📚 A Bookish Chat with 'Zanzibar's Rings' Jemima Pett @jemima_pett #AuthorInterview #BlogTour #Interview
Jemima Pett has been writing stories since she was eight but went down the science path at school, and into a business career before retraining into environmental policy research. She wrote many manuals, papers, and research documents before returning to fiction, publishing the Princelings of the East in 2011. That led to ten books in the series of the same name, written for older children. She started the Viridian System series in 2014.
Jemima reckons she read all of the science fiction in her local library, and most enjoy 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, Matt Haig, 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 studied with the Unthank School of Writing while she lived in Norfolk. She now lives in Hampshire, where she enjoys rewilding her garden, raising organically grown vegetables, and birdwatching.
She would most like everyone to use their natural resources sustainably, since we only have the one planet to support us.
Her latest book is Zanzibar’s Rings: Viridian System Series (Book 3).
Visit Jemima’s website at www.jemimapett.com or connect with her at Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, Instagram and Pinterest.
TWL: Welcome to The Writer's Life! How did you come up with the idea to write your book?
Jemima: It’s the third in a series, after The Perihelix and Curved Space to Corsair, and I wanted to make a good climax to the trilogy. But I’m better if I start with a title, even if it’s just a working title. With an unashamed target of people who need titles starting with the difficult letters like Q, X and Z for their reading challenges, I picked Z, and named one of the planets Zanzibar. Then I just had to think of some reason my heroes would be getting into trouble in the fifth planet of their system.
TWL: Can you give us a short excerpt?
Jemima: This is how it starts:
Lars Nilsson,
sometimes known as the Swede, ambled into the kitchen, scratching his groin and
yawning.
“Mm,
smells good.”
“You
keep your hands out of that. This is space rations, no contamination allowed.”
“I’m
clean!” Why did Maggie Ingleton always think the worst of him?
Maggie shook her
head and stared at his hand.
Lars looked down.
“Ah.”
“What
are you going to do today, anyway? Although it’s not long before first sunset.”
“Dunno. I’m bored.”
It was all right
for Maggie. This business of hers, cooking delicious meals for spacers who
could afford to stock up on them, had gone from a favour to him and his
partner, Pete, to a system-wide favourite.
Asteroid mining;
how he hated it. Had Pete realised? Those meals were possibly the only thing
Lars missed about the dirty, stinky, life-threatening business. And he got
better food direct from the cook here.
Pete was away in
the south, doing something with his family and the rest of the Corsairs.
Dolores had taken her shuttle off to Scania, and should be back in about a
week. Why had everyone left him on his own?
Maggie wielded a
large stirrer to attack something bubbling in a huge pan. “How
about checking your stocks or something?”
“Did
them yesterday.”
“Practising
for the big race?”
Lars shrugged. He
could take a hint. He turned, heading for the balcony, adding: “No
idea whether I’ll
do it without Pete.”
Did Maggie reply? The sudden rush of steam screaming for attention masked anything she said.
TWL: What part of the book was the most fun to write?
Jemima: I wrote it as I developed the story, and then rearranged all the threads into a timeline later. So it was all fun to write, but pretty difficult to sort it into a good flow for the reader afterwards. I think I had most fun when they interrogate the baddie. Maybe I should do a legal mystery next time.
TWL: What’s one fact about your book that would surprise people?
Jemima: If you don’t follow space research, you may find it surprising that most planets have rings, or so it seems from data so far. Water worlds like Earth are the exception.
TWL: What other books are you working on and when will they be published?
Jemima: Zanzibar’s Rings brings the end of my second series. So although there are things in my head, not much has got as far as the computer page yet. There are three strands I’m developing, and none of them are likely to be out before 2023. The first is a middle grade mystery featuring a girl, JoJo Madeira, who can see ghosts, but there seems to be a lot of this about at present. Her first short adventure got good comments on my blog, though. The second is a spin-off in the science fiction world I’ve created, about a space rescue service for ordinary travellers. Then a third project is developing from my flash fiction last year, about a woman who spends her vacation time chasing down the places famous artists painted their masterpieces. She might find some mysteries on her way. I realise I’m more of a mystery writer than thriller or adventure, really.
TWL: Finally, what message are you trying to get across with your book?
Jemima: It’s only afterwards that I’ve realised there is a message, or even a theme. The theme is about missing people. The message is about having only one planet to provide all your resources. You have to become self-sufficient, and co-operate, fast.
TWL: Do you have any final words?
Jemima: I’ve really enjoyed
writing this book and its predecessors, and like my other series, I’m really
going to miss the characters. They’ve been great to have around, especially
during lockdown. And so have my online friends. Thank you all.
Title: Zanzibar’s Rings
Author: Jemima Pett
Publisher: Princelings Publications
Pages: 380
Genre: Science Fiction
BOOK BLURB:
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 brings the Viridian System series to a conclusion with a bang—and a lot of whimpering. And possibly a view of things to come.
Book Information
Release Date: February 22, 2022
Publisher: Princelings Publications
Kindle: ISIN: B093QFX6DV; 380 pages; E-Book, $2.99
Apple Books: https://apple.co/3mSjrvZ
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B093QFX6DV
Thanks for inviting me today, and I hope your readers enjoy it :)
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