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Seeing Sean, by Patrick Doyle
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Seeing Sean is now available.“Fascinating, strange, and intensely romantic sci-fi.”
“Sweet and edgy, tender and tragic.”
“Richer and deeper than simple entertainment.”
“Masterclass story-telling.”
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6...
By Patrick Doyle
Published by the author, 2023
Five stars
What a fascinating, strange, and yet intensely romantic sci-fi story.
That’s right. Science fiction. This is not an adventure, strictly speaking. It would not translate into film very well, although Patrick Doyle’s careful descriptions of everything bring the story to vivid life and leave it burned into your memory. It is, at least to me, an adventure of the heart and mind. It is a story about Who, What, and When…but not about Where. Where is never a question.
It’s about an ambitious loner named Wyatt, who manages a call center in some undisclosed location. When he thinks about it, he’s sort of angry, and maybe a little bitter. However, he has a goal, and he’s going to work toward it if it’s the last thing he does. He is self-sufficient. He needs no-one.
Then he meets Sean, whose strangeness is immediately signaled by the fact that he pronounces his own name “Seen.” Sean works entirely from home, but is instantly the best salesman on the floor. His striking beauty and oddly tentative personality catch Wyatt’s attention. Sean becomes the itch that Wyatt can’t scratch. Still, he tries, and in scratching that itch, his world explodes. But not literally.
Doyle really goes deep into Wyatt’s personality, and – insofar as he can – into Sean’s, too. Sean seems to think he’s nothing special, and yet somehow becomes more special as Wyatt studies him. Doyle crafts this rather claustrophobic obsession very neatly, building the tension slowly, as surprise after surprise is revealed, until Wyatt himself transforms into a new person. Someone who cares.
As with all sci-fi, there is some deeply unsettling commentary here about humankind and its bad choices. What’s really at the core of this lovely book, however, is an unexpected love story the likes of which I’d never read before.