The serpents of Arakesh - V M Jones

Twelve-year-old orphan Adam Equinox is an unlikely hero - a lonely, misunderstood underacheiver who gets into fights, and whose spelling has to be seen to be believed.

One day Adam enters the Quest Golden Opportunity Competition, with the ultimate prize of working with the reclusive software genius Quentin Quested, test-driving his latest top-secret breakthrough in computer game technology. Adam is unbelievably chosen to undergo the final selection process. At Quested Court, Adam enters a world he never dreamed existed. A world of kindly adults and potential friends, in which the boundaries between fantasy and reality start to become blurred. Only when Adam and his companions begin the gaming workshop does Quentin Quested reveal their real-life quest into the parallel world of Karazan, where the Serpents of Arakesh stand guard over the most precious prize of all...