Deadwind Sea [Kindle Edition]

Josh Wagner (Author), Sarah Jennings (Editor), Dave Baxter (Foreword), Joiton (Illustrator)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

No one could believe their eyes when Sergio, the unluckiest shepherd in the village, married Ivette, the most beautiful woman in medieval Europe. But when Ivette dies six days after their wedding, Sergio embarks on a fantastic voyage across the Western Sea to bring her back from the Land of the Dead.

The story begins in 14th century Spain, making stops in Rome, Byzantium, and the North Pole before following the setting sun into the timeless Land of the Dead. On the way we encounter a ship-full of lazy pirates, a monster hunter displaced in time, a psychotic Kris Kringle, and some seriously mind-bending cosmology. At last, arriving on the untouched continent that history would later call “America” where spirits prepare a New World for the imminent arrival of the living, Sergio finds himself at the heart of a drama to liberate the new frontier from stagnation, a drama that takes him far beyond the world’s horizon.

DEADWIND SEA’s narrative flows with the sort of innovation and levity that made THE PRINCESS BRIDE work so well, but at the same time the undercurrents of the story tread a darker, more elusive subconscious. Highly accessible, yet starkly intelligent, Deadwind Sea maintains an air of whimsy and imagination, while packing one heck of an emotional punch.

Product Details

• Format: Kindle Edition
• File Size: 256 KB
• Print Length: 334 pages
• Page Numbers Source ISBN: 1439265038
• Publisher: Impossible Clock Productions; 3 edition (November 20, 2009)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services
• Language: English
• ASIN: B002Y5VSQO
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• Lending: Enabled
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #539,959 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

More About the Author

Josh Wagner is an American novelist and playwright based primarily in Missoula, Montana. He also writes graphic novels, short stories, and screenplays. His style is heavily influenced by metafiction, folk tales, and surrealist modern literature.

Josh Wagner was born with a broken heart. Fresh out of the womb with Patent Ductus Arteriosus, he required open heart surgery to close off an artery that should have closed itself. The doctor who performed the surgery was Leonard Bailey, a scalpel wizard who eventually went on in 1984 to implant the first baboon heart into a human, the 12-day-old girl known as "Baby Fae". In a startling coincidence, that same year Josh had his heart metaphorically broken for the first time by a girl in his 5th grade class. Her name was not Fae, as much as Josh's literary sensibilities might wish it. The scar from his operation is still visible, a long jagged thing running all the way up his back from just behind the base of his ribs. Wagner continues to insist that this is actually where a dragon once bit him. The scar from his first crush is a bit harder to find.

In 1992 Wagner published his first short story, a year before graduating high school. "The Finger", printed by Lost Worlds Magazine was about a secret cabal of world leaders who orchestrated all major global events. Wagner would later regain his enthusiasm for politics and secret societies, but until the late 90′s Josh wasted his most fertile years writing bad sci-fi, chasing skirts, and trying to become a rock star. Everything changed in 1999 when he took a six week tour through India. That ancient country got its hooks in him, and Wagner wrote his first real novel, "The Adventures of the Imagination of Periphery Stowe".

Since then Wagner has written two more novels, several short stories and graphic novels, two stage plays, and short films. He travels extensively, but considers Missoula his home.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Ahh, Sergio... from such humble beginnings to such greatness..., May 24, 2010

By 

Paul Kahl (Seattle, WA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Deadwind Sea (Kindle Edition)

Picture a day spent climbing a mountain of burnt out suns. Suns that didn't go *poof*, but instead became dried out husks, warm to the touch, but no longer blazing balls of flame. Picture the next day sailing across the ocean on a small sailing ship that guides itself with the aid of two crusty old eyeballs placed in the mast.

Having a hard time with those images? Of course not! If a tried-and-true screw-up like Sergio can live it, you can easily dream it! Sergio is the not-so-classic hero we all secretly are: unsure, unreasoning, unwilling, but wholely in love, and willing to do anything for that love. Even if his adventure leads to a misshapen zombie who will only want death to sweep her off her crumbling feet before gravity does!

In Deadwind Sea, Josh has done the very thing we've watched and waited for these past two long decades: He's achieved the whimsical reality in a book, and shown his heart to the world. Deadwind Sea rambles like Josh on an all-night Finnegans coffee bender, and flows as smoothly as the same addled man sitting in a bean-bag chair strumming lightly on his 6-string. In a single book, this man tells as many stories as that which most novelists fill the ill-used "series", and yet manages to make the many into one.

Deadwind Sea is a Mobius Strip of adventure and romance and history. Don't take your eyes off of it, and you may just find your way back to where you started, from whence you came.