Ten things maybe you didn’t know about Zanzibar’s Rings

3 covers of Zanzibars Rings

Ten things? Well, these are the ten things I sent for the Blog Tour in February and March. You may well have seen them at Shannon: the Warrior Muse website. What surprised me, was that having done three ’10 things’ posts, I only saw this one (in several places) till right at the end.

I found this article difficult to put together. I mean, how do I know who the reader is and how much they will have already picked up about my book? Assuming ‘absolutely nothing’ is a good first step. But… I suspect that many who read this post knew quite a lot of this, especially the science bit. Also, I assumed the “about” is about the book, rather than the planet. But does it matter?

Ten things you didn’t know…

1.     Zanzibar’s Rings is the third book of the Viridian System series. Dolores and Maggie now have their own businesses; Pete is occupied with his family, now settled in the southern part of their world, Sunset Strip, and Lars is, well, Lars is wondering what role he has now.

2.     Pete and Lars got rich by mining asteroids for a rare element called orichalcum. So rich they don’t plan on doing it, ever again.

3.     The Viridian System is the richest source of orichalcum in the galaxy. The asteroid belt is considered to be the property of the two planets in the third orbital ring, Pleasant Valley and Sunset Strip.

4.     Orichalcum is essential for instantaneous communication systems. Other faster-than-light communications systems allowed for inter-stellar navigation before the discovery of orichalcum, but this metal with its strange properties was a game changer. 

5.     Asteroid miners still use archaic radio (speed of light) to communicate with other spacers within the same planetary system.

6.     The Viridian System is so named because its sun, Viridium, emits a green-tinged light. It has long been held by Earth scientists that stars cannot emit green light, because of the way we see colour. In my science, it is green because of the presence of orichalcum, which produces the green effect throughout the system. In real science, astronomers have recently found something that is pretty much green, a star called Zubeneschamali.

7.     Zanzibar is a planet in the Viridian System, in the orbit beyond the asteroid belt. It is a gas giant with distinctive rings.

8.     Zanzibar is modelled on the planet Saturn, of course. Much of what we know about Saturn was produced by the Cassini-Huyghens mission. Cassini orbited Saturn for 13 years, and took a total of 453,048 images. You can browse them on the Cassini mission pages. 

9.     Saturn is light enough to float on water, if you could find an ocean big enough.

10.  I asserted somewhere that ringed planets are now thought to be common. I didn’t find the exact reference, but they are more common than water worlds like Earth (and Sunset Strip). Astronomers currently think that exoplanets classed as ‘puffy’ may in fact be ringed planets, much like Saturn—and with similar densities.

So… How many did you know?

Next time: The story behind the book!

Zanzibar’s Rings – the aftermath

Well, if you have read Zanzibar’s Rings already you’ll know there’s some scope for some sequels, but I don’t have any plans to write them.

Here on the website, though, it would be a shame to just let all my inventions go to waste. So I’ll continue to work on the extras that support the series here:

  • characters
  • the Viridian system itself
  • science news
  • the tome that is cited at the start of each chapter…

First though, I thought I’d give you some of the special posts I did for the tour. I hope you’ll enjoy that.

I’m going to start with the reviews though.

From Angela Thompson at Book Corner News & Reviews

Zanzibar’s Rings Concludes the Series. Once again, I found myself reading a novel without at first realizing that it was part of a more extensive series. I was drawn into the cover and the book blurb–and missed the “series” detail! Despite not reading the first two books, the author does a great job revisiting some of the critical information and relationships. This novel could certainly be read and enjoyed as a stand-alone novel. I quickly understood the characters and the flow of the actions through the scenes–but I enjoyed the author’s writing style and the world so much that I wanted to read the first two adventures. 

The Author Gives Well Developed Characters and a Uniquely Built World. As the characters face their various trials and challenges through the book, readers interact with them in various places and spaces in Pett’s creative world. The scenes all felt very realistic and believable, even though the characters were dealing with a Galactic disaster. I enjoyed the characters, and I felt attached and interested from beginning to end.

