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The highly anticipated next installment in Seb Doubinsky’s City-States Cycle is smart, subtle and unputdownable!
In New Samarqand, trouble is brewing: The king is very ill, nobody knows who will succeed him and terrorist groups are plaguing the city-state. In the eye of the storm, the National Museum is opening a new wing displaying the magnificent tomb of two Amazon sisters, who fell in battle together. Following parallel lines in this ominous labyrinth, Hokki, the new museum director, Ali the police commissioner, Kassandra, the poet, Thomas, the used-books seller and Vita, the secret agent from Planet X try to keep the pieces together and fight against the forces of chaos threatening their very existence.
“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
“Seb Doubinsky charmingly astounds in this installment of the City-States series and its hallucinogenic Synth, a perilous drug that shifts culture, bends reality. The Sum of All Things is a 180-page wonder, bullet style as always in Doubinsky’s deadly fashion, a thriller with rotating perspectives. . . . the book is a cross-world odyssey that soars you across anarchist hackers, politicians, kings, princesses and bodyguards with action, action, in a story that moves forwards always forwards. Riveting dialogue and text speckled with moments of genius.”
—Eugen Bacon, Aurealis Magazine
“Doubinsky returns with another killer volume in his sprawling City-States Cycle, The Sum of All Things. A meticulously sewn riddle that comes together thread by thread, The Sum of All Things is a staccato, enigmatic, deceptively philosophical book that will have readers rushing back to the beginning of the City-States experience.”
—Kurt Baumeister, author of Twilight of the Gods
“With the swift-moving novella The Sum of All Things, Seb Doubinsky mixes textures of political intrigue, drug hallucination, magic and mythical powers with a literary palette knife into a spellbinding narrative reminiscent of the best of Philip K. Dick, John Shirley and William Gibson. Not to be missed.”
—Alex S. Johnson, editor of Hand of Doom: A Literary Tribute to Black Sabbath
“Seb Doubinsky returns to his City-State Story Cycle in this thrilling tale of intrigue, aliens, and the politics of historiography. Combining the storytelling prowess and surreal alternative history of Philip K. Dick, the sharp-witted social commentary of Norman Spinrad, and the laconic prose of hard-boiled pulp stories, this novel and the series it’s a part of is a must read for fans of New Weird and contemporary Science Fiction.”
—Ben Arzate, author of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to saying Goodbye
“The Sum of All Things is not really a sum or an aggregation—instead, they are separate and distinct text-mosaics. In Seb Doubinsky’s eponymous volume—the lines between poetry, prose poetry, flash fiction and very short fiction are erased giving rise to multiple tonal registers. The characters like Hokki, Kassandra, Vita, Thomas, Saran, Ali and others, interact through an episodic mise-en-scene—imbuing and embedding the book with drama. By the time you come to the end, and stay ‘Focused’ [as] ‘She was totally focused’—the readers will be amply, unusually and uniquely rewarded.”
—Sudeep Sen, author of Anthropocene, Rabindranath Tagore Literary Prize Winner
“The Sum of All Thing reads like A Scanner Darkly with the pace Doubinsky pulp style. If you followed the previous trips through the The City-States Cycle then you’ll soon learn that all things are dangerous and reality is the fiction you can’t escape from. Recommended to fans of Philip K. Dick or a drug-fueled series of experiments, love, political antics and pulp Sci-fi.”
—Donald Armfield, author of From The Belly Of The Goat
“In the world that Seb Doubinsky has wrought—a towering edifice spun from a rhythmic flow of words churning up an essence of places almost familiar, almost inevitable—The Sum of All Things, the latest exploration of the City-States Cycle, is at heart a tense noir that takes the reader on a cool, cerebral ride.”
—Jordan A. Rothacker, author of The Shrieking of Nothing