The Viridian System Series Box Set is now on sale at Smashwords

The regular price is $11.99, which is a $3 discount on the individual book costs.

It launches everywhere except Amazon on November 10th.

correct box set cover 640 tall

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:

Smashwords ~~~ Apple ~~~ B&N ~~~ Gardners ~~~ Kobobooks ~~~ Scribd ~~~ Odilo

Gift cards and Bookmarks

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.

An Interview with Maggie Ingleton

Nearing the end of my features from the Feb-March blog tour for Zanzibar’s Rings, here we have a character interview.

I love doing character interviews. I ought to do more. I may inflict them on you in the next few months. I think you’ve had Lars, Pete and Zito in the past (here or on the Jemima blog), but this was the first time I got to let one of the girls loose. This featured on The Literary Nook.

Today’s guest is Maggie Ingleton from inside the pages of ZANZIBAR’S RINGS by Jemima Pett.  It is a pleasure to have her with us at The Literary Nook!

What is your name? 

Maggie Ingleton

What do you look like? 

I’m kind of mid-height, trim without being curvy, blonde-ish, well, mousy with highlights. I look kind of bubbly. It’s the impression I like to keep up, anyway.

Where are you today and what are you doing?

I’m in the boys’ villa, and generally keeping the place running, although I need to cook a batch of meals later.

Describe the outside of your home.

It’s about halfway up the hill above town, with a lot of mature trees around it, some light like eucalyptus, some dark like oak and pine. Through the trees you get a glimpse of the three wings, I suppose you’d call them, all joined by a balcony that runs the length of the centre area, overlooking the patio and pool. It’s what they call modern style, sort of blocky but with big windows taking in the view, and blank walls at the back up against the hill.Yes, the boys are rich, and they’ve had to give it a makeover since it was damaged a couple of years back. So it’s, well, really nice.

You come face to face with your worse enemy. How do you react?

Oh, gosh. Well, apart from freezing, I try to pretend I’m fine, sort of fixed smile, and try to avoid saying anything. And make up something I have to be doing so I can get away quickly.

You keep a photo album of memories from your lifetime. If you could only keep one photo, which one would that be? 

Well, we don’t really have photo albums any more, so that’s not too difficult. I suppose an image of the four of us together, having a nice time, maybe on the beach, or in a nice restaurant, would be what I’d most like. Me, Lars, Dolores and Pete.

Are you a morning person or a night owl? 

You know, I stopped being either… after my planet was over-run, and eventually I arrived here to work, and then Lars and Pete sort of settled me permanently. I keep regular hours, the rest of them are often on different time zones. I guess I’m more of a morning person at heart, but we get to have a siesta at lunchtime anyway, so I can keep going in the evenings, too.

Do you have any phobias? What are they and how intense are they? How have they impacted your life?

I hate loud noises, loud, unexpected and possibly repetitive noises—I always think we’re being invaded again. I run and hide in a corner, or a closet, and curl up into a ball. I don’t know how other people can just take them at face value. There’s always a chance it’ll happen again. You have to be prepared for your world to come crashing down again. And I suppose these days there’s more to lose.

Open your wallet, purse, or briefcase. What do you find?

My viewpad, some make-up although it’s pretty minimal, I’m lucky that way. Comb and tiny mirror. Keytag—that has something coded into it that counts as cash as well as keys. That’s about it unless I’m with the boys and I’m carrying something they’ve forgotten.

You move into a new home. What’s the first thing you buy for it?

A new bed. Big and comfy. Although I’d hold off on anything other than white bedding till I’ve sorted out the decor.

What’s the last thing you do before you go to bed at night?

Clean my teeth. Then if I get to do anything that means I have to go to bed again, I’ll have a quick wash and maybe check the house is secure.

Who is your best friend?

Dolores. We were in the same line of work, and then when Lars and Pete came down from a mining trip we both got assigned to them one time, and then the guys asked for us back every time, and we sort of just struck up a friendship.

Who is your worst enemy?

The Federation, the Imperium, anyone that doesn’t treat women nicely, and anyone who wants to hurt my men.

Are you married or in a relationship?

Lars and I have an agreement, with promises, that we reckon is as good as marriage. I just didn’t want him to commit to a vow he couldn’t keep. (laughs) It’s because of some woman we saved when we were in space one time, and she couldn’t keep her hands off him. I swung round with a cooking pot in my hand and broke his nose! I didn’t mean to, but… Oh, it was so funny, though.

Do you have children?

No. It would have been nice. I love kids.

You are at the zoo. What is your favorite animal?

Something cuddly, like a koala, or a chinchilla. Aspoids are like huge guinea pigs and they are such lovely people. We don’t have zoos these days; everything is treated as sentient, really. Come to think of it, Lars is quite cuddly. Not hairy, though.

When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?

I wanted to be a chef. I studied gastronomy at college before the planet was attacked. Although, before I knew what a chef was, I wanted to be a dancer, or a fairy.

If there was one thing you could change about yourself, what would that be?

