All That We See or Seem by Ken Liu
I would like to thank Head of Zeus for an advance copy of this novel in exchange for a fair and honest review
Publisher – Head of Zeus
Published – Out Now
Price – £20 hardback £6.02 ebook
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?
- Edgar Allan Poe
At 14, Julia Z became infamous as the "orphan hacker," a teenage prodigy who broke the law and captivated a nation. Now, years later, she's trying to leave that life behind, hiding in the quiet suburbs of Boston. But her fragile anonymity is shattered when a desperate lawyer bursts into her life, begging for her help to find his wife-a celebrated artist who uses AI to craft shared dreams for thousands of followers and who has been kidnapped by a criminal syndicate.
Against her better judgment, Julia embarks on a harrowing journey across the country, drawn ever-deeper into the shadows of the American dream. As she tracks the criminals, she confronts not only their perilous schemes but also the ghosts of her own past. Resourceful, relentless, and deeply contemptuous of authority, Julia must dig deep into her unique skillset and fractured psyche to uncover the truth - and to hold onto hope when everything around her descends into darkness.
Science fiction is often positing the future but occasionally the future gets here and then the predictions of forty or fifty years ago seem no longer on the mark. Neuromancer began with ‘The sky above the port was the colour of television, tuned to a dead channel’ in the 1980s this meant a suitable grey and static-like one but in 2025 its very likely a calm blue. Cyberpunk very much came to mind when I read Ken Liu’s extremely engaging and interesting science fiction novel All That We See Or Seem which for me is a thriller creates a fascinating, menacing and messy future where ethe digital and physical worlds no longer have the neat boundaries of cyberspace but very much the augmented realities that offer possibilities and threats.
Julia Z is very much keen not to be recognised, in public or being reminded of her past as an extremely competent hacker of all sorts of technology. However, Piers, a friend of her lawyer is desperate for unorthodox help to find his missing wife Ellie, a famous celebrity oneiromancer, a skilled weaver of people’s dreams using AI technology to creative a collective dreamscape. Her disappearance though seems more out of character and Piers has also been drawn to the attention of someone calling himself The prince who claims he has Ellie and to release her he wants his secrets back. Julia reluctantly agrees to help but they soon both find themselves in great danger. In a world where digital technology is everywhere and sees everything knowledge is power and not something anyone gives up willingly.
I’m very impressed by this story as we have a very engaging science fiction thriller but also it’s the world Liu has created which really should give us pause for what may be heading down the tracks towards us. The mystery side is engaging. We see at the start Ellie creep out and in her own narration we know she has a secret and so the big question is what is it? As we find Ellie is part of the mysterious Prince’s world, we sense Ellie is a celebrity artist somehow involved with one of the most dangerous and powerful men on the planet. He’s quite formidable, wealthy, ruthless and has minions on the ground and incredibly advanced technology to hunt Piers down and destroy his reputation. He’s the big spider in the web and he has Ellie, Piers and Julia in his view now. Who can stop him?
Well, this neatly brings us to Liu’s main character Julia, and I really grew to like her. Rather than the traditional quirky and hyper cyber-genius hacker that we are now far too used to seeing in media, we have a very introverted and publicity adverse main character but who does have morals. We initially meet her cleansing a school system computer of a hacking attempt as we find in a world where data is king the data of those yet to fully the system is extremely valuable for all sorts of crime from financial to the explicit use of images. It casts her as ethical and it gets us to show how good she really is. But Piers is not welcome and yet that mix of The Prince’s retaliation and her desire to help actually push her out of her comfort zone. Helped by the amiable Piers who is a man in love we find desperate to get out of his office mode to find his wife they form a really good initial partnership. In flashbacks we see how Julia grew up and there are some hardships that have led Julia on path that has made her wary of authority and also trusting people while also at the same time honed her skills. She is not simply an expert in software but also uses a variety of hardware from drones, AI agents and sometimes just plain human ingenuity to find clues, spread misinformation or sometimes create a skilled diversion/ Very much an introvert working with Piers gives Julia a friendship but also a cause not to give i. Her loyalty to her friends pushes her outside of the shadows she has preferred.
What follows then is for two thirds a game of cat and mouse as Piers and Julia try to find Ellie’s whereabouts while The Prince circle ever closer to finding Piers. It’s a familiar thriller territory and really well played with escapes, deceptions, confrontation, motel rooms and yet helps us start to understand the world we’re in at the same time. The stakes are personal rather than world-shattering and Liu makes us care about the outcome. In the final third of the novel things go very very wrong and there is a fantastic set-piece where Julia finds herself alone in the part of America known as The Craters of the Moon in one of the Prince’s facilities and Liu does a great job of making this location very dangerous and how Julia gets out of her predicament really leads to tension, danger and some impressive reminders that even Julia on her own should not be underestimated
The thriller element of the story is really engaging and kept me reading up late at night as I wanted the mysteries solved but at the same time it’s the world that Julia and The Prince inhabit is what makes the long-lasting impression. The twentieth century version of the cyberverse was this very hidden world where hackers entered the virtual cities that would be glossy and neon while out world was just concrete and a tad boring. But we don’t all go round wearing mirrorshades anymore and the digital world of 2025 is very commercial, and we know everyone says AI is the future. Liu posits what could that look like, and I really liked how incredibly messy and noisy a physical world where everything is plugged in feels in this story. School data, shops that play ads at you as you walk by, multiple types of personal AI agents from financial controllers to personal admins and then the social media celebrities who like Ellie are becoming the pop stars of the new era, creating a fusion of their minds and our thoughts. Liu though isn’t saying this is a new nirvana. If AI is everywhere and so few actually understand it beyond here is an app that I need then we’re really in the dark how our data is being used. Liu notes how the legalese documents for such technology masking in thousands of pages what you’re actually signing up for and how now those systems can use every document, every picture, every noise to work out who you are, where you are and what you’re up to. Data is the new global currency and at the same time the new way to commit crime on scales we don’t think about very often.
With The Prince and Julia, we have two protagonists who do see the bigger picture, opportunities and dangers such technology creates. Its less now the cyberhackers of code than people who know that a fusion of technology but also with a human being skilled behind them pulling the strings is needed to do the things that most of the public has just happily signed away our rights to when we opened the software on day one. This world feels rather dangerous and as we head back to that impressive finale, we realise that for those who like wealth and power, that data is in many ways the next big crime market and when we see the methods used by The Prince we may recognise those used by the crime kingpins today and how easily they apply to making money and controlling our lives and opinions. I come away from the book just a little more wary of sharing my life with my friendly phone and its many applications.
All That We See Or Seem wraps up its main strayline very satisfyingly but I definitely sense more tales for Jullia Z await and I am quite keen to read them as well as find out much more about of the world she lives in and what we may need to know to prevent this becoming the future we arrive in very soon. Cyberpunk has evolved in science fiction and this is a good example of where it may be heading. Strongly recommended!
