Published by Head of Zeus in October 2025
Review by B. Mullens
You never know quite what you will get with Ken Liu, since he can write everything from hard SF to myth. Taking its title from a line in a poem by Edgar Allen Poe lamenting the evanescence of all things and pondering the nature of reality, All That We See or Seem is set in the near future, in a world where AI-assisted everything and inescapable algorithms leave people craving genuine connection and original human work. A new art form emerges – vivid dreaming. Dreamers gather together in real life for performances from their favourite dream-creators, or oneirofexes, who filter the thoughts and feelings of each audience member through AI models and add ideas from their own imaginations to create a novel shared experience. The best oneirofexes are the new rock stars.
Julia Z is trying to lie low and outlive her past as a notorious teenage hacker. She gets an unexpected visit from Piers – a lawyer who believes she can help him investigate the disappearance of his wife. Piers’ wife, Elli, was a popular dream creator. Piers has been sent a demand from a criminal gang for something she stole from them. The criminals claim that they have taken Elli hostage and have sent Piers a video as a convincer; now he wants to know whether the video is a deep fake.
Julia decides to use her skills in data analysis to help Piers, and together they work to uncover the secret aspects of Elli’s life that led her into the orbit of organised criminals. Along the way, the book takes a look at the horrors of capitalism and explores the tension between individual freedom and the need to belong.
There’s plenty to enjoy in this book. To begin with, Julia is well-realised and an engaging character. In trying to write strong female characters, authors can risk creating slightly ludicrous paragons who can break into the mainframe and also punch out the villain. Liu does not fall into that trap. Julia’s physical vulnerability brings genuine tension to the story. Moreover, at least some of the hacks and surveillance techniques in the book are real, and I remember reading about them in the technology press at the time. For example, being able to record the sound of someone typing, learn exactly what sound each key on their keyboard makes and therefore work out their login credentials was proven to be feasible.
Another thing I really enjoyed is the idea of The Dinocorporection Conspiracy, the name of the dream that first makes Elli’s name as an artist. It is a wonderfully silly conspiracy theory revolving around the idea that the US government has a secret plan to resurrect dinosaurs and use them to control the people. That’s why they want to stop burning fossil fuels, so they can turn that stuff back into dinosaurs! That’s why children’s TV is full of dinosaur characters, so we will love our saurian overlords! The trouble is that the dream is too good. Nobody can be sure whether Elli’s fans really believe the conspiracy or whether they like it in an ironic, hipster way but they demand the same material over and over again, to Elli’s frustration.
My one criticism would be this: sometimes key events happen off-stage but the reader really wanted to be shown them in detail. For example, we find out that Elli had one-on-one dream sessions with the crime boss. So what was that like? What did they dream about together? And what was the big secret that he wants to keep hidden? We don’t get any proper answers to these questions.
However, if you enjoy a cyber-thriller with engaging characters and dino-based humour that also gets its maths and programming right, this is for you.
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