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!
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
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 enjoys 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.
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