The Invisible

By Seb Doubinsky

It's election time in New Babylon, and President Maggie Delgado is running for re-election but is threatened by the charismatic populist Ted Rust. Newly appointed City Commissioner Georg Ratner is given the priority task to fight the recent invasion of Synth in the streets of the capital, a powerful hallucinogen drug with a mysterious origin. When his old colleague asks him for help on another case and gets murdered, things become more and more complicated, and his official neutrality becomes a burden in the political intrigue he his gradually sucked into. Supported by Laura, his trustful life partner and the Egyptian goddess Nut, Ratner decides to fight for what he believes in, no matter the cost.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Independent Publishers Group
• Release date: Aug 11, 2020
• ISBN: 9781946154286

Seb Doubinsky

Seb Doubinsky is a French bilingual writer, born in 1963 in Paris. He has published more than 15 novels and 6 poetry collections in France, the UK and the USA. His fiction can be seen as a mosaic of different styles and subjects, although it is always centered on the questions of freedom and identity. He currently lives and teaches in Aarhus, in Denmark, with his wife and their two children.

Book preview

Praise for The Invisible

Doubinsky’s narrative, broken up into segments represented by the Major Arcana of the tarot, is brisk, and he ably presents his near-future world of city-states moving in and out of cold and hot wars. . . . a fine installment in the series as a whole.

—Booklist

"In Seb Doubinsky’s dystopian novel The Invisible, politics are the only game in town. . . . Brief, staccato chapters sparkle with surprising twists. . . . Though Georg finally realizes that he’s just another bear in the circus, he is content with his role. In the stark novel, life is smothered by a mutually parasitic culture." 

—Foreword Reviews

"In text that flares, sizzles, hisses and crackles, things are not what they seem in a fiction that exists in a moment. . . . Doubinsky’s The Invisible is a titillating speculative thriller that is everything you expect and more."

—Aurealis Magazine

The author’s well-paced storytelling drew me deep into the dystopian city-state of New Babylon, a world which, with its political corruption, power struggles, economic uncertainty and the threat from a powerful new drug, felt all too recognizably topical!

—Linda Hepworth, NB Magazine (5 stars)

"Seb Doubinsky’s The Invisible is proof positive that often less is more—its chapters neat, sharp tiles in a complex mosaic. It reminded of Simenon and Lem for noir and the politics of a dystopian hierarchy, and reminded of Doubinsky in its brushes with Egyptian mythologies and a weird untethered experience for the reader. Even if this is your first foray into the City-States Cycle, it’s as good an entry point as any. Fascinating structure, cool clear prose."

—Jeffrey Ford, author of Out Of Body and The Best Of Jeffrey Ford

"The Invisible is an all-consuming, hard-boiled mystery: terrifically told, unexpectedly poetic, and refreshingly non-apologetic."

—Viken Berberian, author of The Cyclist and The Structure Is Rotten, Comrade

"While politicians on the right spew hate, those on the left are the puppets of insidious corporations, and together they uphold a system that murders artists and rebels. But an honest whiskey-sipping cop shines a light on that which might offer a small dose of redemption: punk rock, trade unions, and slow-burning romantic love. Seb Doubinsky’s The Invisible is a wry and tender novel, one that breathes fresh air into the tones of old-school noir, providing a balm for our absurd, terrifying times."

—Hirsh Sawhney, author of South Haven

Beneath its neonoir plot about mysterious murders during a fraught presidential election, this sly and subversive page-turner offers radical ideas about the unseen workings of art, the politics of perception, and the ways subcultures can shift the social fabric in these perilous times.

—Jeff Jackson, author of Destroy All Monsters

"Just as The Big Sleep is guided by the imagery of the Grail myth, Seb Doubinsky’s smoky, Chandleresque mystery follows a profane tarot into murder and heavy drugs, New Babylon’s dark politics, and the Egyptian occult. Doubinsky’s a grand master of terse episodes, tight rooms and close dialogue. His clean style and terrific sense of pacing are in the finest traditions of noir. Georg Ratner is part Bogart, and part something like Mad Men’s Don Draper with punk rock tastes, a hard-boiled investigator falling into mysticism, and a Faustian bargain. Add a wicked sense of irony to all this weird beauty, and you have a killer novel."