I’d like to be braver. When there are emergencies or things going wrong, everyone seems to hold themselves together and do useful things. I just fall in a heap in the corner. I’d like to step up and get on with things like they do.

~~~

You know, I always thank characters for coming when I do my guest interviews…. Yes. We need more character interviews on here.

Maggie’s description of the villa started a hankering in me to do some illustrations for the Viridian series. I’ll show you when I’ve done some 🙂

Next time… Dear Reader, Love Author. Intrigued?

Ten Things you didn’t know about Asteroid Mining

asteroid value

One of the best things about writing science fiction, is that if you pick an obscure enough occupation for your protagonists, nobody can tell you you got it wrong…

Asteroid mining, for example. There is a little knowlegde about asteroid mining using today’s technology. But… 800 or so years in the future….?

This first appeared on Blogging Authors as part of my tour last March.

10 Things You Might Not Know About Asteroid Mining

By Jemima Pett

1.    Asteroids are currently classed as stony, metal or chondrite. The chondrites are clay and silicate rocks, and are, generally speaking the oldest types of rock in the solar system. Stony types are silicate and nickel-iron; metallic are nickel-iron but with compositional differences related to how far from the Sun they were formed. 

image from universetoday.com 2009/08/infog-high-value-asteroids1

2.    Solar system metallic asteroids are generally up to 80% iron, and the rest a mixture of nickel, iridium, palladium, platinum, gold, magnesium, osmium, ruthenium, rhodium and possibly others.

3.    The Earth company Planetary Resources was set up in 2012 to mine asteroids in space, focusing on the platinum group of metals, but its assets were acquired in 2018. [article]

4.    In 2020 NASA awarded contracts to four companies to ‘extract small amounts of regolith’ (asteroid surface layer) by 2024 [article]

5.    A single 500-meter diameter platinum-rich asteroid can contain more platinum group metals than have been mined on Earth throughout history [citation].

6.    In the Viridian System, asteroids are similarly rich in the (fictitious) metallic element orichalcum.

7.    Orichalcum is used throughout the galaxy for instantaneous communications, regardless of distance. 

8.    Only three other systems are known to have orichalcum deposits, and none in great quantity.

9.    Orichalcum occurs in both large and small quantities in Viridian asteroids; as metal strips (seams or veins), as nuggets within other rocks (like geodes), and as fines (like gold panning).

10.  ‘Raw’ orichalcum has a propensity to draw electrical power from anything too close to it, making extraction a hazardous operation, and one which requires considerable ingenuity to develop the right tools and processes—in the near-vacuum of space.

~~~

If you’ve read the series, you probably know the last five items.

Next month: An interview with Maggie Ingleton

Zanzibar’s Rings – the Story Behind the Book

zanzibar's rings available now

I’m continuing my series of posts from the blog tour earlier this year. Today it’s the story behind the book. This appeared at the site cleverly called The Story Behind the Book. All the posts appear to be ‘the story behind the book’ and all as far as I looked are on Pump Up Your Book blog tours.

So if you ever want to know the story behind any book, check out whether it’s on this website.

zanzibar's rings available now

The Story Behind Zanzibar’s Rings by Jemima Pett

Zanzibar’s Rings is the third and last book in the Viridian System series.

When I started the series, I mapped out the whole system, numbers and size and characteristics of the planets and other bodies. I think I included it at the end of the first book, but it’s definitely on the series website, viridianseries.uk.

After book 2, I knew I definitely wanted to stop at a third book. I’d written another trilogy that turned into a ten book series, and I didn’t want to do that again! But what would it be? Where would my characters go? 

I work better when I’ve coined a title—even a working title. And, as I love reading challenges, and particularly A to Z reading challenges, I decided to go with a starting letter that would attract new readers! And so I got the title Zanzibar, and decided to apply it to the ringed planet in the fifth orbit of the Viridian system. Hence Zanzibar’s Rings.

It took me another year (while I finished the other series) to work out the general plot for this final book.

I’m not sure how it all came together. I wrote a draft blurb in which the two main aggressors in the galaxy came to fight over the riches of this remote system. They were already fighting each other elsewhere. That made me think of people escaping from the conflict—including one of the nastiest characters from the first two books. He happens to be the hero’s father. No love lost there!

Then I got the idea of the galactic disaster, and once I’d worked that out, I had, effectively, a locked room mystery. How do they get out? How did the people trapped in this system react? How did the ones at home react to these strangers in their midst? And what I really enjoyed was discovering (once again, as it happened in the ten book series too) all sorts of throwaway lines in the previous books to inspire plot twists and side stories, that I could wrangle until they came together in the end.

But it needed a second end, as there is a codicil, to tie up the final thread. That happened to be the perfect outing for a new idea I’d been working on in the form of a short story. So I have the setting for a new novel already… but not in the Viridian System series. That line is ended, but there is plenty more of the universe to explore!

~~~

I’m not sure that I’m making much progress on that new novel idea. But maybe…

Next month: An interview with me–but it also has an excerpt

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.

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!