It’s time for a weekly Pets in Space update! This week it’s all about the pet I brought to this year’s collection, or in this case pets—because there’s three of them. Positive, Negative, and Monocle are a trio of rescued lab mice who are living in the engineering section of the Sentinel of Gems. I picked mice this year for a couple of reasons, but the core inspiration came from an article I read late last year about how mice “play” in microgravity. It turns out that they quickly adapt to take advantage of being able to run in three dimensions and expand their games of chase/tag to incorporate the new options available to them.
When I read that, I knew I had to bring mice aboard the ship, and that there had to be at least one scene of them playing tag in the broad environments of the engineering core. The easiest way for me to get mice with a bunch of smugglers was to have them be “liberated” from a lab in the Three Systems, and the rest of the story just fell into place from that.
Despite being small and mostly silent (especially compared to my Umbra Wolves), I think this little trio of mice bring a lot of heart to the engineering team. Baker even builds them a complex tangle of conduit tubing—inspired by those big Habitrail layouts I admired as a kid—for them to run around in when they’re not floating through the Core. They were a blast to write, and a great way for me to bring some fun to the series. I hope you enjoy them as much as I (and Baker and April) did!
Pets in Space 6 will be released on October 5th, but you can pre-order you copy now from your favorite e-book retailer at https://books2read.com/pisa6.