—James Reich, author of The Song My Enemies Sing

"Sebastian Doubinsky’s The Invisible is dystopian fiction at its most ‘mythical,’ to paraphrase Georg Ratner, City Commissioner of New Babylon, who is trying to solve his ex-partner’s murder and discover the source of a new reality-altering drug called Synth. Alternately melancholic and absurdist, The Invisible is both dire and whimsical, paranoid as early Thomas Pynchon, psychedelic as P.K. Dick and as full of wonder as anything by J.G. Ballard."

—J.S. Breukelaar, author of Aletheia and Collision: Stories

"What do a tweeting politician and the occult have in common? Seb Doubinsky’s The Invisible staggers the world with a new offering that’s part of Doubinsky’s dystopian universe of the City-States series. The Invisible cascades at a spectacular pace with witty illustrated epigraphs on fools, magicians, priestesses, hierophants and more. The political thriller with its short, sharp style of bite-sized chapters whirls you into a metropolis that feeds on its ghosts."

—Eugen Bacon, author of Claiming T-Mo

"To confine The Invisible to a single genre belies its complexity. Part satire, part geopolitical commentary, part science fiction—and yes, absolutely, part noir—Doubinsky’s latest is another mind-bending excursion into the fractured reality of his City-States; a world enough like our own to offer a terrifying clarity of vision, so different as to make us question the foundations of our reality."

—Kurt Baumeister, author of Pax Americana

Doubinsky’s dystopian detective novel reveals our greatest weapon against tyranny; at once gripping, beautiful, and meditative. A must read.

—Vincenzo Bilof, author of The Violators, Dark Rising and The Profane

Questions, hints, and echoes float, fade and reappear as reality shifts little by little until nothing is what it seems. In a fog-bound city, a hapless bureaucrat investigates a murder, following a path like a Mobius strip between shifty political factions, heading for a fate for us all that may have already occurred. It’s a lyrical, noir, ontological depth-charge that brings a primal fear with the truth, and a line from Yeats: ‘what rough beast, it’s hour come round at a last, slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?’ This one will haunt you.

—Roy Freirich, author of Deprivation and Winged Creatures

A poetic, smoke-wrapped puzzle box of a book that folds in on itself with each crisp turn of the page. Doubinsky writes like a chess master, shifting his pieces confidently around the board, always one step ahead of the reader. Excuse me while I read it again.

—Kyle Richardson, author of Beast Heart and Wild Horse

Also by Seb Doubinsky

The City-States Cycle

The Babylonian Trilogy

White City

The Song of Synth

Omega Gray

Absinth

Suan Ming

Missing Signal

Poetry

Mothballs: Quantum Poems

Zen and the Art of Poetry Maintenance

Spontaneous Combustions

Mountains

This Little Poem

Sketches

THE INVISIBLE. Copyright © 2020 by Seb Doubinsky.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be used, reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For information, contact Meerkat Press at [e-mail].

ISBN-13 978-1-946154-27-9 (Paperback)

ISBN-13 978-1-946154-28-6 (eBook)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020938686

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Cover design & book design by Tricia Reeks

Printed in the United States of America

Published in the United States of America by

Meerkat Press, LLC, Atlanta, Georgia

www.meerkatpress.com

To Juan Carlos Suarez, Jerry Wilson and Antoni Casas Ros,

mis hermanos

In memoriam Lenora Lapidus, 1963–2019

But tenderness, I discover, is the best memorial to tenderness.

—Aldous Huxley.

0/XXII. The Fool

1

The Fool: Creative inspiration. Leaving home for no reason whatsoever. A possibility of peace through ignorance. Stepping in dog shit. Immunity against poison. Coming home for no reason whatsoever.

2

City Commissioner Georg Ratner looked out the large window of his new office, taking in the breathtaking view of the city. New Babylon sparkled in the mid-November morning. The sky was still black, although a thin gray stripe in the east indicated the imminent rise of a pale sun.

Is everything okay, sir?

Ratner glanced at the large designer desk, the designer leather armchair, the designer wastebasket, the designer bookshelves, his personal water fountain and nodded.

Everything’s fine, he grunted. Everything’s fine. I just need an ashtray.

Yes, of course.

Ratner smiled with gratitude at his new secretary, Mrs. Gardiner. She smiled back.

She was a middle-aged woman who could have been anything between forty-five and sixty-five, as she had almost no wrinkles and her hair was died a reddish brown. Good-looking too, although that had nothing to do with anything. Ratner hated those automatic thoughts whenever they popped up. He was neither a sexist, nor a satyr. But sometimes his sense of observation collided with obsolete social constructions. Or rather—with constructions that should be obsolete.

