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Local Author Book Talk

Ken Liu

Join local author Ken Liu as he discusses his novel, All That We See or Seem.

Julia Z, a young woman who gained notoriety at fourteen as the “orphan hacker,” is trying to live a life of digital obscurity in a quiet Boston suburb.

But when a lawyer named Piers—whose famous artist wife, Elli, has been kidnapped by dangerous criminals—barges into her life, Julia decides to put the solitary life she has painstakingly created at risk as she can’t walk away from helping Piers and Elli, nor step away from the challenge of this digital puzzle. Elli is an oneirofex, a dream artist, who can weave the dreams of an audience together through a shared virtual landscape, live, in a concert-like experience by tapping into each attendee’s memories and providing an emotionally resonant narrative experience. While these collective dreams are anonymous, Julia discovers that Elli was also dreaming one-on-one with the head of an international criminal enterprise, and he’s demanding the return of his dreams in exchange for Elli.

"Unraveling the real and unreal leads Julia on an adventure that takes her across the country and deep into the shadows of her psyche." --Publisher

For adults. Registration required. The Blue Bunny will sell copies of All That We See or Seem after the talk. Contact Ari at apappas@minlib.net with any questions.

About Ken:

Ken Liu (http://kenliu.name) is an American author of speculative fiction. A winner of the Nebula, Hugo, and World Fantasy awards for his fiction, he has also won top genre honors abroad in Japan, Spain, and France.

Liu’s most characteristic work is the four-volume epic fantasy series, The Dandelion Dynasty, in which engineers, not wizards, are the heroes of a silkpunk world on the verge of modernity. His debut collection of short fiction, The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories, has been published in more than a dozen languages. A second collection, The Hidden Girl and Other Stories, followed. He also penned the Star Wars novel, The Legends of Luke Skywalker. His latest book is All That We See or Seem, a techno-thriller starring an AI-whispering hacker who saves the world.

He’s often involved in media adaptations of his work. Recent projects include “The Regular,” under development as a TV series; “Good Hunting,” adapted as an episode in season one of Netflix’s breakout adult animated series Love, Death + Robots; and AMC’s Pantheon, with Craig Silverstein as executive producer, adapted from an interconnected series of Liu’s short stories. 

Prior to becoming a full-time writer, Liu worked as a software engineer, corporate lawyer, and litigation consultant. He frequently speaks at conferences and universities on a variety of topics, including futurism, machine-augmented creativity, history of technology, bookmaking, and the mathematics of origami.

In addition to his original fiction, Liu also occasionally publishes literary translations. His most recent work of translation is a new rendition of Laozi’s Dao De Jing.

Liu lives with his family near Boston, Massachusetts.

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