Would I Recommend Zanzibar’s Rings by Jemima Pett? Readers can expect some technical, detailed text from time to time as the author moves her characters through the plot. As she shares the story from different characters’ perspectives, the scenes and tone change frequently. Despite a space disaster, science fiction basis–the characters and their stories seem natural, human, and engaging. I enjoyed the pace of the novel and the interactions between the characters. I would recommend reading this series in order as you will enjoy the author’s writing style, action-adventure scenes, and memorable characters. 

Thank you, Angela. I particularly liked the characters ‘seem natural, human and engaging’ 🙂

Rating and Review from The Faerie Review

4 out of 5

This certainly grabs your attention at the start. Alien worlds, space travel, unforgettable characters, and almost insurmountable odds. This is sci-fi in every sense of the word, and Pett has a style reminiscent of most literary fiction. I really enjoyed the descriptions, and the suspense of watching as the characters tried to navigate everything thrown at them. A great read for space sci-fi lovers.

Thank you Liliyana, for your rating and review, and also for adding it to Goodreads. That means a lot to an author 🙂

Next month… ’10 things you didn’t know about Zanzibar’s Rings’ (although maybe you do)

Zanzibar's Rings Available now

Amazon ~~~ Apple iBooks ~~~ B&N(Nook) ~~~ Kobo ~~~ Scribd ~~~ Smashwords

Zanzibar’s Rings is touring the blogiverse

Zanzibar's Rings Available now
Zanzibar's Rings virtual book tour

What’s in the virtual book tour?

Guest posts, interviews, reviews, and various other things. I thoroughly enjoyed doing the posts people asked for – a letter to the reader from one, a character interview for Maggie for another, several author interviews. Three versions of 10 things you didn’t know about….

Outside the organised tour, Patricia Josephine (aka Patricia Lynne) is featuring a post where she asked “why do I write science fiction?” That had me stumped for ages! I’d also like to thank Alex J Cavanaugh, Rebecca Douglass, Shannon at the Warrior Muse, WillowDot (WillowWillers), Steph Wolmarans and Natalie Aguirre for additional support, sometimes linked with the IWSG, sometimes just because they want to.

I’m slightly disappointed at the number of blogs for which I wrote unique content that don’t appear to have any commenters or social media presence. And only two review posts. The tour organiser is sharing them, though, so I hope it will have been worthwhile.

Book tour dates and venues

Tuesday, February 15

Virtual Book Tour Kick Off at PUYB Virtual Book Club

Alex J Cavanaugh feature

Wednesday, February 16

Guest Blogging at The Warrior Muse

Book Review at Book Corner News and Reviews

The Appeal of Science Fiction – guest post at PJ&L

Thursday, February 17

Guest Blogging at The Story Behind the Book

Book Feature Highlight at Jazzy Book Reviews

Monday, February 21

Interview at The Writer’s Life e-Magazine

Tuesday, February 22

Happy Book Birthday at PUYB Virtual Book Club

Book launch – Rebecca Douglass

Thursday, February 24

Guest interview with WillowDot21

Friday, February 25

Guest Blogging at b for bookreview

Tuesday, March 1

Book Feature Highlight at Sybrina’s Book Blog

Wednesday, March 2

Guest feature at Steph Wolmarans, Tea, Sigh, Create

Friday, March 4

Guest Blogging at All the Ups and Downs

Monday, March 7

Guest Blogging at Blogging Authors

Thursday, March 10

Guest Blogging at Lynn’s Romance Enthusiasm

Book Review at The Faery Review

Monday, March 14

Character Interview at The Literary Nook

Feature in the IWSG Follower News (Natalie Aguirre)

Tuesday, March 15

Guest Blogging at Dear Reader, Love Author

Thank you all for taking part. I really appreciate it.