Mr. Klein smoked too. The pipe, she added.

Ratner nodded. He was replacing a dead man, who had the paradoxical reputation of being both extremely corrupt and extremely efficient. It would be hard to live up to his level.

I smoke cigarettes, Ratner said. And cigars, once in a while. I hope you don’t mind.

Mrs. Gardiner tugged at her black turtleneck.

I smoke too, she explained. Oh, and Mr. Klein had a minibar installed while he was in office. I mean, it’s a minifridge. You can put in whatever you want, of course. Water, for example. It’s in the basement at the moment. I can ask Eric to bring it back for you.

Ratner didn’t know if she was making things up, but her tone seemed hopeful.

Yes, he said. That would be very nice.

Once Mrs. Gardiner had left, the new city commissioner walked to his desk and sat in the designer armchair. It was more comfortable than he had imagined.

3

Ratner was sitting in a dead man’s chair, although, technically, his predecessor had never used it. The office had been completely redone to welcome him. There was a small framed black-and-white picture hanging on a wall, showing the way the office looked before (old-style and cozy)—a clipping from the New Babylonian Post from a few years back. Klein stood behind his desk, surrounded by Maggie Delgado, the current president, Jack Tchebick, the current mayor, and Jim Flowers, the current DA—the last two, the same team that had pushed Ratner all the way to the top.

Ratner had only done his job correctly, though. No corruption, in the traditional sense of the word, at least. Sure, a couple of small favors here and there. But never anything serious, nor criminal. Parking tickets, desk jobs, transfers. That sort of thing. And catching criminals. That got him a reputation and respect among the colleagues. That’s what Ratner wanted to believe. Respect. It was a heavy word—much heavier than responsibilities or even power. Respect opened very door, even in the criminal world. He looked for his cigarettes in the pocket of his jacket, then remembered there weren’t any ashtrays in the office. A plastic cup from the water fountain would do. Creative thinking. Another of his forte. The smoke filled his lungs like a welcome lethal gas.

4

Ratner had barely sat down again behind the large desk when the phone rang. Yes?

You haven’t forgotten about the press conference tonight?

He recognized Mayor Tchebick’s voice. No need for introductions. No, of course not.

You wrote your speech?

Ratner cringed. Yes, he lied.

It would be a good thing if you showed it to Mrs. Gardiner. She excels in editing.

Sure.

See you tonight, then.

The mayor hung up without waiting for an answer. Ratner looked at the pile of files already towering on his desk. As if he had time to write a speech. He sighed and buzzed Mrs. Gardiner.

5

Ratner had hesitated for a few days before accepting the promotion. Actually, he hadn’t even told Laura about the offer initially. When he finally did, he had already made up his mind.

But you hate politics, she had rightly said.

He had taken her to a new Italian restaurant on the corner of their street. He wanted to be out of their apartment to announce the news. Both for a celebration and an excuse.

I know, he had said, pouring more wine into her glass. But I hate Thomsen even more.

Thomsen was the northern district commissioner. In Ratner’s eyes, he symbolized everything he despised: incompetence, hunger for power, backstabbing and an excellent network of high-ranking incompetents, like Thomsen himself.

That’s still politics, Laura said. In a good way.

She smiled and raised her glass to her lips. In the candlelight her mouth appeared dark red. Ratner thought of cherries in the spring.

Jim practically begged me to accept, he explained. And Tchebick is afraid of Thomsen. For obvious reasons.

Laura nodded. She knew everything about the city’s murky secrets. Ratner confided in her because he trusted her with all the soul he had left.

So I accepted, he concluded.

Good, Laura said. But don’t come crying when the walls fall down. Because you know they always do in the end.

6

But don’t come crying when the walls fall down. Because you know they always do in the end. Laura’s encouraging words echoed in his mind as Mrs. Gardiner stepped in.

Yes? she asked.

I was wondering if you got hold of that ashtray I required?

Mrs. Gardiner lifted her hand in a blessing gesture, her index pointed at the ceiling. I knew I had forgotten something. I’ll be right back.

Ratner smiled as she shut the door behind her, and he picked up the first file on the pile.

