The Double: An Investigation

Rating:
Summary: A strong first novel from a great short story author.
Review: Don Webb is a fantasitic and prolific writer of speculative fiction. His first published novel, The Double: An Investigation, will not disappoint those familiar with his previous work. Those who are new to Webb's talent for reality bending will find themselves in for a literary joyride across terrain that is at once beautiful, strange, and sometimes grotesque. The only criticism that I have is that this story may well have been more effective as a novella. Other than that, it was a very engaging work.

Rating:
Summary: If You Look Into The Abyss . . .
Review: Don Webb's first novel The Double will come as no surprise to readers familiar with his huge output of short stories and essays, particularly for the highly regarded Fringeware Review magazine. There must be something in the water of Austin, Texas, because Webb's Vision is an unusual but strangely compelling one.

Webb's dialogue and plot structure is like something out of a David Lynch movie co-written by Robert Anton Wilson and Jack Sarfatti. There are some unusual twists on familiar themes from crime and occult mystery literature, and on what it is like to survive fin-de-siecle nervous breakdowns, dissociations, and fugue states.

Webb has obviously done both research and praxis of S&M, Memetics, and Optimal Psychology; methods for the alchemical processing of Humanity via Ordeals-of-Change; and creative excuses for handling editors via psychological warfare ("I woke up this morning, and there was a dead body in my room that looked exactly like me!").

A wyrd trip, but one definately worth taking.

Rating:
Summary: Webb's Best Book Yet.
Review: I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Read it, now. It came to me at a time when I needed it to. Things like that happen in the land of the mysterious. I look forward to more mysterious mysteries from Don Webb.

Rating:
Summary: Webb's Best Book Yet.
Review: I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Read it, now. It came to me at a time when I needed it to. Things like that happen in the land of the mysterious. I look forward to more mysterious mysteries from Don Webb.