Zanzibar's Rings Available now

Zanzibar’s Rings is the final book of the Viridian System series

Ebook links:  AmazoniTunesB&NKobobooks, and Smashwords.

Also in paperback

zanzibar's rings available now

See the book pages for full details.

Zanzibar’s Rings on target for February 22nd

zanzibar's rings

Zanzibar’s Rings is due to for release in one month’s time.

It’s finally ready! Take a look inside the paperback by clicking the diagonal arrows (a couple of chapters).

Ebook or Paperback?

You can buy the ebook here:

Amazon ~~~ Apple iBooks ~~~ B&N(Nook) ~~~ Kobo ~~~ Scribd ~~~ Smashwords

And order the paperback from your favourite retailer using the ISBN 9798210005601

It should be available through the Ingram distribution network at most retailers (including Book Depository) within a couple of weeks.

Has it been easy to produce?

No. It seemed so, but the more I looked at the final draft, the more problems I found with it. So I got those sorted out to my editor’s and my own staisfaction, and turned to creating the paperback.

That always introduces errors, especially with the Viridian series where several aliens speak in italics. For some reason the transfer from wordprocessing file to the paperback’s system leaves whole tracts of italics after a correct one. And when I thought I’d cleaned the file up, and got the first proof back, I found a good number of places where I’d missed a non-italic inset between dialogues. Like:

  • Are you ready to go, Baby? He listened to the sounds of the engine. Good, we’ll go.

I’ve made that up to demonstrate. But finding those interim pieces was easy when reading a book, and almost impossible when reading the screen.

And worse – more places where the indent for the paragraph was missing. One where it was there, but in the middle of a paragraph.

The trouble was, the more times I read through the script, the more things I found in the writing I wanted to tweak. These were mainly because I’ve been working on giving you the character’s point of view more meaningfully. That can always be improved. And as I could, I did, till I cried ‘No More!’

And it was done.

Again.

Join me for the launch party – on tour from 15th February to 15th March, or on my blog and the Viridian Facebook page on 22nd February.

Season’s Greetings from Sunset Strip

A 1300 word seasonal story for you. It fits between books 2 and 3.

beach by golfer @pixabay
beach by golfer @pixabay

‘Big’ Pete Garcia lay on a sunbed basking in the eerie light of Viridium, the system’s sun, eyes closed, and a hat pulled over his face.

Lars ‘the Swede’ Nilsson adopted a similar position next to him. 

Two further sunbeds, unoccupied, stood on the soft cream sand on the other side of Lars.

“I told her she had the day off,” Lars said to the sky.

After a few moments, Pete replied. “And…?”

“She said she wasn’t a slave now and she’d do whatever she wanted.”

Pete grunted.

“Then Dolores told me off for working her too hard.”

Pete shifted an inch to his left, then returned to his previous position. “And that’s why they’re both chatting up the barman?”

“I s’pose, yeah.”

“It’s only Krismas. It’ll come around again next year.”

“Yeah, but I was looking forward to a nice dinner, just the four of us, no hassle from anyone…”

“If you don’t want hassle, don’t go upsetting Maggie.”

“But I didn’t…” Lars sat up, knocking over a half-empty bottle of beer in the process. The sand sucked up the moisture. “Darn. Now I’ll have to go inside for a refill.”

“Surely Jard does beach service?”

“Maggie will have got him giving us the cold shoulder by now.”

“You’re too sensitive. She’s probably giving him instructions on basting his turkey.”

“As long as that’s all she’s talking about.” Lars was peering into the depths of the Much Ado, their favourite bar and restaurant that opened out onto a lovely beach terrace, extending onto the sand, fringed with palm trees. Just like the brochures of Sunset Strip’s legendary vacation spots. Come to think of it, this probably was the place imaged for the adverts.

Lars stood up. “Want a refill?”

“If you’re going.”

