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Suan Ming
Reactivation. Exciting.
It's been years since John DiMeglio had a remote-viewing assignment from the military. He may feel a bit rusty, but it's nothing some focus and mental exercise can't remedy. Action is exactly what John needs. Kathryn and the kids would probably agree.
This guy they got him working under, though... Creely is his name. Seems a nice enough guy, but John can't shake the feeling that something isn't adding up with this mission.
Maybe he's just rusty. Or maybe it is Creely. And the shadowy presence keeping John from seeing something important on the other side isn't helping matters. More than anything John wishes he could talk to Kathryn about what's going on...
But things aren't quite right there, either.
It's been years since John DiMeglio had a remote-viewing assignment from the military. He may feel a bit rusty, but it's nothing some focus and mental exercise can't remedy. Action is exactly what John needs. Kathryn and the kids would probably agree.
This guy they got him working under, though... Creely is his name. Seems a nice enough guy, but John can't shake the feeling that something isn't adding up with this mission.
Maybe he's just rusty. Or maybe it is Creely. And the shadowy presence keeping John from seeing something important on the other side isn't helping matters. More than anything John wishes he could talk to Kathryn about what's going on...
But things aren't quite right there, either.
- GenresScience Fiction
160 pages, Paperback
First published December 31, 2016
1 person is currently reading
21 people want to read
About the author
Seb Doubinsky
41 books171 followersI was born in Paris, in 1963, right in the middle of a western movie, of which my parents never saw the end. I have thereafter split my life between France and the USA, having spent most of my early childhood in Syracuse, and Seattle. After some studies, a lot of wandering and a few strange jobs, I have finally found myself teaching French literature in Denmark, where I have been living since 2007.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
February 17, 2017
An ambitious journey through the ether. Cycles define and destroy. Perhaps our protagonist should know when to quit. Be aware, Suan Ming may baffle and perplex as it unfolds.
February 19, 2017
In Seb Doubinsky's Suan Ming, remote viewing has become an essential tool for military espionage potentially leading to victories over Babylon's continuous war with The Chinese Federation. John DiMeglio is one of the best remote viewers and has been coaxed back to duty for a special assignment. The man he is working with, Greeley, seems to know his job and the mission starts regularly enough. But soon, DiMeglio realizes there is something odd about this mission. Counter-viewers are blocking and endangering him, the top brass isn't telling him everything, and wasn't his wife a blond?
Suan Ming is pure Philip K Dick styled science fiction with the possibility of alternative realities and parallel worlds on every page. It is also another of Doubinsky's novels that teases us with what is going on and makes us think outside the box. It seems straight forward at first but a few flashbacks, a mission that makes DiMeglio questions his perception of reality, and a blurring of dreaming and waking life blurs the initial mainstream feel. As is his habit in many of his works, Doubinsky adds some short poetic chapters between the action that prepares you for the journey. The ending of Suan Ming doesn't really wrap it up but is still a satifying climax that keeps you thinking after the first page. It is a fitting end to the literary puzzle and another fine effect by the author.
Suan Ming is pure Philip K Dick styled science fiction with the possibility of alternative realities and parallel worlds on every page. It is also another of Doubinsky's novels that teases us with what is going on and makes us think outside the box. It seems straight forward at first but a few flashbacks, a mission that makes DiMeglio questions his perception of reality, and a blurring of dreaming and waking life blurs the initial mainstream feel. As is his habit in many of his works, Doubinsky adds some short poetic chapters between the action that prepares you for the journey. The ending of Suan Ming doesn't really wrap it up but is still a satifying climax that keeps you thinking after the first page. It is a fitting end to the literary puzzle and another fine effect by the author.
May 26, 2020
Doubinsky’s dystopian cyberpunk is a puzzling mind trip. Flipping between flashbacks altered by astral projections. The chapters move in and out of reality, dream-states, pieces of the puzzle, or cards that predicts a future that was never written.
