All That We See or Seem

I really enjoyed this book, but I liked the first half a lot more than the second. There is a major, and kind of disorienting, pivot at that point and it goes from having a clear arc to a kind of listlessness with the kind of aftermath of the first half of the book. I was certain Piers and Elli were both alive, in part because of how quickly their death came and went; I was half-right, but the way that was revealed felt like an afterthought instead of what I assumed would bring the book around to a satisfying conclusion.

Liu is a very intelligent writer who writes compelling characters and creates an interesting image of the near future. One thing I kept thinking about was how some of the tech he introduced read, to me, as his bets on what current early-stage tech survives and thrives. And it’s not necessarily what I’d have guessed. I think the major suspension of disbelief for me was in the idea of a personal AI that didn’t live in or process via the cloud. We have a lot of leaps before something like what we’re seeing now is available in a form that is both fast and local.

It also seemed rosier about the future of AI—even with the many dystopian angles—than I might have expected.