“What does it look like?” Lars grumbled as he strode off, barefoot in the sand. Several people glanced at him as he approached and passed them, the women casting admiring glances at his physique over the rims of their sunglasses. Some of the men did too. Others noticed the tell-tale scars of old mining injuries, showing white against his light tan. The fact that he tanned at all put paid to the rumour he was really an Ouroboran. 

Dolores met him at the entrance to the bar itself, handed him a tray of drinks and snacks, and turned him around. 

“We’ll bring the rest out, just start on that.”

“But…” he tried, but he carried on, since there were four of his favourite beers on board, along with some of the girls’ choices. They were expecting him to share with Pete, by the look of it.

“That was quick,” Pete said, sitting up and reaching for a bottle. 

“Wait your turn. The girls are coming out with some more things.”

Maggie and Dolores duly arrived with a spread of dishes, on a tray that grew legs to raise it to eating level for sunbed sitters.  “Tuck in then,” Maggie said.

“So, you didn’t make these?” Lars said, still chewing on his first mouthful. 

“Lars, what’s wrong with you? I’m not cooking this holiday weekend. Jard’s team is doing it all. It’s his job.”

“She’s just given him detailed instructions,” Dolores added, grinning.

“Oh, you,” Maggie aimed a kick at her, but only in pretence. “We’ll be eating at two so we can nap beforehand. I thought you’d prefer that to waiting till the end of the day.”

“You’ll be eating all through the day anyway.” Dolores took the end sunbed, carefully balancing a large plate of salads, vegetables in batter, and seasonal delicacies known as tuberoots.

“How many meals have you missed?” Pete said, looking at her stack.

“It’s the time changes. I don’t feel hungry at normal mealtimes. It’ll settle down. I’m not doing another trip for two weeks.” Dolores had started a taxi service between the Viridian planets and the Scania system, ten days flight away. She was just back from her first one without Pete riding shotgun, as he put it.

With a little food, a little alcohol, and a lot of relaxation, the four were soon playing the sort of silly games they would at their villa. 

Dolores was the first to realise they had become the holiday entertainment for the rest of the vacationers.

“Come on guys, it’s nearly first sunset. Let’s watch it from the balcony of our room.”

Lars brushed the sand off his backside, and looked up at her. “Race you!” 

He lunged towards her, but she squealed and ran in a straight line away from him, before veering round and heading to the outside steps of the bar. Jard had provided a room with additional facilities which they’d rented in the past, before they’d bought their own property on the hill. 

Dolores was a fast runner. Lars was not as fit as he used to be, despite the muscle tone. He gave up and waited for Maggie to catch up, and took some of the things she was carrying.

First sunsets were quick, so after watching it, they played a few more games before settling for a nap.

The sound of buzzing woke Pete up. He moved Dolores’ leg off him, which made her turn over, and sat up, testing the direction. He walked towards it, following the trace onto the balcony outside. He felt Lars behind him.

“Got my back, eh?” he asked in a low voice.

“Always,” Lars replied. “Can you see anything?”

Pete stopped. On the ground in front of him was a glowing orb, about the size of a fist. It was a dainty glow, enough to delineate the curve of the sphere, but appear grey or transparent with some more tracery lights inside.

“What do you think?”

Lars replied by squatting down, resting on his haunches as he studied it from about a metre. “Looks vaguely familiar… smells,” he sniffed, then put his face closer and tried again, “of cinnamon or other spices. No trace of oil or metal. No ominous clicking.” He held his hand about ten centimetres above it. “No residual temperature. I reckon we could pick it up.”

The buzzing continued. “How’s it doing that?” Pete asked.

Lars shrugged. “Internal.”

“Pick it up or get the girls?”

“You thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Probably.”

Lars stood up and stepped backwards, through the balcony doors. The orb rolled after him. Pete stepped past Lars and woke Maggie, as Dolores was already on the edge of the bed, pulling on a wrap.

“What is it?” Maggie asked, as they stood, or sat, around the orb, which had taken up a position at the centre of their room.