July 30, 2022
When I picked this one up after Absinth, it took me over half of the novel to really get into it. Absinth is a rolling, many-charactered clusterfuck, so slipping back into what at first felt like a more typical limited third-person psych thriller reminiscent of A Scanner Darkly or Neuromancer, it was a bit difficult to get my bearings. However, what at first appeared to be an oversimplified novel in the series turned out to be one of the most cleverly plotted. It’s single character focus is not, after all a regression, but a set up for a psychological inversion, a narrative with staged, unfolding psychological properties of the sort Flowers for Algernon does so well. The remote viewing builds off of Iris’s dope smoking astral channel-switching in Absinth and covers the Western Alliances covert investigation into the mountain based Eastern Confederation Chinese supercomputer, which comes up again in Missing Signal. Page long chapters are a deceptively inviting entry into maybe the most difficult and demanding novel of the series so far.
February 4, 2017
Doubinsky’s latest foray into a Dystopian mythos reads as if the audience is supposed to observing the pedals of a flower without picking those pedals—and each flower pedal has the name of a chapter and it must not be plucked. Suan Ming unfolds like an epic poem, with a narrative backdrop that is quietly philosophical with a Phillip K. Dick narrative sequence.
A military professional is called upon from the safe confines of his domestic life to undertake a mysterious mission. Our protagonist is sometimes reluctant, sometimes thankful, for the opportunity, and it is this reconciliation of the past and present that pushes the plot forward.
Doubinsky is not going to escape comparisons to Phillip K. Dick; both authors have work that straddles the line between high-concept philosophy with easily-digestible science fiction stories. Dick and Soubinsky never seem to completely LEAVE our world, ensuring that themes are contextually relevant and characters are believable and intimately relatable. Suan Ming achieves an interesting balance of poetics—careful repetition and subtle narrative shifts—with narrative cohesion that meshes domestic life with military loyalties (the mortal awareness of family vs. the invincibility of youth). There must be a sort of reconciliation or co-existence between the military career and domestic goals, which in turn becomes a reconciliation of those things we want from our past and the things we believe we need in the present.
Dickensian themes that revolve around memory and identity are here, and handled with a keen eye toward the entire piece, as if each page is built upon the important of each individual word.
A good science fiction writer can fuse technological advances and political events in a fictitious world with advances in the real world; readers will constantly ask questions about the technology and its purpose as they progress through Suan Ming, but Doubinsky rewards the audience with a plot that unravels itself. An analysis or review of Suan Ming could easily ruin the experience by discussing the parallels and the various philosophical elements in play, but part of Suan Ming’s core is the idea that our current drone/cyber warfare exploits are replaced by a near-invincible, ghost-like projection of the self that would invariably cost far less money that the manufacture of machines. As modern armies rely less on “boots on the ground”, Doubinsky employs the subconscious as the ultimate weapon against a foe that seems obvious.
With masterful narrative structure, Doubinsky achieves with an economy of words what some authors need hundreds of pages to explain. Less is more in Doubinsky’s world, which enables readers to simply enjoy the book or explore its themes on a deeper, interpretative level. A book like Suan Ming is rare; despite the fact that it has the ability to provoke conversation or infuriate readers who want everything handed to them, it never comes across as pretentious or unnecessary, because Doubinsky seemingly believes that readers should be able to connect to his stories—Doubinsky does, in fact, give away everything, and allows you to decide if there is anything more. Instead of going through entire chapters that use several different images to repeat/hammer motifs into the reader, Doubinsky can do it with a handful of words—an artist’s touch. Suan Ming is the flower that can be rotated in any direction, the petals picked apart or left alone. The flower, or the memory of its existence, will remain. Such is true of Suan Ming. Spiritual depth, excellent characterization, and memorable images mark another literary achievement for science fiction through the lens of Doubinsky’s Dystopian reflections.
A military professional is called upon from the safe confines of his domestic life to undertake a mysterious mission. Our protagonist is sometimes reluctant, sometimes thankful, for the opportunity, and it is this reconciliation of the past and present that pushes the plot forward.
