About the Book
For fans of "The Twisted Root of Jaarfindor", Lia-Va is back, but not as we know her. She is no longer a princess but a hard-nosed corporate business tycoon who owns the planet financially and from the technological stand-point. The assassin she has hired for the ultimate hit - that will guarantee her unrivalled power - has his own disturbing agenda and he aims to take control of New Jaarfindor. As a former lover of Lia-Va, he has a unique and intimate insight into her true nature, and his is a mission of primordial survival. Kill or be killed. He has a choice: should he shoot Lia-Va or complete her instruction to assassinate the in-coming President - charismatic insectiant leader of the Tinted Green Party? Dr. Lars Handel, has been publicly beheaded, viewed by millions via a live global news feed. His severed head remains on permanent display inside a floating glass chamber filled with suspension liquid, in a national museum, where punters pay to merge with his regurgitated root (the root holds all his life's memories and was a major theme in "The Twisted Root of Jaarfindor"). It's a social voyeurism that respects no boundaries for the individual, not even after death.
In this future society, people are obsessed with every facet, every minute detail of the dead's everyday life, hoping to glean some clue, some snippet of information that will justify the ultimate violation of an individual's privacy. But Dr. Lars Handel is as inventive after death as he was in life - scamming the major banking world for billions with his techno-genetic know how. Now he plans his vendetta from beyond the grave, with dire consequences for the living. "Sean Wright accomplishes something in his maddened prose that few fantasists have ever managed. Like Robert E. Howard, Wright plays with the raw stuff of fantasy, the malleable and mutable protoplasm of genre. Jaarfindor is a dreamland made real, rooted in the concrete of the here-and-now but utterly foreign at the same time. This is powerful, mythic stuff. This is reaching into the sky and pulling down fire. Sometimes unharnessed, always bright and hot, often dangerous. But it works." gabe chouinard, US critic,
About the Author :
Sean Wright was born in Peterborough, England, in 1959. He attended the St.Peter's Primary School and the Queen's Secondary School in Wisbech. When he left he spent a year at the Isle College, studying print and design. He learned how to take photographs, process film, compose type, design layouts, tinkered in the repro room, messed about with the litho printing machines and generally learned a great deal about 'the old-fashioned' printing trade. This is where his great love of books - both written and illustrated began. More recently, he has signed over 500 books in two hours at the prestigious London bookshop, Hatchard's, Piccadilly, and signed at events with Ruth Rendell, PD James, Michelle Paver, PB Kerr, and Eleanor Updale. Sean has been recognised as one of fifteen of the world's most collectable modern children's authors by Book and Magazine Collector alongside JK Rowling, Philip Pullman and GP Taylor. During Xmas 2004, his novel The Twisted Root of Jaarfindor was recommended by The Observer national newspaper in its finance and investments pages as a top collectable, along with Pullman's Scarecrow and his Servant, The Beatle's Yellow Submarine, Paver's Wolf Brother, and Charmian Hussey's Valley of Secrets. In 2005, he was named as one of Hatchard's Authors of the Year, and featured at Foyle's bookshop as a current favourite in the children's department. His second teenage-adult crossover title - Dark Tales of Time and Space - sold out in hardback edition, emulating his debut crossover success with the critically acclaimed The Twisted Root of Jaarfindor. In 2005 The Twisted Root of Jaarfindor was short-listed for a British Fantasy Award for BEST NOVELLA. His was nominated for the John W Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 2006.