“Remember the visits we’ve had in the past, up in the asteroid belt at Krismas?”

“You mean the funny message capsule?” Dolores asked.

“Yes, and the fly-by although maybe we didn’t tell you about that.” Pete seemed filled with a glow of amusement.

“No,” Maggie replied.

“We get messages from an unknown person each Krismas, Mags,” Lars explained. “Ever since we rescued some strange being in our solar sail one year.”

“And you think this is part of that?” Maggie clearly thought they were kidding her.

Pete shrugged. “It’s Krismas. Merry Krismas, everyone.”

They hugged each other and exchanged traditional greetings, and then Pete put his hand on the orb.

It sprang into the air, opening up in segments, like a flower unfolding its petals. A smell of cinnamon, orange, clove and other spices filled the room, and a tinkly sound played a traditional song message while miniature stars flowed in complex patterns around it.

They watched it for about five minutes, before Pete sighed and put his hand over it. The orb retracted into a shiny globe again, but no longer buzzed. Pete put his other hand under it, to capture it securely, and put it safely in Maggie’s bag.

“Well, I think we should thank our benefactor for a wonderful Krismas present. Now, how about dinner?”

© J M Pett 2021

christmas tree by Geralt @ pixabay
Christmas tree by Geralt @ pixabay

Zanzibar’s Rings (Viridian System #3) – the Cover Reveal

zanzibars rings draft cover
zanzibar's rings cover reveal

A galactic crisis: the entire comms system destroyed. How will spaceships in flight get home? Dolores is stuck in warp with a very dangerous passenger, Pete gets his shuttle home on manual. How come anything in close contact with orichalcum fixes itself? Just flying through Zanzibar’s Rings solves the problem, as the Federation’s fighters find, as they invade the Viridian System’s settled planets.

This is the final book in the Viridian System series.

Publication date: February 22nd 2022, ebook and paperback

Pre-order from most of these places now!

Amazon ~~~ Apple iTunes ~~~ B&N (Nook) ~~~ Kobo ~~~ Scribd ~~~ Smashwords

Check out the other books in the series: The Perihelix, and Curved Space to Corsair.

About Jemima Pett

Jemima has been writing stories since she was eight, and published The Princelings of the East in 2011.  That led on to a ten-book series of the same name, written for older children (9 and up).

Jemima reckons she read all of the science fiction in her local library, and most likes alternative universes, time travel, consequences of social change and unusual ideas surrounding alien species.  Her favourite authors included Anne McCaffrey, Fritz Lieber, Poul Anderson, John Brunner, Robert Heinlein and Arthur C Clarke. These days she likes Becky Chambers, Lindsay Buroker, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Clare O’Beara, M T McGuire, Jennifer Ellis…  She also loves series – once involved with characters she loves to read their continuing adventures.

She has degrees or diplomas in maths, earth sciences and environmental technology and would most like everyone to use their natural resources sustainably, since we only have the one planet to support us.

Jemima’s ebooks are published by Princelings Publications through Amazon, Smashwords, iTunes, B&N, Kobo and more. Her paperbacks are distributed from Blurb by Ingrams.

Follow Jemima Pett on her blog – jemimapett.com  – or on Facebook, Twitter and other social media.

September 2021 update #Viridianseries #amediting

zanzibars rings draft cover

September 2021. I’ve finished Zanzibar’s Rings. Well, enough to send it off to the editor and beta readers. I’m really honoured they should give up their time for this.

The rest of the plan

I hope to have all the comments on the manuscript back by early November, and work on rewrites until Christmas, and send it for checking again if necessary in the ealry new year.

If that goes to plan then we are on schedule for a launch date of 22nd February 2022. In English, that’s 22.02.2022. I couldn’t resist it when I realised.

Before that, I expect to have a cover reveal in early December, to start to raise awareness, if that’s possible. Although it has slipped out in a couple of places (will a couple by the time December comes, I hope not more than that). The monochrome ringed planet on the draft cover is just for now. More colour is coming! I will need people to host cover reveal (and/or launch) posts, so let pme know if you can help.