Doubinsky is not going to escape comparisons to Phillip K. Dick; both authors have work that straddles the line between high-concept philosophy with easily-digestible science fiction stories. Dick and Soubinsky never seem to completely LEAVE our world, ensuring that themes are contextually relevant and characters are believable and intimately relatable. Suan Ming achieves an interesting balance of poetics—careful repetition and subtle narrative shifts—with narrative cohesion that meshes domestic life with military loyalties (the mortal awareness of family vs. the invincibility of youth). There must be a sort of reconciliation or co-existence between the military career and domestic goals, which in turn becomes a reconciliation of those things we want from our past and the things we believe we need in the present.
Dickensian themes that revolve around memory and identity are here, and handled with a keen eye toward the entire piece, as if each page is built upon the important of each individual word.
A good science fiction writer can fuse technological advances and political events in a fictitious world with advances in the real world; readers will constantly ask questions about the technology and its purpose as they progress through Suan Ming, but Doubinsky rewards the audience with a plot that unravels itself. An analysis or review of Suan Ming could easily ruin the experience by discussing the parallels and the various philosophical elements in play, but part of Suan Ming’s core is the idea that our current drone/cyber warfare exploits are replaced by a near-invincible, ghost-like projection of the self that would invariably cost far less money that the manufacture of machines. As modern armies rely less on “boots on the ground”, Doubinsky employs the subconscious as the ultimate weapon against a foe that seems obvious.
With masterful narrative structure, Doubinsky achieves with an economy of words what some authors need hundreds of pages to explain. Less is more in Doubinsky’s world, which enables readers to simply enjoy the book or explore its themes on a deeper, interpretative level. A book like Suan Ming is rare; despite the fact that it has the ability to provoke conversation or infuriate readers who want everything handed to them, it never comes across as pretentious or unnecessary, because Doubinsky seemingly believes that readers should be able to connect to his stories—Doubinsky does, in fact, give away everything, and allows you to decide if there is anything more. Instead of going through entire chapters that use several different images to repeat/hammer motifs into the reader, Doubinsky can do it with a handful of words—an artist’s touch. Suan Ming is the flower that can be rotated in any direction, the petals picked apart or left alone. The flower, or the memory of its existence, will remain. Such is true of Suan Ming. Spiritual depth, excellent characterization, and memorable images mark another literary achievement for science fiction through the lens of Doubinsky’s Dystopian reflections.
March 12, 2017
Seb Doubinsky's 'Suan Ming' is a head-trip—stark and terrifying and weird and darkly—very darkly—funny. The novel takes place in Doubinsky's dystopic future-world where nothing is as it seems, except that it is. One person's paranoia, as they say, is another person's 20/20 vision. John DiMeglio is a retired government agent reactivated as a remote viewer in order to spy on the Chinese. His handler is a cheesy douche in a Hawaiian shirt who appears strangely bemused when DiMeglio is almost killed by a counter viewer, a number of times, before being patched up and sent home, a number of times, to a family he adores, if only he can remember their names.
Suan Ming is like a Philip K Dickian Groundhog Day in hell, where there is no there, there. Where, as the bard says, "there is no heaven or hell, but thinking makes it so," and there is no end to thinking, and the viewer is always in the end, the viewed. DiMeglio, as I have noted before about Doubinsky's protagonists, is the love child of Hamlet and Don DeLillo and if the essential question unraveling Doubinsky's deceptively complex and starkly beautiful fictions, is "to be or not to be," then 'Suan Ming,' in its relentless spiraling into nothingness, is a distillation of both Shakespearean despair and DeLillo-esque humor that is way too smart, and much too frightening, to be wearing a Hawaiian shirt.
Suan Ming is like a Philip K Dickian Groundhog Day in hell, where there is no there, there. Where, as the bard says, "there is no heaven or hell, but thinking makes it so," and there is no end to thinking, and the viewer is always in the end, the viewed. DiMeglio, as I have noted before about Doubinsky's protagonists, is the love child of Hamlet and Don DeLillo and if the essential question unraveling Doubinsky's deceptively complex and starkly beautiful fictions, is "to be or not to be," then 'Suan Ming,' in its relentless spiraling into nothingness, is a distillation of both Shakespearean despair and DeLillo-esque humor that is way too smart, and much too frightening, to be wearing a Hawaiian shirt.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews