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All That We See or Seem by Ken Liu



My first experience with cyberpunk as a genre of science fiction was Neuromancer by William Gibson. Neuromancer was one of the early works that defined the cyberpunk genre. It was insanely influential. It won the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award, the Philip K. Dick Award. But for me, it just did not resonate. I had a hard time visualizing the concepts. It left a bad taste in my mouth for cyberpunk. I mostly avoided the genre. Then a couple of years ago I read Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson which is cyberpunk (although some people say it is a parody of cyberpunk). Whatever, I liked it.

I recently picked up All That We See or Seem by Ken Liu and it immediately became apparent to me that this was cyberpunk. Julia Z is the main character, and I think this is going to be the start of a series following her. She is a hacker (hence cyberpunk). She has got herself in trouble and so she lives on the margins, barely making it. Then a lawyer asks her for her help. His wife has been kidnapped. The kidnappers don’t want money; they want information that the wife has hidden away. The lawyer has no idea how to find the information. He needs the help of an expert hacker: Julia Z. She wants to help, but this is outside her comfort zone. She will not only need all of her hacker skills, but she will need to grow as a person to get this done.

It is a mystery: not only where this missing information is, but what is it, and why does the kidnapper want it? It is also a thriller with the main characters fighting for their lives. There is also a good revenge arc, which I am all for.

Okay, I am not going to shy away from cyberpunk anymore. There are terms and concepts that I may not understand at first. Some of the terms I may never understand, but that is okay. For the most part, that is unimportant to the story. I will be ready for the next Julia Z story.

Star Liner

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