Hello friends and fans!
A few days ago, I announced the release of “Freedom Inc.” – the first book in my new “Threaders” series, and I thought it would be nice if I gave you some more background detail of what to expect in the book, and also what went into it!
After more than 6 months of near-obsessive work, “Freedom Inc” is now available! At over 100,100 words, this book is officially the longest novel I’ve ever written!
How did Threaders come into existence? What inspired me to write it, and what is it all about?
I’ll be addressing these very questions for you below!
It all started in May 2023, while I was finishing off books 7, 8, and 9 in Quantum. While I was busy with that task, I started to get the idea that I’d like to do a new series sometime about the adventures and struggles of a group of people who travel space together, a crew of friends and adventurers. But… I was still tightly wrapped up in finishing off the Quantum books, after which I revamped several older tech guides – and created a new one (“Come To Deanna!”), so I set the idea aside for the time being.
The idea didn’t want to go away though, and while I set about working on – and completing book 4 in Panic! Horror In Space, “Terror In The Outblack“, I contemplated this nebulous idea further and mentally fielded more concepts of what it would be about.
For a little while, I toyed with the idea of basing this new series on the quirky crew of the Celeste, the ship and characters from Quantum… even possibly making the “mad professor/scientist” Dr. Gleichstein’s stay with them a little more permanent – but then, considering all the baggage that would come with that move – and the relationship dynamics between all those characters, I started to think it was better to start totally fresh with completely new, younger characters instead.
The result was Threaders.
What is the series about?
A lot of things, as it turns out, but if I had to pin down the central themes of the overall story, it would have to be adventure, action and comedy. For the most part, I thought, there would be shitloads of these things – and also good helpings of deeper, meaningful content. I would also have to add the characters overcoming their circumstances, making the best of the hand they’re dealt, and accepting the risks that searching for their freedom and seeking their fortunes brings – and also, friendship.
There’s also a whole cast of villains, bad guys and thugs whose purpose it is to get in the way of the main characters, and each of these has their own quirks and defining characteristics. They encounter the villains at each new planet they visit, or aboard passing ships and the like. A few examples I can mention are Gideyon Charo, Barris Flange and John Thurkettle. There’s also a few odd-ball aliens, like Ch’shreep the Aveshi butler. As the friends track across the Fringe, it soon becomes clear that there’s also an assassin on their trail, although exactly who it is she works for is a bit of a mystery.
What’s the setting of the series?
Threaders is set in the same reality, timeline or universe – whatever you want to call it – as my other series. The only difference would be that it’s set much later… exactly how much later I haven’t decided yet, but it could be as much as several hundred years later. Even so, it refers to some of the same locations previously mentioned by name, but from the outset I decided that it would mostly refer to totally new settings that I’d never mentioned previously – new worlds that have been colonized more recently, and located further out into space than in previous series.
Who are the main characters?
In short order, they are:
Tang, Mycos, Alita and Minita. Here’s a little more background information about them:
“Tang” (Tangerine Gunar): Aged 25 years, this cyber-enhanced gunslinger hails from a fringe colony on the outskirts of galactic civilization called Phlebus. He is slender, muscular and toned but slightly built and has a slightly effeminate facial appearance. He has shoulder-length blond hair that he wears tied into a ponytail and wears skinny jeans, black ankle boots, a maroon button shirt with the top 2 buttons open, and a black frock-coat over that. He carries two rapid-fire ion blasters called “the boys” in holsters cowboy style, one on each side. The blasters are named after his brothers, who died when he was a child. After the death of his mother, he’s freed to pursue vengeance, and he uses them to bring down the villain who murdered them and destroyed his family. Aside from being a crack-shot with the blasters, he’s also got some fighting skills of his own, which are enhanced by the cyber implants which give him a shield to deflect everything from punches and knife thrusts to ion bolts and bullets. He also has plus gravity pulse generators implanted in his hands, knees, elbows and feet that multiply the force of his kicks and punches. One of his sayings in the heat of battle is “hands, knees, heels and elbows!” as he sends opponents literally flying. Tang is a determined, honest and loyal friend. He is willing to lose his life for his friends and will fight for them to his last breath. Tang has his own secrets, which will be revealed to his friends as the stories progress.
