What do you think?
Rate this book
Freeman Universe #3
Quite Possibly Heroes
He was born bent. He refuses to die broken.
Raised a merchant prince and heir to the family business, Seamus mac Donnacha expects to follow in his crime lord father’s footsteps, profiting from the indiscretions of saints and sinners alike. But when Seamus returns from his apprentice cruise maimed, disgraced, and branded a slaver he discovers he’s no longer needed. Disowned and tossed down the Trinity system gravity well, Seamus wants to do as his father demands.
Crawl away and die.
Maybe he will, once he’s kept his word, and helped his friends defeat the evil spreading from star to star. He knows more about that evil than any man alive. It’s been inside him.
Seamus doesn’t want to defy his father. And he doesn’t want to war with his family. Only a dead man would dare to cross them. Only a man who deserved to pay for his sins. Crawl away and die. Seamus doesn’t know what to think about that. But he knows exactly what to say.
“Make me.”
Elsewhere…
Ciarán mac Diarmuid, Wisp and the crew of Quite Possibly Alien come face to face with the enemy in a confrontation that will change the course of history and alter forever the landscape of the wider world. Ancient alliances are shattered as civil war tears through both the League and the Ojinate, and a new player, the Eight Banners Empire arises to threaten a delicate balance of power four centuries in the making.
Macer Gant isn’t idle either, and when he isn’t stealing starships and mediating the love/hate relationship between headstrong Merchant Captain Aoife nic Cartaí and Max Violent, footie maniac and captain of the superluminal tug Tractor Four Squared , he’s taking on the most powerful navy in space. Not all at once, mind you. That would be stupid.
It all comes together as the three former Academy roommates and the war cat Wisp combine their strengths and battle evil in a galaxy-spanning brawl that will make them or break them, and either save humanity or wipe it from the stars.
It could turn out either way and Seamus would still call it a win. It isn’t the idea of dying that Seamus objects to. It’s the crawling away. So prop him up and face him toward the enemy. Because this ends here and now.
Raised a merchant prince and heir to the family business, Seamus mac Donnacha expects to follow in his crime lord father’s footsteps, profiting from the indiscretions of saints and sinners alike. But when Seamus returns from his apprentice cruise maimed, disgraced, and branded a slaver he discovers he’s no longer needed. Disowned and tossed down the Trinity system gravity well, Seamus wants to do as his father demands.
Crawl away and die.
Maybe he will, once he’s kept his word, and helped his friends defeat the evil spreading from star to star. He knows more about that evil than any man alive. It’s been inside him.
Seamus doesn’t want to defy his father. And he doesn’t want to war with his family. Only a dead man would dare to cross them. Only a man who deserved to pay for his sins. Crawl away and die. Seamus doesn’t know what to think about that. But he knows exactly what to say.
“Make me.”
Elsewhere…
Ciarán mac Diarmuid, Wisp and the crew of Quite Possibly Alien come face to face with the enemy in a confrontation that will change the course of history and alter forever the landscape of the wider world. Ancient alliances are shattered as civil war tears through both the League and the Ojinate, and a new player, the Eight Banners Empire arises to threaten a delicate balance of power four centuries in the making.
Macer Gant isn’t idle either, and when he isn’t stealing starships and mediating the love/hate relationship between headstrong Merchant Captain Aoife nic Cartaí and Max Violent, footie maniac and captain of the superluminal tug Tractor Four Squared , he’s taking on the most powerful navy in space. Not all at once, mind you. That would be stupid.
It all comes together as the three former Academy roommates and the war cat Wisp combine their strengths and battle evil in a galaxy-spanning brawl that will make them or break them, and either save humanity or wipe it from the stars.
It could turn out either way and Seamus would still call it a win. It isn’t the idea of dying that Seamus objects to. It’s the crawling away. So prop him up and face him toward the enemy. Because this ends here and now.
558 pages, Kindle Edition
Published May 30, 2022
89 people are currently reading
6 people want to read
About the author
Patrick O'Sullivan
26 books3 followersPatrick O’Sullivan is a writer living and working in the United States and Ireland. Patrick’s fantasy and science fiction works have won awards in the Writers of the Future Contest as well as the James Patrick Baen Memorial Writing Contest sponsored by Baen Books and the National Space Society.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
April 24, 2024
This was a tough one for me
I think Mr. O’Sullvan is a brilliant writer. Some of the most interesting Sci-Fi writing, universe building and interesting characters. But his writing style is very difficult to read. I have spoken with him and he has acknowledged that he has changed editors and is working on one of the things that makes his work difficult for me to read; he has a tendency to rapid fire conversations with almost no attribution of who is saying what for quite a while. The can result in having to go back a page or more to try and figure out who is saying what. The lines are also often short and cryptic, making it even harder to know who is speaking. He told me that his future works have gravitated to more attribution of who is speaking more often. That is a good thing IMHO.
