Synopsis
Teenager Jamey O'Rooke has major problems besides the college bullies hounding him everywhere he goes. He thinks he's dead! Or perhaps he has been drugged and simply believes he's dead! For Jamey, it's hard to know where reality stops and the head games begin. His best friend, Layla, is not certain about Jamey anymore either. She believes he has taken their friendship over the edge, to a place of non-repair. Or is she behind the mind control, the obsession, and the dark forces that have taken over his life! In Jamey's world everything is wrong, different somehow, but he can't get out. No matter how hard he tries, no matter how far he runs. Jamey O'Rooke is trapped inside a forever-suffocating world and time has run out. Is it a case of mistaken identity, personality-changing obsession, and a manic voyage onboard a futuristic Jaarfindorian college space station that sees Wright engage his growing legion of readers in the familiar landscape of Jaarfindor, Finnigull and Caldazar? Or, is it all just an illusion of one crazy mind?
"Wicked or What" raises some serious issues about obesity, bullying, and the consequences of following an obsession to the bitter end, and explores the territory of mind games and psychological dead ends, drawing on two legendary figures in fantasy, horror and sci-fi fiction: Ray Bradbury and Philip K Dick. In the tradition of forward-thinking fiction, Sean Wright deconstructs many notions of what is real and what is not; what is possible and what futuristic nightmares await those.