Review :
David Hebblethwaite, The Zone SF Review "I like a book that tries to something a bit different. The Twisted Root Of Jaarfindor doesn't so much do something different as systematically demolish most of the conventions of the fantasy genre and storytelling in general... This is the only work of Sean Wright's that I've read to date, but it has placed him on my list of essential writers." Rob Bedford, SFF World "Take a dash of Madeline L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time, a sprinkling of China Mieville's Perdido Street Station, and a bit of Neil Gaiman's Coraline, and you will have an idea of what Sean Wr ight is doing in his highly imaginative novel, The Twisted Root of Jaarfindor. Wright takes a storyline familiar to many readers, that of the youth maturing and questing, and dresses it in the clothes of perhaps the bitchiest heroine this side of Narnia or any swiftly tilting planet... As the novel continues, so does Wright's tearing down of the cliche's of the typical princess character... This is a bold, raw uncompromising fantasy novel blending blends elements from all branches of the speculative fiction genre, and left me wanting to discover more of Wright's imagined world." The Guardian "Subject to the biggest buzz...since GP Taylor's Shadowmancer." Shawn P Madison, Eternal Night ezine "This reader was left wanting for more (Jaarfindor) and I suspect that many other readers of this book were left feeling the same exact way. Get back to writing, Mr. Wright. Your fans will be demanding more and you'll most likely be hard-pressed to fulfill that bursting need." Jill Insley, The Observer "Sean Wright's The Twisted Root of Jaarfindor is one to watch out for...along with Michelle Paver's Wolf Brother, PB Kerr's Children of the Lamp, Madonna's The Adventures of Abdi, Julia Donaldson's Gruffalo's Child, Charmian Hussey's Valley of Secrets, and Philip Pullman's Scarecrow and the Servant." Alasdair Stuart, The Zone "Wright's setting is nicely handled, the otherworldly nature of the train bringing a heavy, portentous atmosphere to the story. In fact, the setting is easily Dark Tales strongest point. Wright has a nea t sense of geography and the spirit world the train moves through is just to the left of our own and filled with an interesting variety of souls and other creatures." Rick Kleffel, The Agony Book Review "I get a sort of Jack Vance vibe from this one (Twisted Root of Jaarfindor) ...the type of book that you might successfully hand off to the video-game-addict in your house when they plead for a book to read for English class. And if you've already run through it yourself, you'll be able to spot-check 'em -- and have enjoyed a nice tight tale of fantasy adventure in the process." Foyle's bookstore, Charing Cross, London "The Twisted Root of Jaarfindor...looks set to gather a cult following. Turning on its head stereotypes of race, colour and creed, the Twisted Root re-writes the borders of myth, fantasy and science-fiction." Nick Gifford aka Keith Brooke, bestselling author of Piggies, Incubus, and Flesh & Blood (Puffin) "This is a high-paced adventure with plenty of twists and turns. It rarely eases up, and despite its occasional flaws it's hard to put down. Wright is no prose stylist, but the pace of storytelling and the vivid and dark vision are striking. He's like a remix artist -- The Twisted Root of Jaarfindor is a mix'n'match of standard genre furniture given a few dark and innovative twists. There's a lightness of touch, too, with some lovely moments of wry humour: 'Rule the court with a mighty blade of steel and tax the peasants for all you can get' are Lia-Va's father's dying words of advice." Hilary Williamson, Bookloons.com "Reminiscent in style to Mervyn Peak and Michael Moorcock." Dru Pagliassotti, The Harrow Literary Magazine "Sean Wright has talent and creativity, there's no question about that. The world he describes is bizarre and alien, corrupt and unique. It resonates with the "weird fantasy" crossgenre retro-sci fi atmosphere of M. John Harrison's and China Mieville's works. But Wright's vision of society, politics, religion and human nature is unrelievedly dark and depressing, with the hope of redemption offered only at terrible and destructive cost. Love, one feels, simply doesn't exist in the world of Jaarfindor." GP Taylor #1 NY Times bestselling author of Shadowmancer "Fantastic books and a fine new talent... highly recommended." Shawn P. Madison Eternal Night e-zine "Refreshing and different, Dark Tales of Time & Space follows this young man, who in life had everything he could ever want but whose personal life was in a veritable shambles, and lets the reader see inside the complicated person that he was. Through an altercation with his "darker self", a physical manifestation o f his alter ego--a character known as Crack Boy, and Joey's interaction with several memorable characters, this book does a good job of filling in the mysterious blanks of what might lie beyond this plane of our reality." Infinity Plus "When it hits its stride, Dark Tales... is grippingly mysterious, and long passages thrill with an air of difference, a fantastical vision quite unlike anyone else's."