Another thing that makes it difficult to keep up is that Mr. O’Sullivan is smart. Very smart. Smarter than me for sure. Probably smarter than a lot of us - and so he writes in a way that expects us to be able to understand what is happening even when there is little information to go on. This is exacerbated by the frequent use of Irish words (or is it Celtic or Gaelic?) that I have to look up. And Irish names that cause me to have to think too much for many of them. Aoife is pronounced EE-fa for instance. That’s fine, but combine it with the other issues and it gets very hard to keep up.
There are also occasional changes of venue or scenery that are not well explained which leaves the reader going back to see if we overlooked something (and usually the answer was, “No, we did not!”) and that causes the reader to have to read very carefully to try and figure out what is happening and why.
On top of that, many people have titles as well as names and some names change which adds immensely to the confusion. Charles Nevin is one example and Seamus / James Mac Kenna or no last name, or Fox or Lord something or other and a few more names. Ciaran is also known by his full name, Assistant Merchant Captain, Merchant Captain, and a couple more. Lord Aster / Lionel Aster / Merlin - everyone has several names and then there is a ship that is being spoofed by another ship, but using the same name as the ship. In effect there are two ships named Quite Possibly Alien at some points in the book.
It is a lot to keep up with.
Finally, while I love the characters that Mr. O’Sullivan creates, he falls into a trap of writing several, if not most, of the characters having VERY SIMILAR mindsets - which makes some sense because they are Freeman with similar rules of life - but it starts to be that Seamus, Macer and Ciaran are all very similar people with a couple of key differences (Seamus is a pilot, Macer is an engineer and Ciaran a Merchant Captain) but otherwise they are very similar in the way that they act. To be fair, they ARE different in important ways, but they, and many other characters, talk and behave very much the same way.
In spite of all that, the universe that has been created is fascinating. The characters interesting and the plot is a driving force in the books.
But I have to be honest, I was LOST during a lot of this book and would just accept that I had no idea what was happening in some chapters and hope they would make sense later. I also felt like the end of the book was anti-climactic and I left the book unsure of what had happened and when.
I don’t want to post spoilers, but I don’t know for sure if the bad guy was killed, and if so, I’m not sure WHEN it happened (or didn’t). I’m not being vague to hide spoilers, I’m being vague because I really am not certain.
There is also a tendency to overuse auto docs (the automatic medic machines and patches) to allow people to suffer mortal injuries time and time again, with no PTSD from having limbs ripped from their bodies and so on, to return to battle a short time after they “died” in the previous chapter. You start to doubt all deaths and begin to think that, like a soap opera, anyone can rise from the dead with a convenient toss into the auto doc.
I know I sound critical and I AM… but I am critical because I think Mr. O’Sullivan is a brilliant writer with enormous potential with the write editor. He is very easy to talk with and seems to be very open to talking with readers and discussing anything about his books. I am very impressed with him and would like to (selfishly) see him succeed so that I can enjoy more of his books, and hopefully be able to understand them better.
At first I thought that maybe I was just too dense to understand the books, (ok, I didn’t really cause who really thinks they are dumb? - especially since I can read a great deal of hard sci-fi and have no problem keeping up) but I read the reviews and quite a few of them talk about having to re-read passages and being confused by sudden set changes that aren’t explained well. So it isn’t just me.
I still highly recommend this series. It is loads of fun, just be ready to have to read deep!
I think Mr. O’Sullvan is a brilliant writer. Some of the most interesting Sci-Fi writing, universe building and interesting characters. But his writing style is very difficult to read. I have spoken with him and he has acknowledged that he has changed editors and is working on one of the things that makes his work difficult for me to read; he has a tendency to rapid fire conversations with almost no attribution of who is saying what for quite a while. The can result in having to go back a page or more to try and figure out who is saying what. The lines are also often short and cryptic, making it even harder to know who is speaking. He told me that his future works have gravitated to more attribution of who is speaking more often. That is a good thing IMHO.
