Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, Brian, good to see you again.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Yeah, good to see you. Usually I don't get to
do that.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (00:05):
Likewise, as always, I have read the whole book before
having you on the show, which is I'm sure not
always true when you talk to radio people in any case.
Brian Freeman is a best selling thriller author of his
own series of books, as well as having had the
distinct privilege of being asked to continue what might be
(00:29):
the most famous thriller series in history perhaps and it's
certainly you know, in the in the A list. If
it's not number one, might be number one though, and
that is of course, the the Jason Bourne series that
was begun by the famous Robert Ludlam, who passed away
quite a few years ago at this point, So Brian
is back with his latest. Is this third fourth by you?
Speaker 4 (00:52):
I believe it or not? It is already my seventh?
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Oh my gosh, where does the time go? All right?
Exactly right, Brian's Brian seventh. It's called The Bourne Escape.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
I read the whole thing and it cost me a
couple of nights of sleep, but it was worth it.
Hard book to put down, as usual from Brian Freeman, and.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
All the Bourn books are interesting. This one.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
I found the way you dealt with memory loss, which
is always a big thing with Bourne, but became a
bigger thing in this book.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Can you talk about that a little bit?
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Yeah, I really wanted to kind of go back to
the roots of the series. Some of the characters from
Ludlum's original book, The Bourne Identity make a reappearance in
this novel. And I've been kind of laying the groundwork
in the last couple of books talking about the idea
that that tread Zone doesn't really know what what Bourne's
real state is in terms of his memory and whether
(01:53):
he's at risk for further memory loss, and so it
kind of all explodes in this book, and suddenly he's
finding himself back in a situation where he doesn't know
who he is and he has to piece together the
fragments of his path while he's also getting pulled into
this chase across Europe.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
Let's just do just for one time here a brief
step back for the few people who might not know.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Jason Bourne and Treadstone.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
So just give me like nineteen seconds, because I like
prime numbers on what is Treadstone and who is Jason like,
who is this person we're talking about in this book,
and then we'll get back to details.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Yeah, Treadstone is the super secret spy agency that Burn
works for. And several years ago he was doing a
mission for Treadstone in the Mediterranean and he was shot
on a boat and wound up floating in the sea,
and when he came to.
Speaker 4 (02:44):
He had no idea who he was.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
And so the nature of the whole born identity Lovelum's
original book was Jason Bourne trying to figure out who
he is and why he has the skills he does.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
So other than Jason Bourne, I'd say the two most
important characters, maybe the three most important characters in this
book are all women. Right, There's there's one important character
who's a man who we used to think is dead,
you know, maybe he's sort of tied with with I'll
use a name with vandal in level of importance, something
(03:16):
like that.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
But very heavy on the female characters here.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
Is that just a natural outgrowth of how you've been
developing the plot or are you really aiming to focus
on female characters as part of you think female spies
are particularly interesting and that sort of thing.
Speaker 4 (03:31):
Well, yeah, I do.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
I mean that's that's you know, that's a that's a
great you know, a great place to begin with anyway.
But the thing about the thing about the Born character,
which is really different from what you find in the
Matt Damon movies, where Born is kind of this isolated, laconic,
cynical hero. That's very different from the way Ludlum built
him out.
Speaker 4 (03:49):
In his books.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
I think in the books Born is is is not
a loner, and he really needs someone in his life.
He needs a relationship in his life, and and so
I wanted to kind of focus on that in my
reboot of the Born series, so that Bourne's relationships with
the women in life become very central to who he is.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
I ask you this every time, but I'm gonna I'm
gonna ask again, but again, as you said, you're seven
books into it now, But what does it mean to
you to be the dude who's writing one of the
most famous I guess you'd call him a spy of
all time and you're doing this?
Speaker 1 (04:26):
How does that feel?
Speaker 3 (04:28):
You know?
Speaker 2 (04:28):
My first reaction when I got the gig was say, oh,
oh my god. And my second reaction was, oh my god,
it's intimidating you know, stepping into the shoes of a
giant like Ludlaman and such an iconic character as Born.
But it's also been among the most the most enjoyable
fun writing I've done in my life. I mean, I
look back on when I was I would have been
(04:50):
seventeen years old back in nineteen eighty when the Bourne
identity first came out. And if you had told that
teenager back then that some four decades later, books would
be coming out with with my name and Robert Ludlin's
name together on the cover, I would have thought you
were crazy.
