Ulysses Dietz Goodreads 1 April 2023

Seeing Sean

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.