The Birth of the Freelancer Series

Newsletter Page Returns Freelancer Trilogy Now on Audio

The Birth of the Freelancer Series

I love space adventures. For as long as I can remember, I devoured books, TV shows and films set in space. Some of them were brilliant, some of them were awful, but all set my imagination racing at the amazing possibilities for stories where characters were tested to the limit like no other genre. It was only a matter of time before I wrote some novels set in space. Only, I didn't expect to do it now.

I was in a place where I had stopped writing after a very stressful house refurbishment (top tip: if you want to write novels, don't have major work done to your house!) when an old writing friend emailed me. She was putting together a group of authors to write some space adventures and wanted me to be involved, if I was interested.

The first Freelancer novel: Traitor's Code

Well, even though I had other books I had planned to write, the discipline of deadlines and being accountable to the group was attractive. I decided that if I could come up with a story I was excited about, I would accept. So I sat down with my pad and pen and, within a couple of hours, I had a plot that I really wanted to flesh out into a novel and two further story ideas to turn it into a trilogy. I said yes, and immersed myself into a compelling world of spaceships, interstellar murder and intrigue.

In creating the exciting story of Cassy, the sassy spaceship captain, I had several parameters to work from:

The galaxy is sealed off from the rest of the universe by an impenetrable barrier, but travelling vast distances within the galaxy (the “Obsidian Rim”) is possible using wormhole technology.
Life is harsh, with the centre of the galaxy destroyed by the Oblivion War and few Earth-like planets remaining.
No aliens.
Includes a love story.

Tucked away in my ideas box had been an idea of a space-faring news reporter who ends up going on the run with the prince of a planetary regime. It was just a germ of an idea, but I pulled it out and shaped it for this new project. The journalist character didn't really fit into this world and so I needed something for my space heroine to do. Other authors had taken pirates and scavengers, so I went for a spaceship captain for hire – a Freelancer.

The idea of the prince remained, as this added a touch of romance to the story, and suggested a semi-feudal society for their home planet of Fertilla where I devised an economy based on agriculture. Cassy, my spaceship captain, and Prince Stephen are from opposite ends of the planet's society and so, when circumstances throw them together, they clash. This leads to a will they/won't they? dance where they are pushed together and pulled apart throughout the series. I love this sort of sexual tension and spent a lot of my thinking time re-watching the excellent Farscape TV show. This was the feeling I was going for: exciting space adventure stories with a compelling relationship at the centre, as with Farscape's Crichton and Aaron.

As I expanded the idea, I spun a series of twists within the story. Each novel had a core problem to be solved (a murder, a spying mission, an assassination), while the secrets of my characters' past was revealed, along with one over-arching storyline which only comes to a head in the climax of the last book.

The second Freelancer novel: Prince's Mission

There was one thing about the background I had been given that I wanted to tackle head on. It was the impenetrable barrier at the edge of the galaxy. To me, this was an obvious plot point and I couldn't believe none of the other authors were addressing it. It's the Chekhov's Gun principle: if a loaded gun is seen on stage in the first act of a play, it must be fired before the final curtain. As far as I was concerned, the impenetrable barrier was a loaded gun and, if no one else was going to fire it, I was going to make sure that I did.

The third Freelancer novel: Assassin

My characters would tackle this seemingly impossible challenge in the third novel, Assassin.

(When I came to delve into the science behind this barrier, I found there was rather a lot of handwavium involved, but it was embedded into the story and so I went with it).

I wrote the first book, Traitor's Code in a burst of creativity and long weekends. The other two took a little longer, but I completed the trilogy before the end of the year and was thrilled with what I had achieved.

By this time, however, the authors group was splintering. Several authors didn't finish the novels they promised and the whole thing collapsed. I still, however, had a trilogy of three great books with an overarching story I was proud of. Apart from the premise of a confined galaxy and a few names for things, planets and people which I had taken from the group, my books really had no connection to the other novels. The Freelancer Trilogy is a self-contained space adventure with a relationship at its heart and deserved to live on its own merit.

So, with the blessing of the group, I re-launched the books with striking new covers. The old covers were fine, but I didn't love them and they had the Obsidian Rim branding on them which, I think, was putting readers off. Now they stand on their own for everyone to enjoy in their own right.

If you're intrigued and want to know more: read more about these books on the Freelancer Trilogy page.