Speaker 4 (05:03):
But here we are.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
So you write another series of books with your main
your main, dude, Jonathan Stride, is it difficult for you
as a writer, and are you are you kind of
alternating or are you spending all your time on Born
or how is this working for you? And then my
real question is if you are writing both, how do
you keep me straight?
Speaker 1 (05:26):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (05:26):
I do go back and forth.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
I write Bourn novels and I still write my own books,
both Jonathan Stride novels and standalones as well. In fact,
my last novel was a standalone Break Every Rule, came
out last fall, and I have a new standalone mystery
called Photographs coming out in October.
Speaker 4 (05:42):
But you know, I think what I going back and forth.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
I think what makes it work for me is I
do get a chance to tell very different stories with
very different characters. If if everything I wrote with sort
of Born esque action thrillers, and that would be a
lot harder from a creative standpoint. But being able to
put down Born and pick up Jonathan Stride and write
sort of gritty police procedurals and and put that down
and write, you know, very emotional mysteries like Photograph with
(06:07):
a with a female first person narrative. That's what keeps
it exciting for me, is I get to kind of
bring all these very very different characters to life.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
We're talking with Brian Freeman and his newest novel in
the Born series is The Born Escape b O U
r n E. And And you can actually see all
of Brian's stuff at his own website, which is b
like for Brian Freeman Books dot com b Freeman Books
dot com.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
You mentioned how Matt.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
Damon plays Born differently from how you understand Born from
the books. Do you do you think there's gonna be
another movie, whether or not it's with or or mini
series like like like Jack Carr is doing with.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Terminalists and that kind of thing. Any any anything you
can tell us without having.
Speaker 4 (06:54):
To kill us, Well, I sure hope.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
So.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
I mean that that seems like such a you know,
a slow pitch across the plate to bring Born back,
particularly in something like a streaming series. I mean, you know,
Amazon has had such luck with with Jack Reacher and
Jack Ryan, and it seems like, you know, bringing Jason
Bourne back in that same kind of limited series would
be would be such a natural thing, whether or not.
Speaker 4 (07:17):
They choose to do you know, new movies as well.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
You know, I mean, Matt Damon maybe getting you know,
a little old to take on the Born character, but hey,
you know, it's not exactly like Liam Neeson as a
spring Chicken and he's still doing thrillers or Tom Cruise, right, yeah,
exactly exactly. So so you know, I know that I
know that they are having talks out there. Universal has
been kind of dropping hints around about trying to do
something more with Born, but I haven't seen anything specific yet.
Speaker 4 (07:42):
I just hope they do it.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
I think that it would be great to have Born
back on on screen or TV and Hey, they've got
a lot of stories they could, you know, draw from
right away.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
I always try to be very careful when talking about
books on the show to not give spoilers and make
sure I don't say things that, you know, would cause
people to feel like they don't need to go read
the book. So I hope this doesn't fall into that category.
I'm going to go ahead anyway. But at some point
in the book, Jason Bourne meets well, I won't even
use the name, Jason Bourne meets one of the world's
(08:13):
most famous dictators, right, and you can decide if you
want to give the name or not. But it's it's
a super interesting scene, and I wonder how you thought
about that.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
Yeah, you know, I I've been kind of laying the
groundwork a little bit for a couple of books because
this this sparring match long distance between born and then Yeah,
I'll go ahead and say it.
Speaker 4 (08:35):
It's Vladimir Putin.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
I really thought, long and heart, did I want to
actually bring Putin into this book? And you know, I
had conversations with the folks at Putnam and the Ludlam
of State about whether they wanted me to actually use,
you know, the name of the character in there, and
they didn't have any problem with it, and I thought
it would just add this extra dose of realism to
(08:58):
the book. I hope that doesn't mean anybody's going to
be stabbing me with a poisoned umbrella.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
You know, it would be It would be really something,
wouldn't it if Putin like read the book and said
something about it.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
I wonder.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
I only wonder a little bit, because he's a bad
dude in the world would be better off without him, right,
But I do wonder a little bit if someone's gonna
tell him, Hey, Vlad, you know you're a character in
this book, and then you know, and then and then
I'll read it. I wonder if the book will be
translated into Russian. I mean, I bet he could read
English a little bit, at least at least moderately. But
(09:33):
that would be interesting.
