Sooner or later, all the books will be going over to Draft2Digital. I don’t fit the system for some reason.
But, independently of that, I can give the books Universal Book Links.
This means that you have one link for the book, you click that, and it offers you all the places you can get it. And if you wish, you can make a preference for your favourite online store, and it sends you there next time.
The only downside is that it sends all the Amazon clicks to the Amazon .com store*. This is sad, because I use someone else’s neat link, which sends it to the one for the country you’re calling it from. I may leave it there, and then put just the new Books2Read UBL next to it. Or first.
The other good thing, is that although there is an underlying code in the system, I can call it by its name. so…
At present, just the ebook links are included, but I will put the paperback links in relatively soon. I have had some requests for audiobooks, but that might take some time.
Do let me know if you have any trouble with it. Especially if you know it’s in another online store and it isn’t linked to it (send me the URL of the store sale page).
At present it’s having trouble finding the URLs I’ve given it for the Kobobooks store for Corsair and Zanzibar’s Rings. It may be that I’m out of date…
*The FAQs on the system say that it does link to the store the user is clicking from. Maybe it didnt when I tested it because the link wasn’t live or something.
The work is done, the wait is over… The Quest for Orichalcum is ready to be published on Tuesday, on all platforms including (subject to distributor actions) as a softcover book.
The ebook has a sparkly modern cover, as do the Viridian series trilogy, but the softcover keeps its original cover (with an amended subtitle) in line with the style of the others.
ebookpaperback
The Quest for Orichalcum: an Asteroid Miners’ Memoir
by Jemima Pett
Hang out with your favourite asteroid miners, discovering how they met, their adventures and misadventures, and the truth behind the rumours.
How did Pete Garcia and Lars Nilsson meet? What adventures did they have before they reached the Viridium System? Did Lars really murder someone? Is Pete invincible at arm-wrestling? Have either ever really loved someone? Did luck or fate make them the best orichalcum miners in the galaxy?
All these questions are addressed in the Quest for Orichalcum, a memoir of your favourite asteroid miners, from before the days when instacomms enabled real connectivity through the galaxy. Before anyone knew what orichalcum was, or could do for civilisations throughout the universe. This is a gathering of tales of the men, their women, their extracurricular activities, disasters, deaths, murders, and surfing. And all before anyone but the people of Corsair had ever heard of the Perihelix.
This memoir of Big Pete and the Swede is a prequel to the Viridian System series.
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The Quest for Orichalcum, in fact. I haven’t been able to stop tinkering with it now it’s more or less finished.
I need to do a blurb… something along the lines of:
How did Big Pete and the Swede meet? How did they get to be so rich? And were they always successful with women? What adventures did they have before they reached the Viridium System? All these questions are addressed in the Quest for Orichalcum, a biography, or memoir, of your favourite asteroid miners, from before the days when instacomms enabled real connectivity through the galaxy. Before anyone knew what orichalcum was, or could do for civilisations throughout the universe. A gathering of tales of the men, their women, their extracurricular activities, disasters, deaths, murders, and surfing. And all before anyone but the people of Corsair had ever heard of the Perihelix.
Since the December update, I’ve been busy with the project with various names, but mostly subtitled something like – Pete & the Swede, the Early Years.
Main edits
January saw me working solidly on it, with feedback from my beta readers creating a whole new issue – that of making sure Lars got as much say in the story as Pete. I don’t know why I thought of the project as mostly Pete’s to tell, but now it covers Lars’s working life as thoroughly as it does Pete’s.
There are still parts of their very early lives that only exist as flashbacks and obscure references. I think taking them right back to their childhood is unnecessary. But for both of them it has a bearing on their view of themselves, although Pete is not self-conscious, in stark contrast to Lars.
Lars relaxes
“Food would be great.” Pete stood up, only to sit down again as [Lars] started to change from his coverall to shirt and pants. ‘Is changing for meals obligatory?” “Only if you’ve been doing something odorous.”