I. THE MAGICIAN

1

The Magician: Things are not what they seem. A headache, a passing buzz, a slight confusion. Watch the other hand. The secret is that there is no secret. Only technique. But the technique is a secret. Make-believe. Remember to clean the table after the party.

2

Tchebick and Flowers were standing in the mayor’s crowded office, both smoking—Flowers, a cigarette; the mayor, a short fat cigar from some sunny and corrupt island.

Ah, Ratner! Tchebick shouted over the heads and the hubbub as he noticed the city commissioner. Come here.

A few heads turned as Ratner squeezed through a wall of shoulders and male cologne. He only distinguished two feminine figures in the crowd, both spin doctors. The

Reviews for The Invisible

[lawonder10 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Georg Ratner, former police detective and a respectable official, hated politics. The only one who hated them more was his wife. This is what was so peculiar when Georg accepted the assignment as the new City Commissioner of the New Babylon. He knew the President wanted him appointed to clear out the new illegal drug, Synth. she was the less of two evils running for President. Both were corrupt. The other nominee was pure evil. He was leery when she required him to give his personal guarantee he would discover who was to blame and get it under control. He was either the "scape goat" doomed to fail, or was respected enough that people truly had faith in him...He suspected the former. When he told his wife of his new commission, unexpectedly, she was supportive of him, instead of furious with him.The main character often reflects on the 1950's and 60's events in comparison to some of the present events in the book. The similarities are there but they are also different.Georg, also has a strange individual he communicates with, occasionally, in the night.This is a dystopian novel with an unusual insight, A "one world order" could actually happen with the appearance of individual country governments, while all are in an alliance together, The characters can use better portrayal, but eventually the reader can begin to feel connected. It is quite a dreary tale, as most Dystopian stories are, and I had a struggle, in the beginning, to feel connected to this tale. In time, I did begin to feel a part of the story. This is a story of corruption, all too prevalent in today's society, and of some of the situations which occur as freedoms are taken away, and the people no longer have a say in government decisions. It is also an interesting crime and detective novel.**Reader Beware: There are a few words of profanity used and sexual situations without details.*This book was gifted me with no pressure for a positive review. This is my honest review.

[reading_fox · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Odd. Sort of set near future, ish

[nooiniin · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

not quite make out what this book was for.For me, a book should have an end as well as an ending, and this one stopped quite abruptly – so abruptly, in fact, that I thought at first I was experiencing formatting issues with my e-book version. However, I have since learnt that this is maybe supposed to a cliffhanger of sorts, so we might expect a 2nd volume. It seems there’s a collection of short stories with the same protagonist and setting that might have to be read before this to understand all the premises.The setting is an alternate universe - of sorts. The place names have been changed to: New Babylon (which is, very transparently, New York), New Petersburg (nicknamed “Pete”, same as its namesake), New Berlin, New Moscow, New This and New That - however, apart from this re-christening of real-life places, Doubinsky’s universe does not differ from ours in one single instance*. Virtually everything we have, they have: E-Mail, combustion engines, Guinness, YouTube, Antonioni or Iggy Pop, one and all being firmly in place, making you wonder why the author even bothered with his creation. To avoid being sued for libel? A simple disclaimer would have done the trick more conveniently.*Edit: I’ve only just seen from other reviews that there is, in fact, one thing: there seems to exist a “legal assassination” concept, which may feature prominently in some of the other books, but gets only such a passing mention in this one that it did not register with me.Anyway, here we are, witnessing the protagonist, an aging cop, taking over his new job of city commissioner. A job he, basically, disapproves of as being political, however, there are some (rather benign, on the face of it) cases of corruption going on, which somebody has to uproot, and it’s either him or his arch enemy, so he buckles to. As we go along, we find that he, himself, is not above a spot of lobbying and getting “sponsored”, which even his radically socialist girl-friend does not object to. Ah well, live and let live.An investigating detective is “stabbed from behind … right into the heart” (can that even be done?) and his notebook taken, however, it seems, not for his case notes, but for the poetry verses from his pen, and which the murderer, naturally, hangs on to. All of which points to some dark conspiracy on a large scale with the aim to suppress poetry, literature and, so, free thought. Also, there is a new illegal drug flooding the market. Said drug is reported to be neither addictive nor in any way harmful to its users, moreover being sold at cost price within a rather small community, making you wonder why it’s illegal in the first place. The Secret Service (?) stake out a drug lab. First appearance of “The invisible”. The end.What this novel has to offer is: Loads and loads of characters, which I found a bit difficult to keep track of (the protagonist, before consistently called “Ratner”, at some point and quite out of the blue is referred to as “Georg”, leaving me I like: “Who is that now?”). Smoking and boozing like in a seventies talk show. Cops happily littering their crime scenes with cigarette butts. An investigation virtually going nowhere. Choppy writing, reiterating parts of conversation verbatim within two consecutive paragraphs. Weird similes (“… her mouth appeared dark red. Ratner thought of cherries in the spring”). An Egyptian goddess acting as the hero’s “occasional detective sidekick”, offering not very helpful advice. I don’t know about “noir”, but there is certainly enough world-weariness and pointlessness floating around to put me off the rest of the series. Not for me, this wasn’t.Finally, some actual facts:- The bombing of Dresden (on a large scale) took place in 1945.- A book burning is not normally called an “auto-da-fé”- The DIN series for envelopes is C, not A