Speaker 4 (09:34):
I do wonder about that too. And yeah, I don't
know how I how I feel about that. Yeah, we'll
take it as it come.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
So if if.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
You don't have a chance to interview me again, I
guess we'll know what happened.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
My producer, My producer just said, for the second printing
of the book, you should get a blurb from putin.
Oh my gosh, that's pretty funny. All right, let's just
do like one or two more quick questions. So the
the book ends with a lot of drama and some
real changes to Bourne's world, and it ends up with
(10:07):
him seeming to think about whether he wants to get
back to his old line of work. I think I
can say that without spoiling anything.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Do you already have in mind.
Speaker 3 (10:19):
What what the next book? Or have you already started
writing the next book?
Speaker 4 (10:25):
Yeah? In fact, the next book is done.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
It's it's oh my gosh, I can and The Born
Revenge will be coming out in January, so it won't
be very long at all before we get Born back.
But but yeah, the The Born Escape is I think
the most personal of the Born stories, and you can
definitely feel that at the end of the book. But
there's always been kind of this push me pull your
relationship between Boorn and Treadstone and and and particularly now
(10:51):
that his his Treadstone, you know, boss, and Handler is
his shadow with whom he has this relationship. So I uh,
I knew that in the essence of what happens at
the end of The Born Escape would sort of lead
me right into the plot of the next book, and
it definitely does the title title itself. The Borne Revenge
gives you a couple of ideas about, you know, where
(11:13):
it might go.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
So let's see, I'm I have the book in my
hand right now. It's just under four hundred pages.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
And how long did it How long did it take
you to write this one? And and break it out
for me? How long did it take you to write
a first draft? And then how long did it take
you to go through and edit it?
Speaker 4 (11:33):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Usually it takes me about you know, four to five
months to do the first draft and and then you know,
we'll go through the editorial process.
Speaker 4 (11:41):
I'm one of those obsessive editors.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
I just like to, you know, edit as you go.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
It's a paragraph until it's exactly the way I want it.
I will say though, that, you know, Putnam has had
me writing two Born books a year for the last
couple of years, so the deadlines are such that a
lot of time to be tweaking every word. Wow, it's
sort of like having, you know, your your life be
an action thriller because you're just kind of you know,
you know, pushing out the pages every day.
Speaker 3 (12:06):
If if you if you could rewrite your contract to
have one book a year instead of two, would you
would you do that? Or are you happy with the
pace and with the paychecks that come.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
With two books a year instead of one?
Speaker 2 (12:19):
Well, I certainly like the paychecks that come with two
books a year, But for me personally, from a creative standpoint,
I'd love to be doing I'd love to be doing
one book a year, just because again, I like to
what my favorite part of the process is the editing,
and I love being able to go back over the book,
you know, once the words are on the page, and
just tweak everything and get it just the way I
want it.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
How many books are in this current contract?
Speaker 2 (12:41):
The Born Revenge is the last book and a two
book contract. Gotcha, that's the one that's the one coming
out in jails, all right?
Speaker 3 (12:47):
And like these are questions I should be asking you
over a bourbon and not in public, and you know,
in front of thousands of people, but I'll but I'll
ask you anyway. So you know, now you've done seven books,
you're a huge hit. Everyone knows you can do this
and you're good at So do you think in your
next contract you might say, let's slow the pace a
little bit.
Speaker 4 (13:04):
I don't know, we'll we'll see what happens, you know.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
I try not to think too far ahead, mostly because
from a creative standpoint when it comes to the books,
I like to have Born and all of my characters
evolve based on what's happening to them in the book,
So and I don't think to think out the character
of the plots very much farther than where I are.
Speaker 4 (13:24):
So where I am.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
So you know, we'll, we'll, we'll take it as it
comes and we'll we'll see what happens next.
Speaker 4 (13:29):
But that's what keeps it fresh and exciting for me too.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
Brian Freeman's latest in the Born series is The Born Escape,
a wonderful, just thoroughly enjoyable thrill ride as all of
Brian's books are, and in a great summer read. So
you can buy it now wherever you buy your books.
The Born that's b O U r n E. Escape,
And you can check out more of Brian's work at
(13:54):
his own website if you would like to do that
be the letter b Freeman books dot com. Always great
to talk to you, Brian, Thanks for another Thanks for
entertaining me yet again with another with another born book Boy.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
The time goes now that it's seven already.