Viridian series prequel (c) J M Pett 2025
One of the subtle things I did was to make Lars even stiffer in the beginning, by having him speak in over-formal phrasing, or just more obscure words. He was brought up in a very strict and hierachical system, like the British Upper Class (or Charles Emerson Winchester IV). Pete’s upbringing was free and easy, despite the invasion of his planet by the Imperium. Lars gradually transitions during college, and talks like most people thanks to Pete’s influence. One thing I find difficult is elaborating on Pete’s background without repeating what is already out there in Curved Space to Corsair.
I enjoyed all their adventures with girls, though. Yes, they did meet girls before they encountered Maggie, Dolores and Aramintha on Pleasant Valley! But as research students who went on into mining (mainly because orichalcum had just been discovered, and was desperately needed), they did not get too many opportunities to build relationships with women. I think Pete did better overall than Lars (or so Lars thinks) but that probably won’t surprise you.
Wordcount, early copies… and a title
The book is currently sitting at just under 90,000 words, which is about the same as the rest of the trilogy. I’m nearing the time to decide on publication strategy, and I don’t at the moment think it’ll come out in paperback. Most of my Viridian series sales are ebooks, and I am picking up sales after my book fairs, so at least some people like what they see.
If you’re a fan of the series, and would like a review copy when it’s finished, email me at my name with a dot between my first name and surname at btinternet.com. It would be good to know which of the books you’ve reviewed, and where you might talk about it, if you ask!
As for a title…. I’m leaning towards The Quest for Orichalcum at present. Having already done a Z title, a Q seems like a good idea to attract reading challenge fans!
I suppose I’d better start thinking about a cover…
gift fairs attended – tick, although I dropped Chichester and did several two-day events at Lyndhurst. I also had a successful day at Salisbury. Since I’ve had to order more Viridian stock, I’ve definitely sold quite a few!
There are some website pages that will be updated or changed as soon as the Smashwords—Draft2Digital transfer is complete. New links, universal ones, and maybe new blurbs.
Viridian series news
I recently read all three books again (over a long weekend). I’m happy to say I really enjoyed them! And I think The Perihelix is a perfectly good book, now. I’ve had a bit of inferiority complex about it after its dodgy beginning and subsequent revision. Now I can promote it with confidence! I’ve always loved the others.
The main reason for reading them was to check what I’d forgotten about Big Pete and the Swede’s pasts…. Because I’ve been writing their backstory!
It starts with Pete on the Doris Jury hearing he’s got into college. Then he meets Lars, and they go through their college years together. After that there’s about twelve years to cover before they get to the Viridian system, including time mining on Excelsior and Kappa Venturi (a reference I’d forgotten until a second reread of the Perihelix), and about the same again before the Perihelix begins. And I’ve realised that I’ve done something I thought was in place before book one starts, and I’ll have to reread the other two again to see if that ever happened.
There’s no plot, as such, and it tends to be Pete’s point of view. It includes a few stories I’ve done in the past as flash fiction, like The Appeal of Alpha Kenworthy. In the course of doing this (with a lot of mining in it, as well as a lot of girls) I had more thoughts on asteroid mining, and things that might be physically impossible, but then again might not. I might write a feature on asteroid mining sometime.
I’m still not sure whether to publish it, but then again, it revisits their youth, it’s a fun read (and sexy, as you’d expect from these two), and I like it.
Gift fairs in 2025
I’ve already booked fair dates for 2025, starting with two days in Lyndhurst at Easter, and ending in Romsey in December. New for this year is Winchester Guildhall, which I’m doing on three dates, first Sunday of the month. I’ll also be doing Lymington and Salisbury as before.
Check my blog for actual dates: there’s a scrolling ‘next appearance’ on the front page.
Tasks for 25?
revamp the tour of the Viridian System on here. I know a lot more about it now
develop plans for this backstory project, provisionally called Before Viridium, although a goodly part is set in the system
update as needed when I eventually shift onto Draft2Digital
Seasons Greetings
I hope your year has gone well on the whole. Enjoy your holiday season, and very best wishes for 2025.
First off, I have no plans for further books in the Viridian series. Sorry.
In person appearances
I will be selling the paperbacks at Craft Fairs again this year. I have the following dates/venues booked. I may add more after the summer. These are all in Hampshire, UK, except Chichester, which is West Sussex.
