Tomorrow is launch day!

Today you can pre-order it at Amazon, B&N, Apple, and Kobo.  Tomorrow it will be for sale on Smashwords too.

By the way, you can also vote for The Traveler in Black and White on AUTHOR SHOUT Cover Wars, every day, all week!

So, why should you buy The Perihelix?

The Perihelix by Jemima Pett

Book 1 of the Viridian System Series

  • Published by Princelings Publications
  • Genre: science fiction/scifi-adventure/space opera (for grownups, although I wouldn’t describe it as adult)
  • Words/pages: 83,800 / 360
  • Formats: all ereaders and paperback
  • Price: ebook currently on special offer at 99c (rrp $2.99): paperback rrp $10.99

The Blurb:

Two asteroid miners, three women, one spacecraft, and five pieces of a legendary weapon scattered around the galaxy.

Big Pete and the Swede are rich, or so they discover after bringing their latest haul of orichalcum in from the asteroid belt. So some well-deserved vacation awaits them. It starts out just fine, with one of the men winning the big flyer-race of the season, but they start to receive odd messages, and despite the attentions from the girls, both realise that someone is trying to drag them back to their pasts, pasts they have tried hard to erase.

As they set out to discover who’s bugging them, they are kidnapped by some particularly nasty aliens, which leaves the girls in a mess – stranded on the spaceship with very little idea how to fly it.

What I think of it:

It’s marvellous.  I may be biased.

Buying links:

AmazonSmashwordsB&NKobo – iTunes – Paperbacks: AmazonBook Depository

The Perihelix (Viridian System, #1)

Enter to win it on the Goodreads Giveaway – see the panel on the right.

on the beach - portraitInterview with Jemima Pett

Q: How did you come to invent the characters in your new book?

It was through my regular flash fiction stories on my blog.  We’d had a couple of times when I’d ventured into science fiction, once in a Casablanca/Star Wars mash-up which was called Paradisio, and then those characters got mentioned in a Random Title story called the Orichalcum Library, where two asteroid miners wanted to read real books, so the bar owner on another planet got hold of some which had been swapped for food by some fugitives from the Paradisio story.  The asteroid miners turned into Pete and the Swede, and there we go.

Q. Why did they end up with three women?  Isn’t it a bit degrading to bring in your female characters as escorts?

Asteroid miners have a reputation for being hell-raisers when they aren’t mining.  Pete and the Swede want some female company, and after a while they realised they actually wanted company, good food, people to enjoy their vacation with, as well as bed companions.  So when they found escorts who they liked, they rehired them, and if you can afford more company, then why not?  As for why are the females escorts, well, in the Wild West women are generally either bar girls (escorts) or pioneer/ranchers’ wives, and I didn’t have any ranches around.  The Viridian system is very much Outback, and although there are a few women in what you might call ‘normal’ jobs on Sunset Strip, it’s not an area that’s easy to get to without a sponsor.  These girls have quite interesting futures ahead of them, though, as you’ll see when you read the book.

Q.  What was the most difficult thing about writing the book?

Having developed my worlds of Pleasant Valley and Sunset Strip, the two inhabited planets of the Viridian System, in part through the short stories, I then had to check the science for them.  I’ve done a course on planetary science, and to me, getting planets that were physically feasible was important.  I wanted Sunset Strip to have two sunsets in a Standard day, which led me to realise the difficulties with that, which I’ve mentioned in the ‘world-building’ section on the Viridian series website. Now, sorting those worlds out wasn’t difficult.  But then I realised ALL the other places they go to on their adventures need to be fully realised as well.  Oh, boy!  Physical characteristics, society, relationships with other planets, weather, occupants…. and keeping tabs on with all with a huge spreadsheet.  But it’s great fun.  As long as my memory holds out!

Q. How do you keep up with the science?

At present it’s hard, because in the eighteen months since I wrote the first draft of The Perihelix (at Camp NaNoWriMo) there have been huge developments in the detection of exoplanets – planets around stars outside our own system – and level of detail we’ve worked out about them.  We’ve also had hugely more information about the outer planets of our own system.  What is emerging is that basically, anything goes; a lot of what we thought would be the rule from what we knew of the solar system has been turned on its head. It’s really exciting!  Most of my updates come from a couple of websites, from other bloggers who report on interesting things, and from the excellent BBC programmes The Sky at Night and Stargazing Live.  And with a #BritInSpace on the International Space Station at the moment, there is more interest in astronomy and space travel in the UK than there has been for years.

Q. What’s next for Pete and The Swede?

Well, I’ve already written about 20,000 words of Book 2, some of which are scenes for later in the book.  I have a setting, some propositions and some problems, but I haven’t got the solutions yet – except there will be a third book, so I don’t have to complete the overall storyline yet, just advance the main issues of book 2 to a satisfactory conclusion.  No cliff-hangers!

Thank goodness for that!  Thanks for talking to me, er, yourself…

If you’d like to copy this post for your own blog, let me know and I’ll provide you with the link to the html and some more pictures (and a bio).

 

The Perihelix by Jemima Pett

6 thoughts on “The Perihelix by Jemima Pett

  • 15 February, 2016 at 9:16 am
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    Pre-ordered! I’ve enjoyed the stories you’ve done about Pete and the Swede.

    • 15 February, 2016 at 5:15 pm
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      Thanks, Anabel! Watch out for a prequel (without Pete and Lars) on Friday.

  • 15 February, 2016 at 3:14 pm
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    The feeling of a new release is always awesome. Wishing you all the best with your new book and with the current one you have entered in Cover Wars this week. Have a great week.

    • 15 February, 2016 at 5:08 pm
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      Congratulations on posting the 6000th comment on my blog! I’d love to treat you to one of my ebooks, if you are interested – I’ll email you. 🙂

  • 16 February, 2016 at 4:27 am
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    Jemima, I’m glad I happened across your post. I didn;t know you had this coming out. Sounds right up my alley! I’m getting my copy and Tweeting this post!

    Stephen Tremp
    http://www.stephentremp.com

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