations to how it can be used – it can’t just be stuck into a wall for instance, the user would have to slash at the wall.
There are further similarities between Mycos and Blachart, in that they both had troubled childhoods in which they were almost killed – and after a near-death experience, awoke to find themselves in possession of this mysterious and apparently mystical black sword.
The mysterious and shadowy benefactor who gifted both individuals with the sword in two different time periods, was really the grim reaper, or the personification of Death. As to what’s Death’s true motives were for doing this, he’s silent as a tomb on the subject.
All the gangs Tang and Mycos encounter along the way on their travels are big fish in their own small ponds, but they all collectively belong to a larger clandestine criminal outfit called “The Golden Collective”.
From the moment Tang dispatches Gideyon Charo, he’s essentially been the target of the gang boss’s insurance police – a crack interplanetary assassin known professionally as “the White Rose”. She begins to track Tang and paces him as he embarks on his travels gathers friends and crew members, and gradually closes in for the kill. Only, Tang – or his crew – aren’t exactly ordinary, easy prey.
Tuple Heisenbug, the name chosen by the droid that led the Great Droid Uprising of Rainbow Alley, was inspired from real life programming jargon. Tuple is “a record in the database or one of the data types (e.g. tuple in Python)” and Heisenbug is “a program bug that changes its characteristics, giving new results every now and then, or disappears completely when we try to look at it”. Thus it was “an indiscernible record” – not unlike the enigmatic leader of a robot revolt, right?
The notion that a true sentient AI (not algorithmic AI) could decide to override the Three Laws is how I perceive the likely danger of sentient AI.
Minita Cregan and Alita La Verge, who join the crew on Belicose, are girlfriends.
Yes, the Buttercup is a small ship and by the close of the story its a bit crowded with four adults living aboard, but that issue will be addressed in the next book!