April 27th – Romsey Town Hall
May 11th – Chichester Meeting Rooms (provisional)
May 25th – Lyndhurst Community Centre
June 8th – Romsey Town Hall
June 22nd – Lymington Masonic Hall
July 13th – Chichester (provisional)
July 27th – Lyndhurst Community Centre
August 10th – Lymington Masonic Hall
August 31st – Romsey Town Hall
Prices have risen for 2024; I am hoping to keep the paperbacks at £14 for the Craft Fairs while stocks last, but the online RRP is £15. 40% of that goes to the retailer and distributor. Ebook prices remain the same.
Website maintenance
My websites have used the same format (with different colours and some design tweaks) for nearly seven years, which surprised me. I think they are beginning to look their age. So it’s time for me to modernise them, with extra thought on how it presents on mobile devices.
This website will be my testbed, since it is relatively small, intricate enough, and some sections could do with a revamp or update. Sometimes I can try things out and it not show, but sometime you might just come visiting when I’ve made it look a mess. Or when I’ve made it public to get some feedback, in which case, feel free to give feedback!
This was the question posed by Patricia Lynn Josephine for a guest post prior to the Zanzibar’s Rings tour. I mentioned it in one of the posts here, but Patricia has changed her website, and the old content is no longer available. So here it is… a post written in January 22 that made me think.
Writing Scifi
Hi, I’m Jemima Pett, and I’m a science fiction writer.
Patricia asked me: why do I write scifi?
And I stopped.
I thought for a while, and nothing really happened in my brain.
Except… why am I a science fiction writer?
Why not thrillers, or romance, or adventure… I’d add mystery, but there’s usually a fair bit of mystery in my books, and usually some adventure, but not the sort that ‘action & adventure’ usually means. Five on a Desert Island sort of adventure, not the Da Vinci Code, although I do prefer to write scifi for grown-ups. That’s an audience that’s older than YA but not in need of the ‘adult’ tag, i.e, not X rated.
But why in space?
Why not Australia, or Norfolk, or the Grand Canyon, or somewhere else I’ve been several times?
Why a planetary system way above the plane of our galaxy, the edge of space where people only go because there’s an incredibly valuable metal that allows instantaneous communications across lightyears, even when travelling at the mythical warp speed—several times faster than light.
Well, that starts to answer the question, really.
I absolutely hate reading books where the author has got the details of the place wrong. So writing about imaginary places means nobody’s going to argue with you. It has to feel real, though. Even if the sky is pink.
If you can only do armchair research on your chosen location, it’s fairly helpful if the main details are very close to you. So close, they’re in your head. Even some of the science is imaginary. But the best scifi uses ‘possible science’.
I used to do things in my work which involved working out logical developments given a set of starting conditions. Building scenarios. What would happen if, instead of Brexit, the UK stayed with the EU, and the US decided to make a strategic alliance with (pick a country).
One set of scenarios I worked with (the Millennium scenarios) had three versions I liked for the future—approximately 2025—and one I didn’t. That one was called Atlantic Storm for short, and involved UK aligning itself with the US against Europe, and pulling away from events in the Middle East.
So the science of science fiction is not as farfetched as you might think.
from Universe Today Aug 2009
Many science fiction writers use their own particular specialisms as their starting point. Mine is people and planets. Others have more psychological approaches—try Juliana Rew’s Unwinding for a really mind-bending story. Becky Chambers does absolutely amazing things with people and aliens, and alien people, with a big biochemistry influence. Sue Ann Bowling used her genetics specialism to create evolved people with a very interesting background—akin to Arthur C Clarke’s The Sentinel, but more fully developed.
And many, many people like shiny fast toys, enjoy space ships and battles, and the politics that go with them. Which is what scifi looks like to many potential readers, because of Star Wars and Star Trek, not to mentioned Battlestar Galactica and most (it seems) screen scifi. But Gene Roddenbury put lots of speculative fiction into Star Trek. All those ‘What If … the society of Planet X had been influenced by gangster movies and got stuck in that society?’