Another thing that makes it difficult to keep up is that Mr. O’Sullivan is smart. Very smart. Smarter than me for sure. Probably smarter than a lot of us - and so he writes in a way that expects us to be able to understand what is happening even when there is little information to go on. This is exacerbated by the frequent use of Irish words (or is it Celtic or Gaelic?) that I have to look up. And Irish names that cause me to have to think too much for many of them. Aoife is pronounced EE-fa for instance. That’s fine, but combine it with the other issues and it gets very hard to keep up.
There are also occasional changes of venue or scenery that are not well explained which leaves the reader going back to see if we overlooked something (and usually the answer was, “No, we did not!”) and that causes the reader to have to read very carefully to try and figure out what is happening and why.
On top of that, many people have titles as well as names and some names change which adds immensely to the confusion. Charles Nevin is one example and Seamus / James Mac Kenna or no last name, or Fox or Lord something or other and a few more names. Ciaran is also known by his full name, Assistant Merchant Captain, Merchant Captain, and a couple more. Lord Aster / Lionel Aster / Merlin - everyone has several names and then there is a ship that is being spoofed by another ship, but using the same name as the ship. In effect there are two ships named Quite Possibly Alien at some points in the book.
It is a lot to keep up with.
Finally, while I love the characters that Mr. O’Sullivan creates, he falls into a trap of writing several, if not most, of the characters having VERY SIMILAR mindsets - which makes some sense because they are Freeman with similar rules of life - but it starts to be that Seamus, Macer and Ciaran are all very similar people with a couple of key differences (Seamus is a pilot, Macer is an engineer and Ciaran a Merchant Captain) but otherwise they are very similar in the way that they act. To be fair, they ARE different in important ways, but they, and many other characters, talk and behave very much the same way.
In spite of all that, the universe that has been created is fascinating. The characters interesting and the plot is a driving force in the books.
But I have to be honest, I was LOST during a lot of this book and would just accept that I had no idea what was happening in some chapters and hope they would make sense later. I also felt like the end of the book was anti-climactic and I left the book unsure of what had happened and when.
I don’t want to post spoilers, but I don’t know for sure if the bad guy was killed, and if so, I’m not sure WHEN it happened (or didn’t). I’m not being vague to hide spoilers, I’m being vague because I really am not certain.
There is also a tendency to overuse auto docs (the automatic medic machines and patches) to allow people to suffer mortal injuries time and time again, with no PTSD from having limbs ripped from their bodies and so on, to return to battle a short time after they “died” in the previous chapter. You start to doubt all deaths and begin to think that, like a soap opera, anyone can rise from the dead with a convenient toss into the auto doc.
I know I sound critical and I AM… but I am critical because I think Mr. O’Sullivan is a brilliant writer with enormous potential with the write editor. He is very easy to talk with and seems to be very open to talking with readers and discussing anything about his books. I am very impressed with him and would like to (selfishly) see him succeed so that I can enjoy more of his books, and hopefully be able to understand them better.
At first I thought that maybe I was just too dense to understand the books, (ok, I didn’t really cause who really thinks they are dumb? - especially since I can read a great deal of hard sci-fi and have no problem keeping up) but I read the reviews and quite a few of them talk about having to re-read passages and being confused by sudden set changes that aren’t explained well. So it isn’t just me.
I still highly recommend this series. It is loads of fun, just be ready to have to read deep!
November 29, 2022
This was a disappointing ending to an otherwise excellent story began in Quite Possibly Alien.
I would have gone with one star but the writing is too good for that even if the story-craft itself is lacking.
I found Heroes to be disjointed and staccato. At several points I found myself flipping back wondering if I missed a page. How did the characters get here? What - I though he was on board the tugboat? Huh? Who are these ERL folk suddenly dropped in like they're major characters?
I think if we'd spent a little less time with Seamus' navel-gazing and Agatha Christie-esque motive-exposition-out-of-nowhere, and more time exploring some of these new characters POV we could of have avoided a massive wall-of-text narrative. There's easily enough material to explore in two to three full length novels in a much more interesting fashion.
All told, it felt like O'Sullivan shoved all his writing notes into a pile and threw them into the novel half-baked just to get product out the door. There's a rushed and incomplete feel to Heroes. It builds up to a real ending, which is nice, but the trip there is entirely unsatisfying.
I would have gone with one star but the writing is too good for that even if the story-craft itself is lacking.
I found Heroes to be disjointed and staccato. At several points I found myself flipping back wondering if I missed a page. How did the characters get here? What - I though he was on board the tugboat? Huh? Who are these ERL folk suddenly dropped in like they're major characters?