“Mycos” (Mycosa Atellu): Aged 24 years, Mycos specializes in martial arts skills, swords & blades. He’s young, a muscular youth with short dark hair that tends to stand up like a brush, which is likely what led him to opt for his particular hairstyle, having it all shaved flat and level on top. The style is referred to as a “flat top” at the barbers – or it is on his home world, Okina. He has green eyes and prefers loose black pants, t-shirts. He’s a warrior type, carrying a sword slung across the back of his shoulders, drawn over his right shoulder. He’s a swordsman with above-average sword-fighting skills. What sets his swordsmanship above the rest is the sword he carries; a mysterious black sword that can only be described as mystical. How he came to be in possession of it is a matter for further discussion, but suffice it to say, in years past, he and his parents both tried very hard to rid themselves of it, to no avail – it only kept coming back to him. The black sword is its own mystery, and its nature and significance to Mycos will continue to be revealed in the fullness of time. Mycos joins Tang because he’s grateful for being rescued – he admires him and thinks it’s worth sticking around to see where this adventure leads.
“Lita” (Alita La Verge): Aged 20, is a qualified space pilot. She has light hair, blue-green eyes and wears short black jean shorts, a pink sleeveless strappy-top, and her hair in two ponytails. She tends to leave guys mouths hanging open in passing, and is frequently at the center of someone else’s domestic as a result. She joins the threaders crew after being rescued from a forced marriage by Tang and Mycos. Lita doesn’t fight much physically or doesn’t have many fighting skills, but she tries. She tends to have a sharp tongue. She’s also an ace pilot and navigator.
“Nita” (Minita Cregan): Aged 22 Minita is a qualified spaceship mechanic, and is very tough physically and mentally. Her weapons of choice are a pair of titanium 32mm spanners open one end and with a ring on the other end, which (when the occasion demands) she carries on her person. Minita wears a red tank top, usually with a few greasy smears on it, short blue jean shorts, and blue sneakers. Her hair is short, “boy cut”, brown, and she often wears different color beanies to keep grease or dirt out of it. She is muscular and toned, has blue eyes, and is ruggedly attractive.
What inspirations did I draw on to create this story?
I drew inspiration for this concept from a variety of diverse sources – and two things that influenced me in writing Threaders was growing up around movies and TV shows like “The Fifth Element”, “Outland”, “Alien”, “Firefly” and the hit anime shows “Cowboy Bebop” and “One Piece”, to mention but a few. Actually, if I had to go into detail, I’d have to list and mention every sci-fi author, every book, every show or movie I count among my favorites.
So now we come to the series title: Threaders. What is a ‘threader’?
A ‘threader’ in the story, is a drifter who makes their way across space doing anything they could to make money, just to be able to reach the next port. Mostly, threaders are just one payday away from being actual space pirates – or bums marooned in the ass-end of space, and are widely regarded with mistrust and suspicion. For the main characters of this story, there is no other choice but to adopt this identity as an act of survival, rebellion, hope and defiance as they embark on a journey to seek adventure and fortune on the Fringe, to find out where it will lead them, together.
What can readers expect in Threaders, and in the first book “Freedom Inc”?
Threaders is something of a departure from my usual style of writing and storytelling. It’s more informal and relaxed. It’s faster-paced and more focused on action and adventure than the grand-scale story telling to be found in Quantum or the deadly serious “save the universe” types of plots in Galaxii. I wanted it to be more focused on the characters and their activities and experiences than on larger events shaping the lives of vast numbers of people. I took it up as a challenge to myself, and I have to say that I’ve enjoyed writing these new characters and their stories a great deal!
I also explored the benefits of being less rigid in sticking to self-imposed parameters when it came to storytelling or content. I decided that for a change, there would be more mention of robots and other aspects of sci-fi that I may have omitted or generalized previously. In addition to this, while I’ve invariably featured LGBT characters in my stories in the past, I decided that this series would focus less on that, and just be about the story, a rip-roaring bout of ass-kicking fun!