What If…? is what science fiction is all about.
It may not even be in space.
It may be quite weird.
Which is why it has the wider genre term of Speculative Fiction (spec-fic).
The last of my featured posts in the blog tour for Zanzibar’s Rings appeared on Lynn’s Romance Enthusiasm, which is pretty weird as it’s really a Romance blog behind an Adult blogger screen!
I thought as they already had a biography for me, I might as well go to town with the adventures my imagination took me on when I was a kid. Some of it is true.
Actually, it’s all true, but some of it mainly happened in my head. And as Dumbledore said, just because it’s in your head, what makes it not true?
10 Things you Didn’t Know about Jemima Pett
Jemima wrote her first book at around age 8, called the Whispering Stream. It was ten small pages long, and written in pencil.
Between 8 and 12, Jemima was a champion show jumper. She had six horses in a stable outside her house, and she won a medal in the Olympic Games with either Zingaro or Riversprite. She also built show jumps out of stuff from her father’s shed, and jumped over them in the garden. No, there were no horses, except model ones, whose stable was a shelf in her bedroom. They are still in her living room cabinet.
By about 10, Jemima had graduated to terraforming and designing fantasy islands. You know, if she had been born thirty years later, there would have been a huge career for her in gaming and animation.
Jemima’s careers advice at school was “well, you’re going to do maths at university, aren’t you?” Nobody said, but what next? And she hated maths at university. It wasn’t problem solving any more, and she was a problem solver.
Several decades (and careers) later, Jemima decided to get into ‘environmental’ subjects, since it no longer meant ‘heating and ventilation’. First she did some grad courses with the Open University, including geology, environmental impacts, oceanography and planetary science. Then she did a Masters degree and got into research related to energy efficiency and climate change.
Jemima absolutely loved working on research in energy efficiency and climate change, loved the people she worked with and the events she went to. Her particular skill is linking issues and ideas across different academic disciplines.
The low point of this part of her career was being at a reception to launch some research at the Houses of Parliament, and having to shake the hand of a particularly oily politician. How was it? Clammy.
Once she went part-time, she started writing again. A world running on strawberry juice in fuel cells featured strongly in her first series. She still thinks we should be researching the properties of strawberry juice as a renewable energy resource.
Her first seventeen guinea pigs (over twelve years) were immortalised in her first series by having characters named after them. Her latest two guinea pigs are named after characters in the series.
One vet she knew said he approached guinea pig diagnosis as follows: if he can’t identify it for a small mammal, he thinks horses and scales it down. So her guinea pigs are really show jumping horses, scaled down. Of course!
But you probably knew, or guessed, most of that.
And next month – it’s Christmas, or Yuletide, or whatever you’d like to celebrate for the winter/summer solstice.
The regular price is $11.99, which is a $3 discount on the individual book costs.
It launches everywhere except Amazon on November 10th.
Why a box set?
I was thinking of Christmas presents, and the number of people who pass my stall at the craft fairs saying they only read ebooks. I have ebooks!
So making this in an attractive gift set seemed like a good thing to do.
I ended up working all night on it to get it done for the start of November! I thought I’d formatted them all the same – but no. And irritatingly, applying a style across the file did not change the fonts on the italic parts. And as you probably know, what with spaceship names and telepathic conversations, I had a lot of italic parts!
But it’s safely done, and live on Smashwords as a pre-sale. It is on pre-order at other places, and will launch on November 10th. These are the permanent links:
I’ve now made Gift Cards to go into the stall kit. They have the Smashwords link and a coupon code inside them. The buyer pays me, and the coupon gives the recipient a free ebook. Or three, in this case.
I’ve had these for the Princelings series for years, but only sold two. Maybe their time has come. And I’ve done one for my Dad’s memoirs, White Water Landings, which is also a popular seller.
Also new for the Christmas rush at my book fairs are new bookmarks featuring the Viridian series. I’ll be in Lyndhurst, Romsey (both Hampshire) and Salisbury (Wiltshire) on several dates before Christmas, so check my blog for details. Salisbury’s Christmas market is especially good, and there’ll probably be carols in the cathedral if you time it right.
