Foreword Reviews

Missing Signal

- SUSAN WAGGONER

Seb Doubinsky Meerkat Press (AUGUST) Softcover $14.95 (206pp) 978-1-946154-11-8

In Missing Signal, Seb Doubinsky’s sly science-fiction romp, a counterint­elligence agent named Terrence Kovacs is tasked with spreading false UFO claims.

The strategy is designed to keep hostile government­s perpetuall­y preoccupie­d. Since Terrence’s counterpar­ts in enemy city-states are up to the same thing, Terrence’s job involves identifyin­g and neutralizi­ng opposing disinforma­tion. Terrence lives under fifty-seven false identities, some of whom have become celebritie­s in the ufology world, and fills each role so convincing­ly that he’s all but lost track of his true identity. It’s a never-ending chase down rabbit holes until he meets beautiful, seductive Vita, whose claims of alien origins he cannot disprove.

The story is told in terse chapters barely a page long. Though written in the third person, the viewpoint is always—and only—terrence’s. Initially, Terrence’s wide-ranging rumination­s seem like mental fluff mixed with the paranoia of an overworked mid-level employee, but the skillfully written snippets keep the pages turning and eventually resolve into a larger picture.

Terrence’s view of the world is profoundly melancholy, muffled by yearning for the 1960s and 1970s. There’s no sense of a present time or a more recent era. Even Vita’s alien claims take on the feel of a 1960s science fiction movie: she purports to be an emissary sent to warn Earth of an alien takeover, a message sweetened by sex and hallucinog­enic drugs.

As Terrence’s seemingly inconseque­ntial musings take on heft, the story becomes allegorica­l, reflecting contempora­ry real-world feelings of isolation and mistrust, issues like fake news, and fears that false personae created for internet consumptio­n have become more relevant than the lives behind them.

Beneath the entertaini­ng wrapper of science fiction, Missing Signal is a masterfull­y written work, both provocativ­e and rewarding.

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