Speaker 4 (14:07):
Wow, Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Great to talk to you all right. Good seeing you
Hi, Brian, good to see you again.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Yeah, good to see you. Usually I don't get to
do that.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (00:05):
Likewise, as always, I have read the whole book before
having you on the show, which is I'm sure not
always true when you talk to radio people in any case.
Brian Freeman is a best selling thriller author of his
own series of books, as well as having had the
distinct privilege of being asked to continue what might be
(00:29):
the most famous thriller series in history perhaps and it's
certainly you know, in the in the A list. If
it's not number one, might be number one though, and
that is of course, the the Jason Bourne series that
was begun by the famous Robert Ludlam, who passed away
quite a few years ago at this point, So Brian
is back with his latest. Is this third fourth by you?
Speaker 4 (00:52):
I believe it or not? It is already my seventh?
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Oh my gosh, where does the time go? All right?
Exactly right, Brian's Brian seventh. It's called The Bourne Escape.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
I read the whole thing and it cost me a
couple of nights of sleep, but it was worth it.
Hard book to put down, as usual from Brian Freeman, and.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
All the Bourn books are interesting. This one.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
I found the way you dealt with memory loss, which
is always a big thing with Bourne, but became a
bigger thing in this book.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Can you talk about that a little bit?
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Yeah, I really wanted to kind of go back to
the roots of the series. Some of the characters from
Ludlum's original book, The Bourne Identity make a reappearance in
this novel. And I've been kind of laying the groundwork
in the last couple of books talking about the idea
that that tread Zone doesn't really know what what Bourne's
real state is in terms of his memory and whether
(01:53):
he's at risk for further memory loss, and so it
kind of all explodes in this book, and suddenly he's
finding himself back in a situation where he doesn't know
who he is and he has to piece together the
fragments of his path while he's also getting pulled into
this chase across Europe.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
Let's just do just for one time here a brief
step back for the few people who might not know.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Jason Bourne and Treadstone.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
So just give me like nineteen seconds, because I like
prime numbers on what is Treadstone and who is Jason like,
who is this person we're talking about in this book,
and then we'll get back to details.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Yeah, Treadstone is the super secret spy agency that Burn
works for. And several years ago he was doing a
mission for Treadstone in the Mediterranean and he was shot
on a boat and wound up floating in the sea,
and when he came to.
Speaker 4 (02:44):
He had no idea who he was.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
And so the nature of the whole born identity Lovelum's
original book was Jason Bourne trying to figure out who
he is and why he has the skills he does.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
So other than Jason Bourne, I'd say the two most
important characters, maybe the three most important characters in this
book are all women. Right, There's there's one important character
who's a man who we used to think is dead,
you know, maybe he's sort of tied with with I'll
use a name with vandal in level of importance, something
(03:16):
like that.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
But very heavy on the female characters here.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
Is that just a natural outgrowth of how you've been
developing the plot or are you really aiming to focus
on female characters as part of you think female spies
are particularly interesting and that sort of thing.
Speaker 4 (03:31):
Well, yeah, I do.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
I mean that's that's you know, that's a that's a
great you know, a great place to begin with anyway.
But the thing about the thing about the Born character,
which is really different from what you find in the
Matt Damon movies, where Born is kind of this isolated, laconic,
cynical hero. That's very different from the way Ludlum built
him out.
Speaker 4 (03:49):
In his books.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
I think in the books Born is is is not
a loner, and he really needs someone in his life.
He needs a relationship in his life, and and so
I wanted to kind of focus on that in my
reboot of the Born series, so that Bourne's relationships with
the women in life become very central to who he is.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
I ask you this every time, but I'm gonna I'm
gonna ask again, but again, as you said, you're seven
books into it now, But what does it mean to
you to be the dude who's writing one of the
most famous I guess you'd call him a spy of
all time and you're doing this?
Speaker 1 (04:26):
How does that feel?
Speaker 3 (04:28):
You know?
Speaker 2 (04:28):
My first reaction when I got the gig was say, oh,
oh my god. And my second reaction was, oh my god,
it's intimidating you know, stepping into the shoes of a
giant like Ludlaman and such an iconic character as Born.
But it's also been among the most the most enjoyable
fun writing I've done in my life. I mean, I
look back on when I was I would have been
(04:50):
seventeen years old back in nineteen eighty when the Bourne
identity first came out. And if you had told that
teenager back then that some four decades later, books would
be coming out with with my name and Robert Ludlin's
name together on the cover, I would have thought you
were crazy.
