About a year or so ago, I reviewed a book by Author Sean Wright titled THE TWISTED ROOT OF JAARFINDOR for this e-zine. Since I enjoyed that book very much I jumped at the chance to review the newest tale of Jaarfindor when the opportunity came my way just a few weeks ago.

Now that I've read the second installment in the Jaarfindor series, JAARFINDOR REMADE, I find myself caught very much by surprise. Although the universe is the same and one of the main characters from the first installment (Lia-Va) has a major role in this tale as well, the method used for telling this story is somewhat of a departure from the first book. Don't get me wrong though, Mr. Wright has a definite flair for storytelling, and that flair remains clearly on display with this book too.

JAARFINDOR REMADE finds a much more ruthless Lia-Va no longer a princess and now in control of a major entity in the corporate hierarchy – the Highfield Corporation. This Lia-Va seems far shrewder, more manipulative and possessing of a higher degree of cold-heartedness (if such things are possible) than the character we found in TWISTED ROOT. Bent on achieving the ultimate position of power, Lia-Va hires an assassin named Domino Fortune to take out a high-level political rival. Here lies the true protagonist of our adventure as JAARFINDOR REMADE focuses on Domino and the assignment he accepts from Lia-Va. The assassin-artist is a true professional, having carried out other similar assignments for Lia-Va in the past, and Fortune is intelligent enough to know that trust is beyond the realm of possibility when it comes to his boss. Sharing her bed, however, is definitely acceptable.

Throughout this book we get to know Domino Fortune very well, what makes him tick and how he has learned to separate his emotions from the various components of his employment. So much so that we nearly begin to develop a strong sense of sympathy toward his character. But then it hits you again that this man is a hired gun, a killer for money, and you smirk at how Wright manages to work his twists into your brain.

JAARFINDOR REMADE is written in a stunningly visual manner, the words flowing off the page with images made real by imagination, full of color and life. Almost poetic in the way this tale is told, Wright has found a way to continue his story of Jaarfindor while doing it in an entirely different manner.

Different, to be sure, but still very enjoyable. The supporting cast of characters and various sub-plots are no less entertaining and the links connecting our Earth with Wright's Jaarfindor are intriguing to say the least.

At the very end of this novel appears an excerpt from the next Jaarfindor tale, as yet untitled. With two Jaarfindor novels already under my belt, I – for one – am looking forward to this future work from Sean Wright.

Synopsis
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,