Wikipedia says the term, Easter Egg, when refering to a hidden feature in a video game, was coined in 1980. Between then and now, the meaning has changed to include pop culture references in just about any media. Or any hidden content for that matter. They show up in movies and TV, and even in comics. They are sometimes included in the written word.
Bloodstone Redemption is full of them. They appear in chapter titles, character names, and randomly throughout. Unfortunately, they may be difficult to spot for anyone born in this century. I (Eric) am old and so are my “pop-culture” references.
Some are direct quotes, like when Forker 5 tells Red-2 “You have a long way to go and a short time to get there.” That is a line from an old song – the theme song from the movie “Smokey and the Bandit.”
Others are more subtle, like Chapter 27 “Gonna take a Semi-Mental Journey.” That is a play on the title to an old standard song “Gonna take a Sentimental Journey.” Or General Halftred’s name. The OLD comic strip Beetle Bailey had a character, General Halftrack. I changed it to Halftred to avoid any chance of copyright infringement. Similar character names show up often.
Then there are some very well hidden ones like on page 2 where Master is in the void and all he can see is a mauve mist. Mauve is a synonym for purple and mist is one for haze. Thus, Master is falling through a “Purple Haze.” That is a reference to Jimi Hendrix’s song of that name and implies that Master’s journey through that undefined space is like a psychedelic trip. I suppose that I should have kept track of them all, but I didn’t so I don’t know how many there are. Younger readers may miss most of them. Others may need to keep a thesaurus handy for when they come across a word that seems strange. If you come across some and mention them in the “comments” section below… Well, there is no prize, but everyone will know that you are either very astute, or very old like the author.