Speaker 4 (05:03):
But here we are.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
So you write another series of books with your main
your main, dude, Jonathan Stride, is it difficult for you
as a writer, and are you are you kind of
alternating or are you spending all your time on Born
or how is this working for you? And then my
real question is if you are writing both, how do
you keep me straight?
Speaker 1 (05:26):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (05:26):
I do go back and forth.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
I write Bourn novels and I still write my own books,
both Jonathan Stride novels and standalones as well. In fact,
my last novel was a standalone Break Every Rule, came
out last fall, and I have a new standalone mystery
called Photographs coming out in October.
Speaker 4 (05:42):
But you know, I think what I going back and forth.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
I think what makes it work for me is I
do get a chance to tell very different stories with
very different characters. If if everything I wrote with sort
of Born esque action thrillers, and that would be a
lot harder from a creative standpoint. But being able to
put down Born and pick up Jonathan Stride and write
sort of gritty police procedurals and and put that down
and write, you know, very emotional mysteries like Photograph with
(06:07):
a with a female first person narrative. That's what keeps
it exciting for me, is I get to kind of
bring all these very very different characters to life.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
We're talking with Brian Freeman and his newest novel in
the Born series is The Born Escape b O U
r n E. And And you can actually see all
of Brian's stuff at his own website, which is b
like for Brian Freeman Books dot com b Freeman Books
dot com.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
You mentioned how Matt.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
Damon plays Born differently from how you understand Born from
the books. Do you do you think there's gonna be
another movie, whether or not it's with or or mini
series like like like Jack Carr is doing with.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Terminalists and that kind of thing. Any any anything you
can tell us without having.
Speaker 4 (06:54):
To kill us, Well, I sure hope.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
So.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
I mean that that seems like such a you know,
a slow pitch across the plate to bring Born back,
particularly in something like a streaming series. I mean, you know,
Amazon has had such luck with with Jack Reacher and
Jack Ryan, and it seems like, you know, bringing Jason
Bourne back in that same kind of limited series would
be would be such a natural thing, whether or not.
Speaker 4 (07:17):
They choose to do you know, new movies as well.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
You know, I mean, Matt Damon maybe getting you know,
a little old to take on the Born character, but hey,
you know, it's not exactly like Liam Neeson as a
spring Chicken and he's still doing thrillers or Tom Cruise, right, yeah,
exactly exactly. So so you know, I know that I
know that they are having talks out there. Universal has
been kind of dropping hints around about trying to do
something more with Born, but I haven't seen anything specific yet.
Speaker 4 (07:42):
I just hope they do it.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
I think that it would be great to have Born
back on on screen or TV and Hey, they've got
a lot of stories they could, you know, draw from
right away.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
I always try to be very careful when talking about
books on the show to not give spoilers and make
sure I don't say things that, you know, would cause
people to feel like they don't need to go read
the book. So I hope this doesn't fall into that category.
I'm going to go ahead anyway. But at some point
in the book, Jason Bourne meets well, I won't even
use the name, Jason Bourne meets one of the world's
(08:13):
most famous dictators, right, and you can decide if you
want to give the name or not. But it's it's
a super interesting scene, and I wonder how you thought
about that.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
Yeah, you know, I I've been kind of laying the
groundwork a little bit for a couple of books because
this this sparring match long distance between born and then Yeah,
I'll go ahead and say it.
Speaker 4 (08:35):
It's Vladimir Putin.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
I really thought, long and heart, did I want to
actually bring Putin into this book? And you know, I
had conversations with the folks at Putnam and the Ludlam
of State about whether they wanted me to actually use,
you know, the name of the character in there, and
they didn't have any problem with it, and I thought
it would just add this extra dose of realism to
(08:58):
the book. I hope that doesn't mean anybody's going to
be stabbing me with a poisoned umbrella.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
You know, it would be It would be really something,
wouldn't it if Putin like read the book and said
something about it.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
I wonder.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
I only wonder a little bit, because he's a bad
dude in the world would be better off without him, right,
But I do wonder a little bit if someone's gonna
tell him, Hey, Vlad, you know you're a character in
this book, and then you know, and then and then
I'll read it. I wonder if the book will be
translated into Russian. I mean, I bet he could read
English a little bit, at least at least moderately. But
(09:33):
that would be interesting.