Then the launch plan. I don’t know whether to do very much. The last in series launch seems relatively low-key, since if most people haven’t read the first two… well, I suppose it’s an opportunity to grab new readers for the series, and that can only be good.

  • Launch post
  • Guest appearances
  • Possible virtual tour during February and March 2022
  • Giveaway

Those seem to be the things I’ve always done, and I still wonder whether they work nowadays. I probably should be doing video launches and podcasts. But I think I should stick with my skill set for now, and see what happens.

You can pre-order Zanzibar’s Rings!

You can–if you’re really keen, you can pre-order it already. That would be wonderful! Here are the links:

Amazon ~~~ Apple iBooks ~~~ B&N(Nook) ~~~ Kobo ~~~ Scribd ~~~ Smashwords

And, yes, there will be a paperback version. More news of that in the new year.

What comes after…?

I have some ideas for a new setting for a science fiction novel. It might give me scope to try some new ideas (to me, not to the scifi world, I’m afraid.) I may well keep this website as the showcase for all my scifi work, though. I hope that will make sense, in the long term.

Some of the Viridian characters appear in my short story collection Snowflakes and Shivers, due out in October. I have some other pieces written about the Viridian world, and as I’m planning to remove the VS Sampler from the Smashwords shelves, there may be room for a more organised library here.

And I was planning at one stage to put the Cavalieri-Chang Universal Word Usage entries here (the snippets beneath each chapter heading.) I’m not sure whether I will or not. It seemed a suitably offbeat thing to do in 2013, but now? Well…

Plenty to think about!

Zanzibar’s Rings – now editing

zanzibars rings draft cover

Zanzibar’s Rings has reached the stage of editing. This process is likely to take some time…

My process

First I read through and made immediate changes to typos, wrong words, and marked where I felt I had a potential continuity error. I also added notes about checking the science (there is some!), and a few other technical issues. If you read my blog regularly you’ll have heard about these, probably in my IWSG posts.

The next stage is to go through line by line and think of how the sentence works, how the scene works, and whether my Point of View is correct. I’m finding that difficult, particularly when I’m in third person POV for Pete, say, then he starts thinking or calculating his way out of a problem. I’m trying to treat it as unvoiced speech, but it looks odd.

I’m also making more notes on bits of plot that seem to contradict each other, or where I’ve started with one intention, then not carried it through. I’ll have to come back and rewrite bits later once I’ve decided what really happens. For now I’m trying to make it reasonably good.

After this run through, I’ll ponder the plot points that need untangling, and do anything I’ve told myself I have to do/decide before I go further. I know the timeline, and whether my current flow of scenes works, are part of that.

Next version

When I think I’ve got it in shape, I’ll write anything that’s missing, and cut things that don’t work (I’ll save them as an older draft and create the next file version).

Then the biggie… going through with a bit of computer help to find all my favourite words that I overuse, and all the trigger and filter words that need to be worked on. There’s quite a long list, but experience helps, and the computer finds every occurrence of them.

Then I’ll do another read through, probably out loud–someone gets the computer to read it for her, which sounds amazing and I might try that instead. That’ll pick up more wrong words, typos, run-on sentences, and things that just don’t sound right.

And after that, it should be ready for my beta readers….

And what I’d really like to do now is work on the cover, as I have to get a banner made for September. Watch for news of why!

I’ve finished writing Zanzibar’s Rings! #viridianseries

zanzibars rings draft cover

Finishing a book is a great feeling, so why was I so sad last night?  Well, I’ve written the last Viridian System book, and have to say goodbye to many people I like.

I’ve been fairly useless in the real world for the past week, I was so immersed in the world of my imagination.

