Paperclip

By Seb Doubinsky

In New Babylon, leader of the Western alliance of the city-states, armament mogul Kurt Wagner has a secret dream: to build a space station to save mankind. Little does he know that he is the target of competing plots involving geopolitics and black magick. In the background, a film director with a political conscience, a bodyguard with a secret mission, a driver with an occult hobby and a talking bird are trying to make sense of their world, hoping to see their wishes come true - which they will, but not in the way they might have expected.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Meerkat Shorts
• Release date: Aug 17, 2021
• ISBN: 9781946154583

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

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Reviews for Paperclip

[angelajmaher · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is an interesting book with some intriguing concepts, painting a picture of a society not too far removed from reality. Magic, politics, and ethics all play pivotal roles.It doesn't feel like it's put together quite right, though. The Waldo chapters are good in their own right, but don't have a function in the narrative that I could identify. As for the rest of the book, it could have been pared down to a single storyline and made into a dynamic short story (or two). For a longer piece it needed more fleshing out, development and connections to work to its full potential.

[booksandliquids · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

An engaging speculative fiction novel. I requested this book because of the intriguing cover design, which I rarely ever do, so kudos to whoever was responsible for it. I was rewarded with interesting worldbuilding, several POV characters (which I always enjoy) and some cool story ideas. Oh, and I love birds, so that helped."Paperclip" is not the first novel in Doubinsky's alternate reality universe of competing city-states, but the first one I have read and for me, it totally worked as a standalone. I never had the feeling I was missing some vital information from a previous book. This seems to be the case with all his novels, so if this fictional universe sounds like something you might be interested in, I suggest you chose whichever book appeals most to you.I found a lot to like about this book. The bird chapters were what I loved most, not just because I like birds, but because I found them to contain the best writing and some very interesting insight and inner monologue. The worldbuilding is interesting, fans of speculative ficiton will find some creative, yet believable ideas. The characters are layered, not simply good or bad. Everyone is good, but everyone's also an asshole in some capacity. Their motivations are clear and understandable. All in all, just what I like in my POV characters.The story is driven by the characters and their actions, it has layers and touches on a lot of subjects. Things that do not seem connected in the beginning tie together in the end, motivations that are not clear at first glance become understandable later. There are some disctinct surreal elements that, in my opinion, go nicely with the more down-to-earth and plausible worldbuilding. Not everything is explained or even resolved. I like this in a story, but I am aware this is a matter of personal taste. The choice pays off and makes this story more intriguing.What I did struggle with was the writing. The chapters were too short for my taste, so there was a lot of jumping around between the different POVs. The characters all seem to have the same voice; although they are different, they are not written differently. The author sometimes jumps from one thought to another without transition and the inner monologues are rather matter-of-fact, very short or not there at all. I would have wished for more insight into the character's minds. This made the writing seem incoherent and a little bland to me and contributed to the fact that, even though I enjoyed the world, the story and the characters, I did not particularly enjoy the process of reading the book. This is not due to lack of talent or editing, but rather a creative choice, because the bird chapters are written very differently and show that Doubinsky can write and knows what he is doing. So I might of course be wrong here, but I think the distinction between the story-focused and the more instrospect writing is intentional, and it does fit the content of the respective chapters. It might just not be my cup of tea. I guess I will have to read more and find out. Because I am intrigued.tldr; I am glad I read this book and will read more of Doubinsky's works. I struggled a lot trying to decide if I wanted to give "Paperclip" 3 or 4 stars, but ultimately landed on 3.5 stars, rounded down.Thank you to Netgalley and Meerkat Press for the eARC.

[corrie57 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I am not quite sure about this book.I loved a lot of things: the talking bird for example, the fears of the billionaire, the different threads and complots in the book.What I liked less, was the writing sometimes: it did not go smoothly always, I read sentences which could have been written better. That was in the beginning of the book, I had no problems after that.(I am myself not a native speaker of English by the way, I am sure you will have noticed.)The end - yes, indeed, the wishes were fulfilled, but not in a way the subjects expected.I finished the book today, so I am still thinking about the end.

[jeffrey_hatcher-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

“Paperclip” takes place within the military-industrial complex and big pharma world of dystopian city-states and environmental chaos. Sadly, though, while I felt attracted to the setting, I cared very little for the writing style. Good action fiction should have a degree of cinematic flow to it. Where the reader might like a movie, Paperclip offers an old fashioned slide show. Each slide offers high contrast description of a scene, but the carousel cannot rotate fast enough to please the reader, and the continuity is disturbingly fractured. Even worse, the carousel doesn't contain a great deal of plot, leaving the reader to wonder how much descriptive text serves as filler. Call me unforgiving, but when I see, “ Coming out of the hotel, the heat crushed Susan like an ant under an uncaring heel,” I think of high school English class. Is there such a thing as a caring heel? Furthermore heat embraces, suffocates, envelopes, or, if you're a biochemistry nerd, even denatures. It does not crush.A few such sentences are tolerable, but the book is replete with such passages. Doubinsky could improve it dramatically if he deleted half of his adjectives and most of his similes. I always felt too distracted to fully grasp the plot. In cruel fact, the reader can decide right away if they take to Doubinsky's writing style just by reading the second paragraph of the book. If it works for you, dive in. If not, move on.

[stephvin · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Dystopian novel involving Nick Wagner, a descendant of a Nazi grandfather and involved in munitions and supporting a right wing government. He uses synth, a drug that enables him to hallucinate a liasion with Marlene Dietrich. He ends up sleeping with Susan who supports a poor country in opposition to the right wing power that Wagner supports. The book involves various parties with different positions regarding the political countries. I gave the book a three for its innovative content but it was sometimes disjointed and hard to understand how the parties interacted with each other , especially Waldo, who morphes into a bird.

[reading_fox · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I've read the first of the City-States series/universe into which this is another offering. That didn't make much sense and this doesn't either, although I've come across much worse. The basic theme is an anti-corporate diatribe without acknowledging any of the products we've become accustomed to. An African state has decided to instigate it's own World court of corruption and thereby officially kidnapping/arresting corporate leaders it believes have contributed to the externalities costing that has badly effected their land. We flit between several characters - a drug addicted corporate leader, his bodyguards, and a reporter who's decided to dramatize this new 'court'. And Waldo who dreams he's a bird, and turns into one. I've no idea what or why he's doing in this book he has no interaction with any of the other characters. The corporate guy is nasty, the bodyguards naive, and the reporter conflicted. Add in some black magic because why not, and the ending is pretty much as you'd expect. Plus Waldo succeeds in flying.