The focus of Threaders, I decided, would be more on fun and friendship and hope than preaching about human rights violations and abuses and etc. I set out to write this series as light-hearted entertainment from the start.
Most importantly, I also set out to make each book in the series at least 100,000 words in length. My previous longest novel, as it turned out, was my very first: “Blachart”, which was over 84,000 words long, with quite a few others almost as long – but overall, many of my novels have tended to be between 50,000 and 70,000 words long. That said, it wasn’t a huge challenge to reach 100,000 words on this project, it just took me a little longer! I set it as a goal, and I reached it, and I’m very proud of the end result!
That said, the story is one, contiguous story from front to back, although it is divided into five sections. As you might already know, I don’t write in chapters, I use asterisms (also called a ‘dinkus’) so I think this helps to “break it up” a little.
The five parts of the story are:
PART ONE – THE SWEET SPOT
PART TWO – ESQUIRE INCORPORATED
PART THREE – HIJACKERS REMORSE
PART FOUR – RAINBOW ALLEY
PART FIVE – THE RECEPTION
How long did it take me to write “Freedom Inc.”?
The draft storyline was hammered out on one particular Sunday – on July 30, I spent 5 1/2 hours working out a plot for it. The ideas flowed, lathered with inspiration – my muse must’ve been sitting behind me, arms crossed and saying: “I’m going nowhere until you get this set up!” By the time I was done that day, I had a pounding headache. The story still had no name, but at the end of the day, I’d fleshed out five main characters and their profiles, descriptions and skills. I’ve often been praised for my detailed, lifelike characterizations, and interactions, but this time I went a little deeper into planning exactly what sort of people my characters would be, and why and how they got to be that way. I’d also laid out a functional plot and story arc that would be good for four parts of the first novel. The number of sections in the story would soon increase to five, each of which would be around 20,000 words long, and would either introduce a new main character to the story, or a villain, or share an adventure of the group of friends so far – or all of the above.
By the 7th of August, I’d come up with the series title “Freedom Inc.” and the title of the first book, “Threaders” – and then after a few hours of anguished internal debate, swapped them over – the series became “Threaders” instead, and the title of the first book, “Freedom Inc.”!
On August 13, I created pages for the series and first title on my website, as well as a series header (August 11), and on August 18th, I created a cover for book 1, “Freedom Inc.” As it turned out, it would only be the first of several!
In the meantime, I’d started writing already, and by August 14, managed to complete the first section of the book, which introduced the main character, who was named “Tang”. There’s a backstory of course, and it was fun to work all the little secrets and hidden “easter eggs” out beforehand! As is so often the case, Tang’s story started with a quest for vengeance.
Once I finished with Tang’s story, I immediately leapt into the next section, which introduced the second main character, a swordsman called Mycos, who carries a special mystical sword that can cut through absolutely anything – and then related Tang and Mycoses’ first adventure together, which occupied me up to the end of September.
Due to a whole bunch of life’s distractions, including the flue and a bout of reflux, it took me just about the whole of October to write the third part of the story, in which Tang and Mycos embark on another adventure. I finished it around 30 October.
By November 20, I’d already finished part 5 of the book, in which Tang and Mycos meet Alita & Minita, who join their crew. It’s at the end of the book that the crew of the slightly full little ship called Buttercup pick a name for themselves – “Freedom Inc.”
Okay, if you’ve been paying attention, you’d probably be wondering what happened to part 4.
Aha… part 4…
You see, once I’d finished writing part four, I really liked the way it would make a great ending to the book, so I decided to move it up to actually be the last story of the book instead. This of course meant several things: 1) I would need to write another new story to occupy its place as part 4, and 2) this meant the original part 5 – which was still in draft form – would be moved over to book 2 instead, which would mean 3) introducing the next new member of the crew (“Dozer”) would have to wait until then too. I finished part 4 on November 24, the same day I finally wrapped on writing this story after seven months of obsessive hard work – ending with a total of 100,180 words – the longest novel I’ve ever written!
The first book is now available in eBook and paperback format.
Yes, as I mentioned just now, there will be a second book. I’ll probably get into that project in 2024!