First draft of Zanzibar’s Rings

zanzibars rings draft cover
Draft cover

This of course is just the first draft.  It is covered with notes to myself, whether the need to check (with the text written already, or with someone knowledgeable). There are several plot points that haven’t made their way in. Some names may be changed. There are places more description is needed. And apart from going through with the spellchecker, I need to go through looking for typos, including names inconsistently spelled, and my favourite over-used or wrongly used words. Plus generally just improve it; tighten up scenes, clarify some things I’ve done too cryptically. It’s currently just over 88k words. I expect it will finish up at around 84k or so.

I’ll set it aside for a month or so, to come at it fresh, and hope to work on it enough so that my beta readers have a copy to comment on by late summer.

At present I’m working on a target publication date of 22nd February 2022.

Pre-order already!

I’ve registered the ebook as a pre-order with Amazon, iTunes, B&N and Kobobooks. It’s listed as $2.99 but that might change (up or down). The date might change, too.

Here’s how the blurb looks now. It’ll be improved, and extended, as we near publication.

A Galactic crisis: the entire comms system destroyed. No waypoints, no navigation aids, no database access… and how will spaceships in flight get home–or to any destination? Dolores is stuck in warp with a very dangerous passenger, Pete gets his shuttle back home on manual. But how come anything in close contact with pure orichalcum fixes itself? Just flying through Zanzibar’s Rings solves the problem–as the Federation’s fighters find, as they descend on the Viridian System to take possession of the planets.

Zanzibar’s Rings by Jemima Pett, expected 22 Feb 2022

Beta readers wanted

I’m always happy to hear from people who have read the previous books and would like to be considered as beta readers.

Beta readers have to pick holes in the plot, spot inconsistencies in the story, generally give a reader’s view in the sort of nice way that doesn’t send me into the depths of despair, and get your responses to me in the right timeframe.

Just leave a comment to if you’re willing below, and I’ll pick your email address up from the system.

I’ve started writing Zanzibar’s Rings! #viridianseries

Zanzibar’s Rings is the third and probably final book in the series. “Probably’ because the intention is for everything to come together and end in a final situation.  But with my way of working, some other grand idea might turn up and insert something else which ends up needing another final book!

Zanzibar’s plan

My plan is to write it between now and the end of April, which is a target of only around 1000 words a day, and I generally write 2-3000 a day when I’m working on a book.  It kind of takes over my brain, and I live in the story.  It helps me remember what I’m doing and who’s doing what! So, unless I have a lot of changes to make to another book currently with beta readers, I should finish by the end of April.

But then the hard work starts. The checking, finding plot holes, double checking that everything follows on logically, that nobody is sent off to do something and never comes back (and nobody notices). Or comes back having done something else entirely but the thing they were to do has magically happened.  These things can be notoriously difficult even for the best of editors. One faux pas slipped through the final editing of one of my other recent books: it’s easy to change the ebook, but very difficult to change the paperback!

Target for publishing

If all goes well, it might be nearly ready by Christmas. But that’s a really bad time to bring out a new book so it’s more likely to be targeted at February or March 2022. I hope that will give me plenty of time to give the series a boost, and get more interest going.

It’s always good to get new viewpoints on a series, so if you’ve read either or both of the first two, and would like to be a beta reader, please let me know.

Would you like a sneak peak at the current first line (I told you it’s not a kids series!)

Lars Nilsson, sometimes known as the Swede, ambled into the kitchen, scratching his groin and yawning.

It might be cut, so don’t be surprised if it changes.

Short Stories

Meanwhile, I’m launching a series of flash fiction books, just 30,000 words or so for each volume, between the beginning of March and July. There’s plenty of fantasy and weird domestic science fiction in it, but very little set in space. Well, one or two. Mainly alien species 🙂 Look out for more details on Jemima’s blog on March 3rd, or click the badge for a special offer (expires end of 3rd March).

I also have some stand alone Viridian short stories roaming around. I may do a new version of the Viridian System Sampler, or just a second volume, because these are mainly backstory for the characters. But that’s for 2023, probably!

Flash fiction collection badge