Speaker 4 (09:34):
I do wonder about that too. And yeah, I don't
know how I how I feel about that. Yeah, we'll
take it as it come.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
So if if.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
You don't have a chance to interview me again, I
guess we'll know what happened.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
My producer, My producer just said, for the second printing
of the book, you should get a blurb from putin.
Oh my gosh, that's pretty funny. All right, let's just
do like one or two more quick questions. So the
the book ends with a lot of drama and some
real changes to Bourne's world, and it ends up with
(10:07):
him seeming to think about whether he wants to get
back to his old line of work. I think I
can say that without spoiling anything.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Do you already have in mind.
Speaker 3 (10:19):
What what the next book? Or have you already started
writing the next book?
Speaker 4 (10:25):
Yeah? In fact, the next book is done.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
It's it's oh my gosh, I can and The Born
Revenge will be coming out in January, so it won't
be very long at all before we get Born back.
But but yeah, the The Born Escape is I think
the most personal of the Born stories, and you can
definitely feel that at the end of the book. But
there's always been kind of this push me pull your
relationship between Boorn and Treadstone and and and particularly now
(10:51):
that his his Treadstone, you know, boss, and Handler is
his shadow with whom he has this relationship. So I uh,
I knew that in the essence of what happens at
the end of The Born Escape would sort of lead
me right into the plot of the next book, and
it definitely does the title title itself. The Borne Revenge
gives you a couple of ideas about, you know, where
(11:13):
it might go.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
So let's see, I'm I have the book in my
hand right now. It's just under four hundred pages.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
And how long did it How long did it take
you to write this one? And and break it out
for me? How long did it take you to write
a first draft? And then how long did it take
you to go through and edit it?
Speaker 4 (11:33):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Usually it takes me about you know, four to five
months to do the first draft and and then you know,
we'll go through the editorial process.
Speaker 4 (11:41):
I'm one of those obsessive editors.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
I just like to, you know, edit as you go.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
It's a paragraph until it's exactly the way I want it.
I will say though, that, you know, Putnam has had
me writing two Born books a year for the last
couple of years, so the deadlines are such that a
lot of time to be tweaking every word. Wow, it's
sort of like having, you know, your your life be
an action thriller because you're just kind of you know,
you know, pushing out the pages every day.
Speaker 3 (12:06):
If if you if you could rewrite your contract to
have one book a year instead of two, would you
would you do that? Or are you happy with the
pace and with the paychecks that come.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
With two books a year instead of one?
Speaker 2 (12:19):
Well, I certainly like the paychecks that come with two
books a year, But for me personally, from a creative standpoint,
I'd love to be doing I'd love to be doing
one book a year, just because again, I like to
what my favorite part of the process is the editing,
and I love being able to go back over the book,
you know, once the words are on the page, and
just tweak everything and get it just the way I
want it.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
How many books are in this current contract?
Speaker 2 (12:41):
The Born Revenge is the last book and a two
book contract. Gotcha, that's the one that's the one coming
out in jails, all right?
Speaker 3 (12:47):
And like these are questions I should be asking you
over a bourbon and not in public, and you know,
in front of thousands of people, but I'll but I'll
ask you anyway. So you know, now you've done seven books,
you're a huge hit. Everyone knows you can do this
and you're good at So do you think in your
next contract you might say, let's slow the pace a
little bit.
Speaker 4 (13:04):
I don't know, we'll we'll see what happens, you know.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
I try not to think too far ahead, mostly because
from a creative standpoint when it comes to the books,
I like to have Born and all of my characters
evolve based on what's happening to them in the book,
So and I don't think to think out the character
of the plots very much farther than where I are.
Speaker 4 (13:24):
So where I am.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
So you know, we'll, we'll, we'll take it as it
comes and we'll we'll see what happens next.
Speaker 4 (13:29):
But that's what keeps it fresh and exciting for me too.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
Brian Freeman's latest in the Born series is The Born Escape,
a wonderful, just thoroughly enjoyable thrill ride as all of
Brian's books are, and in a great summer read. So
you can buy it now wherever you buy your books.
The Born that's b O U r n E. Escape,
And you can check out more of Brian's work at
(13:54):
his own website if you would like to do that
be the letter b Freeman books dot com. Always great
to talk to you, Brian, Thanks for another Thanks for
entertaining me yet again with another with another born book Boy.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
The time goes now that it's seven already.
Speaker 4 (14:07):
Wow, Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Great to talk to you all right. Good seeing you
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