Hello! Thank you so much for clicking this link. I’d like to invite you to join me for a book launch blast for
The Quest for Orichalcum (Viridian System #0.5)
between 12th July and 12th August (Rafflecopter closes at 11.59 15th August New York time)
I'll be including a Giveaway as part of the deal, and each participant in this launch can have one 'follow' option in the Raffle. Please email me by 30th July and I'll include your preferred option.
Firstly here is the information for the Book Launch. Note that there are three optional extracts - use just one! And also some alternate cover images right at the end, after the blog tour badge.
Contents
The Viridian system series; outline; intro
Quest for Orichalcum cover; short blurb
Three optional extracts (choose ONE!)
Banners and badges & More cover options
The Viridian System series #viridianseries
It started with a chase around the alpha quadrant, looking for pieces of orichalcum to make up The Perihelix. First the Federation kidnapped Pete and Lars, then the Imperium kidnapped Lars, and all that left the girls in their spaceship working out how to get home safely. Or not…
Two more books followed – Pete following his destiny to rescue his race on the planet Corsair, but diverted by a wormhole accident to the other side of the galaxy. Four travellers with no apparent way of returning to civilisation – definitely Curved Space to Corsair.
Then there was a galactic disaster – all the orichalcum communications failed. Nobody could contact anyone off planet, or steer their spaceships to a new destination. But how do the Federation manage to get their attack force to leave the outer planet’s ring system to launch a takeover of Lars and Pete’s new homeland? That’s part of the mystery of Zanzibar’s Rings.
And my readers asked…
How did Pete and Lars meet up in the first place?
How did they meet the girls… and how many were there before Maggie, Dolores, and Aramintha?
How did they get so rich?
What is the truth behind the rumour that Lars killed a man on Excelsior?
If, like me, you want to know the answers, here they are, in the memoir of a couple of asteroid miners called Pedro Garcia (Big Pete) and Lars Nilsson (the Swede). It all started before anyone but a handful of scientists had even heard of orichalcum.
The Quest for Orichalcum
Publishing 12th August 2025, ebook only (for now).
The Quest for Orichalcum tells how it all started – the revolution that transformed the galactic economy, let alone space travel. How did a postgraduate student–a refugee from an obscure planet–change galactic communications? Why did a talented software engineer take up asteroid mining? Which girls influenced their choices in life? And did Lars really kill a man in cold blood?
Jemima’s favourite quotes from the book
- Pete ignored the girls sunning themselves on Zito’s doorstep and headed for the shuttle. What a dreadful place. He’d never live here.
- “No, you’ll have to talk some before I free your wrists. It’s dangerous enough letting your teeth out of armour.” Lars ripped the tape off.
- Lars just couldn’t remember when he’d last asked a girl to go to bed with him, and from memory, at least the last four had taken him to theirs. Well, Sylvia had taken him to his–and to the cleaners.
- Anton gave Pete the controls for the way home, with just a little instruction. “So you learnt all about flyers except how to fly them?”
“Yeah, well, you can’t really do the practical aspects from the books.”
Anton pointed out the simulator. - The miners’ code of conduct: in Zito’s bar “it consists of no spitting, no fighting, and no peeing on the premises other than in the proper receptacle. In other establishments, standards are not so burdensome.”
About the author
Jemima Pett started writing stories when she was eight. By ten she was designing fantasy islands, complete with maps and railway timetables. There was no call for fantasy island designers then, so she took the science route through university and went into a business career, then retrained for environmental technology. Once in a policy research organisation she started writing again, reports, papers and briefings. She didn’t believe she could write fiction until her guinea pigs came along, and inspired her to write The Princelings of the East. She now designs planets, and the civilisations on them, with occasional forays into spaceship design, in her science fiction novels, principally The Viridian System Series. Her short stories have been published by Third Flatiron Press, among others. She lives in Hampshire with the latest tribe of guinea pigs, and enjoys doing bird surveys, wildlife gardening and painting.
Jemima is on Bluesky…. Amazon…. Goodreads…. Facebook…. Website
Buy The Book
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If you are posting before 12th August…
… your readers can buy the ebook early at Smashwords. Just click this link to go to the Presale page, and get it early, and for only $2.99 (published price will be $4.99).
Enter the Giveaway!
Entries close at 11.59 15th August, New York time. Open for entries in all countries and states where this type of raffle is legal. Some additional entry options may be added: please check back if this is important to you.
Please send me one preferred link to get an entry onto the rafflecopter form; please do not make signing up to a mailing list a requirement. Simple ‘follows’ and ‘likes’ are best. Give full address of ‘new’ links like bluesky.
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Extracts
PLEASE CHOOSE JUST ONE OF THESE EXTRACTS! And include the tour badge or banner at the end :)
Option 1: The beginning (231 words)
Peter Monk’s investigations of the detailed space ship workings were interrupted by a ping from the inboard messaging system. ‘Incoming for you on the bridge.’
That was from the captain, a genial but stern Scanian, as were most of the crew. Since his crew discovered Pete, stowed away in one of the smallest lockers on the Doris Jury, which fortunately he fit with enough air left to breath, Captain Grazki had been remarkably helpful. Pete worked at what he could, they taught him about the world outside his home planet, Corsair, and eventually he accessed the ship’s computer to pass the exams that he’d need to get into college.
