Book Review: ‘All That We See or Seem’ is Pragmatic, Hopeful

Ken Liu’s latest novel, All That We See Or Seem, is an AI-soaked techno-thriller very much in the vein of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo,

Thank you NetGalley and Saga Press for the digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

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Ken Liu’s latest techno-thriller is about dreams; both the psychological phenomenon while we sleep, and the way we define our ideals, our great hopes. In All That We See or Seem, Ken Liu has dreamed up a near-future in which AI has fully embedded the daily fabric of our lives, colonizing us culturally, socially, and economically.

A denizen in this world is Julia Z, a digital recluse with a troubled past. She’s no Luddite, she’s just withdrawn. In fact, Julia is a highly skilled hacker, which is exactly why a lawyer named Piers approaches her to track down his missing wife, Elli. She may have been kidnapped by a man known as The Prince, a ruthless, far-reaching international man of mystery. Soon, Julia and Piers are embroiled in a dangerous game as they try to track down Elli while avoiding the authorities and mortal peril.

If the bones of the story sound a bit too familiar, that’s because, sadly, it is. There’s no way around it. The narrative for much of All That We See or Seem is shockingly generic and with a fair share of plot contrivances to match. Now it is possible I approached this novel with impossible standards, but The Paper Menagerie may end up as one of the greatest genre short collections I will ever read, reminiscent of Ted Chiang’s Exhalations and Bora Chung’s Cursed Bunny. And Liu is responsible for translating two-thirds of my favorite science fiction series of all time, A Remembrance of Earth’s Past (often referred to as the Three-Body Problem series). Did he let me down? No. But then yes. But then no again.

This book is a tale of four quarters. The first quarter is sensational, brimming with innovative world-building and show-not-tell character work. Somewhere between the second and third quarter, however, All That We See or Seem begins to feel like a conventional (if well researched) thriller. Race against time, cheap hotels, staying off the grid, boosting cars (or in this case, hacking), avoiding The Prince’s goons, all while both Piers and Julia try to figure out who Elli was and what she was doing. Blind spots are had, predictably dumb behavior results and things go from bad to worse for our characters. Thankfully, there is a turn towards the end of that third quarter where the story jailbreaks (somewhat at least) from the airport fiction trappings of the first half. It improves, not quite enough to eliminate some of the disappointment that sunk in, but it improves. And just when things really start to get interesting, the book is over.

According to the author, the sequel has already been written, and this is encouraging. Perhaps All That We See or Seem is mere growing pains for the sort of series Liu truly envisions, where the story is as interesting and thought-provoking as its flourishes.

After all, there is a lot to love here. And make no mistake, this is a novel I will be recommending often albeit with adjusted expectations. It is a feat of seamless world-building, replete with anthropological examinations and philosophical ruminations. The devil is in the details and nobody can break down highly advanced processes quite like Ken Liu.

A brilliant shower of sparks all around her. It was the Creation, the Big Bang of a neuromesh. The HELM was booting up. Gradually, the explosions settled down into a dim, homogenous glow, a nebula of primordial data, a latent space for potential stars. From time to time, muted waves passed through. The HELM was waiting for prompts.

The above was what Ken Liu describes as “mixed-reality computing” as our hero Julia Z enters the coding space to investigate malware. So yes, I will read any “generic thriller” with passages this good splashed across its pages.

Liu explores alienation, privacy concerns, grief, and creativity in the most gluttonous era of The Information Age. Our economies are driven by systems gorging on data and puking out algorithms and policy in the long dark shadows of AI anxiety. And while these underlying meditations are smoothly embedded in the narrative, the profundity of these dialogues doesn’t always resonate the way it should, because it feels like Liu is using a scalpel on theme and a blunt instrument on the plot. That can work in some instances, but it didn’t work for me here because every time Liu went down a universe-creating rabbit-hole, I just wanted to stay there.

There is a fascinating section where Liu lays out the way AI has affected the arts: the porn industry, acting and most humorously perhaps, the publishing industry. I absolutely ate up this cynical (see: highly plausible) bit of malfeasance.

A bestselling author, known for her socially progressive fiction, had been caught pumping out books under a different pen name intended for “real Americans” with a modified version of her egolet so she could double her sales…

These thematically juicy forecasts of an AI-saturated world are the sort of thing Liu excels at (there is also a nice nod to his short story “Simulacrum” in the text). But Liu is equally successful in laying down psychological foundations. As Julia Z grapples with the complicated relationship she had with her mother, Liu waxes poetic about the nature parent-child dynamics.

[Parents] were our first angels and demons, gods and Titans and their actions, violent or kind, generous or selfish, became the milk of our dreams. From them, we wove our first myths, the seeds of meaning… the way they held us became our template for love; the way they failed us became our wellspring for pain…

I think it would be wrong to label this latest work of science fiction as dystopian. Liu seems as fascinated by the possibilities of AI as he is laying down considerable caution. Amid the chaos of our bumpy — and what is sure to be — upsetting transition, demonizing this new reality of the Information Age is expected. I think it’s hard for many of us not to view AI as anything more than parasitic. Is everything we do now simply to serve as data points for these leeches? Are we being repurposed just to feed this thing so that our betters may continue their ascension while we tug on the leashes of our own demise? Or will AI allow us to challenge those in power with a power all our own? Either way, demonization is necessary to at least consider worst-case scenarios while we plan for more promising solutions.

When social media first emerged, it certainly drew its share of detractors, but the most popular concerns were not the ones that proved most meaningful. I’m still unnerved by this fascinating section where Liu examines our recent embrace of conspiracy theory:

Every doubt engendered by their nonsensical claims is immediately twisted into proof that the claims are actually true. The more they feel trapped by their nightmare, the louder they shout that the rest of the world is asleep. Nothing can be more American.

As Liu mentions a number of times in All That We See or Seem, we look back now and realize how ill-prepared we were for the power, reach and speed of social media, the oversaturation of information, and the bad-faith dissemination of disinformation that — for some — has erased any sense of truth. This erasure has cost us dearly. Perhaps even our democracy.

And just as we had to adapt to the realities and fallout of the social media age, we must also acknowledge that the AI train has left the station. Adapt or die. How we adapt will be determined by what lessons we have learned, how much we allow ourselves to tame this new wild beast, and who has a say in doing so.

I don’t mean to anthropomorphize artificial intelligence as a personality or entity, but rather as a concept. In the relatively early days of the internet, David Bowie referred to that new frontier as “an alien life form”, dismissing the notion that it was merely a “tool” (He was right. To call the “internet” a tool may be technically accurate — in the same way that calling a nuclear weapon an “arm” is accurate). I wonder how he would classify these latest advancements in artificial intelligence. I’ve made my own attempts: parasite, colonizer, wild beast. In any case, Liu’s view seems to be both pragmatic and promising. All That We See or Seem is ultimately a hopeful work of fiction.

Dreaming together is how we feel we belong, how we give meaning to all that we see or seem.

It’s a haunting touchstone to which we are called. How we progress may depend on how we see or seem to ourselves. Alienated and acquiescing, or united and striving. If it’s the latter, we will we have to dream it. Together.

These are all worthy ideas worth exploring, and for that, I recommend this book. I just wish the story at the center of it all were a little more inspired.

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