On Tuesday, August 12th, 2025, Jemima Pett is releasing The Quest for Orichalcum, her fourth novel in The Viridian System series.

Except this is the first. How come? Chronology is key. Read on to discover why and more.

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 ivilization – definitely Curved Space to Corsair.

Buy now at iTunes, B&N, Kobo, Amazon and Smashwords

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 Jemima’s 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 Jemima, 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).

Jemima’s favourite quotes from the Quest are in large, centred type.

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?

“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.

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

Pete ignored the girls sunning themselves on Zito’s doorstep and headed for the shuttle. What a dreadful place. He’d never live here.

Buy The Book

~~ Amazon ~~ ~~ Apple iTunes ~~ ~~ B&N ~~ ~~ Kobo ~~ ~~ Smashwords ~~

You can buy the eBook early, before its release, 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.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.

Rafflecopter Giveaway

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.

Extract from ‘The Quest for Orichalcum’

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

For more information on The Viridian System series, visit: https://viridianseries.uk/