The only likely ‘incoming’ for him would be about his application.
Stomach churning, he sauntered to the bridge.
The door slid open, and the Scanians beyond chorused ‘hah’.
“I win,” said the second engineer.
“What was the time?” another asked.
“Forty-three seconds. You were one second early.”
Grumbles and mild swear words accompanied the handing over of small tokens to the winner.
“You ran a sweepstake? On me?” Pete’s astonishment was obvious.
“Yes, you were remarkably slow, I thought.” Captain Grazki grinned at him, and waved him to his comms screen. “Read, digest, and tell us all the news. Pray to Odin that it is good. If not we will have to plan some other way to get rid of you.”
The Quest for Orichalcum © J M Pett 2025
~~~~
Option 2: Pete starts work on Lars’s problem (468 words)
One evening he returned from a late lab session to find the room already in night mode.
“Lars?”
A muffled voice croaked “can you leave it dark for a while, Pete.”
“Sure. Need any help?”
“No, just rest.”
“Can I use my viewpad?”
“Sure.”
In the reflected light from the screen, Pete could see that Lars was lying on his back with a bloodied towel across his face. Itching to ask more, he checked the viewpad for student news, and found a snippet about a scuffle in the building next to theirs at dinner. Three students had been cautioned, but weren’t named. No vid feeds were available.
It was a puzzle; to act or not act. Lars had been through more than a year of this already. If he could put up with it, why should Pete care? But if Lars kept putting up with it, this would never stop. This was the sort of behaviour that boys on Corsair got out of their systems about a month into puberty. Why would it just continue here?
One reason: he’d tried and failed. Another: there was some sort of genuine grievance that left Lars as the scapegoat. By now Pete understood that Lars resembled several noted leaders of the Imperium. The whispers and hissed remarks as they passed people in corridors supported the idea people had about him. But surely if he was related to somebody that important he’d have support? Security, even. As far as he could tell, Lars was not only on his own, he had no remaining family.
Pete kept thinking about the puzzle. Lars carried on as if the abuse was normal, something to be ducked if possible, endured if not.
By the end of the semester, their colleagues were chatting and ribbing each other about their vacation plans. With nowhere to go, Pete aimed to spend the four weeks exploring Farsight and working on his own projects. And doing the assignments that were overdue, with permission, since he was on catch-up.
“What are your plans then?” he asked Lars on the first breakfast of the break.
“Sleep, mainly. And walk around without fear.”
“I have an idea. Meet me at the gym at midday.”
“I detest the gym.”
“I know, but meet me anyway.”
Midday came, and Lars was only five minutes late.
“Well?” He could be belligerent when he tried. It was just not his default attitude.
“You and I are going to do this programme.” Pete waved his viewpad at Lars, but not so he could read it. “One hour a day, every day. That’s all. We’ll do it together and we’ll make it fun. Trust me.”
Lars flared his nostrils and leaned his head back. Pete just held his gaze.
“Okay,” Lars capitulated and they headed to the changing room.
The Quest for Orichalcum © J M Pett 2025
~~~~
Option 3: Pete on holiday (436 words)
Pete watched the others as they leapt into the water, splashing their legs and each other. He gingerly stepped into the water. Like a pool, but with a crumbly base. And warm, but that was just the edge.
“Come on Pete!” Somebody splashed water over his body, and he flinched. It was like playing in the river as a kid: laughter, splashing, swinging on a rope attached to a tree that overhung the shallows. This was not much different. Although it got deeper, and deeper, and the others were further out, swimming on the surface, laughing.
Lars had tried to teach him to swim. He’d tried over several summers. Pete had just never got the hang of it. Oh, Sirtis, he didn’t want to just sit on the beach. He remembered the inflatables, and went back for an oblong one that he inflated and floated in front of him as he walked back out. The others were even further away now. He laid his torso across the inflatable, struggling with it as it threatened to tip him over, then got far enough to balance and kick with his legs as Lars had taught him. Slowly he moved towards the others. Then Pavel was scything through the water towards him, swift, sure strokes like a racing machine.
“Hey buddy, you made it! Shall I give you a tow?”
“Er…”
Pavel rolled onto his back, grabbed a piece of rope attached to the front, and swam backwards, pulling Pete sideways through the water at an alarming rate. He held on for dear life, shutting his eyes against the water splashes. “There you go!”
Pavel let go of the rope, and Pete was floating gently on the inflatable.
“Hey, my turn,” said Michael, and suddenly the inflatable disappeared from underneath Pete, and he was sinking, and the water was up his nose and above his head, and he had to hold his breath, but there was water in his mouth and he was kicking as he’d been taught, but he was still going down… and some slim arms came round his chest and lifted him up to the surface.
“Well, you’re not from a water world, are you.” Jeska said in his ear, as he coughed, and spluttered and tried to agree with her. “Relax, you’re safe, I’ve got you.”
He relaxed, steadied his breathing, and turned his head to hers. “Thanks.”
Pavel came over. “Sorry, Pete. Shouldn’t have let you go without checking. You okay there Jess? I can spell you if you like. Here, Pete, throw your arms round my neck and I’ll give you a ride.”
The Quest for Orichalcum © J M Pett 2025
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