[linda.a. · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This gripping story is divided into twenty-three parts, each comprising a number of short chapters, many of which are just a page long, some just a paragraph. When I first started reading I did wonder whether this style would feel too disruptive but it never did, if anything I found that it added an intensity and urgency to the story-telling. I think this is testament to the virtuosity of the author’s writing style, his total control over his use of language, making every word count as, step by step, he revealed the multi-layered depths to this complex, thought-provoking and unsettling story. I’m going to resist the temptation to go into detail about any specific aspects of how the story unfolds because it’s the surprising twists and turns which make for such a pleasurable reading experience. However, Seb’s well-paced and evocative story-telling quickly drew me deep into the dystopian city-state of New Babylon, a world which, with its political corruption, tyranny, power struggles, xenophobia, economic uncertainty and the threat from a powerful new drug, felt all too recognisably topical! Georg Ratner’s reflection that “morals was a word that had been erased a long time ago from New Babylon politics” felt chilling in its familiarity.I found the author’s portrayal of such totally convincing and vibrant characters to be a constant source of delight, especially the multifaceted and deeply-loving relationship between Georg, who enjoys punk music and industrial rock and drinking whisky, and his wife Laura, a teacher and political activist, always ready to challenge injustice and be prepared to take action in order to bring about change. Although in his role as a cop Georg is part of the establishment, it’s clear that his instincts are liberal and Laura’s challenges, reflecting her role as his alter-ego, enable him to negotiate a path through the inevitable conflicts he experiences when doing his job. However, there is another woman in Georg’s life from whom he seeks support and guidance, She is Nũt, the Egyptian goddess of the sky who had first visited him in a dream when he was investigating a murder, and who is now someone to whom turns and silently communicates when he needs to find focus and clarification of his confused thoughts and feelings. I loved the mystical and the philosophical elements which this relationship brought to the story, all contributing to me finding Georg such an interesting and likeable character. A theme reflecting how art and culture can be used as subversive weapon in any regime which uses oppression to control its citizens ran like a central thread through the storytelling, just as the hallucinogenic drug Synth came to feel almost like a character in its own right as the effects of its presence in the city wove through the story. Regarded as a “political drug” by the politicians, dangerous because “it makes people believe in other realities … makes them escape the system”, it became central to the candidates’ electioneering campaigns, with demands that its source must be tracked down and the drug eradicated. These themes alone would provide rich material for discussion, making this an ideal choice for book groups. Each of the twenty-three parts of this novel begins with a brief epigraph introducing illustrated tarot-style cards – The Fool, The Magician, The Lovers, The High Priestess, Justice, to name just a few. These not only provided a rich source of enjoyment and humour but were also thought-provoking – as I finished each section I frequently found myself re-visiting them to reflect on the ideas they contained! One of the characters is a hierophant, a person who shows or reveals secret things … this seems a particularly apt description of Seb’s talents as a writer!Although it has elements of science fiction, political satire, thriller, dystopian-noir, spiritualism and mysticism, I think this is a story which defies being constrained by being shoe-horned into a single genre. Rather, the brilliance of the writing lies in the fact that the author has been able to combine all these elements into such a coherent and satisfying whole. When I finished the book, I felt bereft of the company of its main characters so a plea to Seb – I hope it won’t be too long before you offer your readers an opportunity to become reacquainted with them! With many thanks to Tricia at Meerkat Press for an ARC of this wonderful story in exchange for an honest review.