I think if we'd spent a little less time with Seamus' navel-gazing and Agatha Christie-esque motive-exposition-out-of-nowhere, and more time exploring some of these new characters POV we could of have avoided a massive wall-of-text narrative. There's easily enough material to explore in two to three full length novels in a much more interesting fashion.
All told, it felt like O'Sullivan shoved all his writing notes into a pile and threw them into the novel half-baked just to get product out the door. There's a rushed and incomplete feel to Heroes. It builds up to a real ending, which is nice, but the trip there is entirely unsatisfying.
July 5, 2022
A Way Better Than Average Space Opera
So far, the Freeman Universe series has been delightful and charming. O’Sullivan writes a good tale and gives us some interesting characters. A few typos linger but not enough to hurt the flow. There are a multitude of human and other characters.
He is a good writer who could use a little less time and space to tell his tales, but that’s a rather middling quibble. One thing that dd bother me a bit is that he writes a couple of pages of dialogue without character attribution. When there are continuous quotes fo a long while, the reader can lose track of who is speaking. An occasional, ‘Ciaran said.’ would be helpful.
I’ve enjoyed the saga so far, and will certainly read another volume.
Have fun!
So far, the Freeman Universe series has been delightful and charming. O’Sullivan writes a good tale and gives us some interesting characters. A few typos linger but not enough to hurt the flow. There are a multitude of human and other characters.
He is a good writer who could use a little less time and space to tell his tales, but that’s a rather middling quibble. One thing that dd bother me a bit is that he writes a couple of pages of dialogue without character attribution. When there are continuous quotes fo a long while, the reader can lose track of who is speaking. An occasional, ‘Ciaran said.’ would be helpful.
I’ve enjoyed the saga so far, and will certainly read another volume.
Have fun!
July 10, 2022
I would have given 5 stars but...
I really liked this series. Books one and two were overnight reads, however book three was difficult in some areas such as way too many names and relationships to easily keep track of. I found myself backtracking to remind myself who was who and what did they have to do with the story. I have rarely needed to do this in any books I've read. A synopsis of characters would have helped.
I really liked this series. Books one and two were overnight reads, however book three was difficult in some areas such as way too many names and relationships to easily keep track of. I found myself backtracking to remind myself who was who and what did they have to do with the story. I have rarely needed to do this in any books I've read. A synopsis of characters would have helped.
June 12, 2022
don’t get it.
Has some good parts but the whole series has been really confusing. Seems like a lot of backstory missing. I was often lost
Has some good parts but the whole series has been really confusing. Seems like a lot of backstory missing. I was often lost
August 30, 2023
Good Read.
This is a very interesting series and you have to pay close attention when you read it to understand what all is going on . I thought it was a good series so far.
This is a very interesting series and you have to pay close attention when you read it to understand what all is going on . I thought it was a good series so far.
September 14, 2024
Wow!
I knew this would happen. I knew I would inhale Heroes in one long session, carrying my kindle to the kitchen to find food and water. And Heroes didn't disappoint! Ciaran, Macer, and Seamus (no, I can't choose between them) are marvelous characters, and each of their contributions to the story is important. The story continued to be twisty and surprising, although several story lines were tied up in amazing bows. Several new characters bring up the possibility of future adventures (and no, Mr. O'Sullivan, I still can't choose between them). Seamus and Ciaran have exciting new titles, and Macer has something he didn't know he wanted. But the synthetic intelligences are also a major character in this series, and their future is still to be written. I definitely recommend this series, including the free in-between novellas, and advise reading it in order. I read Heroes in KU and immediately bought it to reread, because this kind of awesome (even with the graphic violence and body count) must be read more than once. I'm looking forward to the next Freeman adventure.
I knew this would happen. I knew I would inhale Heroes in one long session, carrying my kindle to the kitchen to find food and water. And Heroes didn't disappoint! Ciaran, Macer, and Seamus (no, I can't choose between them) are marvelous characters, and each of their contributions to the story is important. The story continued to be twisty and surprising, although several story lines were tied up in amazing bows. Several new characters bring up the possibility of future adventures (and no, Mr. O'Sullivan, I still can't choose between them). Seamus and Ciaran have exciting new titles, and Macer has something he didn't know he wanted. But the synthetic intelligences are also a major character in this series, and their future is still to be written. I definitely recommend this series, including the free in-between novellas, and advise reading it in order. I read Heroes in KU and immediately bought it to reread, because this kind of awesome (even with the graphic violence and body count) must be read more than once. I'm looking forward to the next Freeman adventure.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews