Coming August 2026!
A radical and trippy scifi political fable about an improbable gang of women fighting for the freedom of planet Earth.
Things are looking grim for Earth as the alien force known as the Subliminal Empire seems to enjoy a complete yet unnoticed control of the planet. However, a motley crew composed of a city-state president on the run, a financial advisor who quit her job, a disgruntled academic studying the dangers of A.I. and an undercover alien agent who previously worked as a manager for a rock band might very well jeopardize the cosmic imperialists’ plan and prove once and for all that one should never underestimate the power of women when it comes to liberation.
Doubinsky masterfully crescendos his genre-defying saga in this breathless, action-packed standalone finale.
PRAISE FOR LIBERATION NOW!
“Knock back a little synth, lash yourself to your easy chair, and settle in for the latest punk-epic hurricane in Doubinsky’s City States cycle. A thrashing centaur of plot, intrigue, shocking poetry, and cosmic wisdom, Liberation Now! is a study in the fiction of revolution. Go forth and buy this gem of a book: You have nothing to lose but your chains!” —Kurt Baumeister, author of Twilight of the Gods
“Liberation Now! is an antidote to our modern malaise—a fierce and fast-moving dystopian thriller that’s whip-sharp and brimming with anti-fascist energy. Seb Doubinsky delivers another hallucinatory noir of resistance, power, and awakening, building a world that feels both dangerously strange and uncomfortably close to our own. Seb is bold, stylish, and impossible to put down – but if you’ve ever read anything by him before, you’d already know that.” —Chris Kelso
“Seb Doubinsky’s Liberation Now! is the book I needed to read right now as a balm for these troubled times. In Liberation Now!, the newest addition to his City-States Cycle, Seb Doubinsky is back with his signature wonderfully weird, world-changing style and strong female leads. This book has it all—sex, drugs, rock and roll, and revolution.
Doubinsky pens a host of colorful characters—including outlaws, finance vampires, computer-savvy strippers, ex-scholars, drug-dealing underground operatives, rockstars, and disappeared presidents—who inhabit equally vibrant locales, such as the memorably titled store, Poisoned Sea Bikinis, built on a noxious seashore, run by an ex-stripper turned bikini designer. But these setpieces aren’t merely superficial; on the contrary, one character’s description of a space in the book could describe the space of this book: “A place where various figures of the counter-culture meet, and discuss, and convince…a dynamic center, a vortex, that both concentrates ideas and spreads them out.”
And who wouldn’t love a book that boasts a free college where you can get drugs, with courses like Poetry Versus A.I. 101 (that 125 students attend!), professors like “Mary, the Anti-Constitutional Law professor,” founded by, among others, “The Doctor Doom of the anti A.I. movement?” Sign me up!
Collaged into this inventive novel, as in our modern, chaotic lives, are conspiracy theories, excerpts from best-selling books, vignettes, warnings, and operatically hilarious spam emails. In the world of Liberation Now!, just as in ours, people wait to be replaced by A.I. bots or to be reborn as algorithms while dodging, “Wars, rumors of wars, climate trouble and growing economic inequalities.” The characters long, as we do, for “A real revolution that would permanently destroy the pyramid of power that was crushing all hopes and most possibilities,” but the difference is that they get it. But maybe Seb Doubinsky can show us the way.” —Caroline Hagood
“Doubinsky has the rare ability to create a speculative world that comments incisively on the harder realities of our ‘real’ world. He does so again in this novel, and this time with a large dollop of hope—and that too in a context, both in the novel and outside it, that can only be called dystopian.” —Tabish Khair
“Doubinsky shines like a modern day PKD with the power of a political fabled literature machine.
If you’ve been following the trippy ride of the all mighty Synth that flips your mind over onto a horizon of your overly imaginative mind then you’ll want to read the final episode that holds nothing back—
Fight the power, fight for earth!” —Donald Armfield
PREVIOUS PRAISE FOR THE SUM OF ALL THINGS
“Brimming with espionage, censorship, and political turmoil, the fragmentary but appealingly intimate ninth installment of Doubinsky’s City-States series (after Paperclip) takes readers to the futuristic city of New Samarqand. … Doubinsky pulls off an impressive feat in keeping each perspective unique while subtly intertwining the characters’ story lines. Intriguingly, the prose and dialogue are sometimes oddly formal, lending a degree of unreality or absurdity to what would otherwise be a high stakes thriller. Doubinsky straddles a challenging line of action and intellect, emerging with a rigorous portrait of a turbulent city that’s sure to please series fans.” —Publishers Weekly
This was my introduction to the City-States Cycle, despite it being book 10. I didn’t know what came before or which characters might be recurring, but never felt as if I needed to know. I put my faith in the author and wasn’t disappointed. No doubt those who have read previous parts will be more familiar with certain aspects—for instance, the technical workings of Synth—but enough is provided via concise exposition to make it clear and enjoyable as a standalone work. The Sum of All Things is a deftly packed & poetic novel that you’ll be glad you picked up. —Peter Hassebroek, The Arts Tribune
“An intricately woven plot about saving Earth’s freedom with disparate, personable characters…a deftly packed & poetic novel you’ll be glad you picked up.” —Independent Book Review
