The Bottom Line: A timely, unsettling and oddly hopeful dystopian thriller.
We the People: A Premonition begins as former FBI analyst Luna Ochoa receives an encrypted warning from her brother, Juan. It seems that AI is predicting humanity’s imminent collapse – nuclear war, climate disaster and more. While living within an oppressive regime, Luna now works for Leo Montoya, who funds a covert resistance network. The group’s mission is to track the regime’s human rights abuses, corruption and more. After absorbing the AI’s dire predictions, they decide to write up an urgent report for their boss.
Similar to Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle, the AI’s predictions are conveyed in disturbing videos that appear to portray specific events in a dystopian future. Enter Jake Kessler, an award-winning journalist whose silencing at the hands of the government fuels his desire to change the future. Jake’s point of view is oddly enthralling, in part thanks to his unexpected cultural references (“The president’s base was like that of Jim Jones, the infamous cult leader of The People’s Temple”) as well as the fact that his involvement puts him into personally dangerous territory. In terms of suspense, the book’s tension ratchets up significantly when Montoya receives a letter from a government official demanding the immediate handover of a large database of “AI Intelligence.”
So what separates the AI’s dire predictions from those predicted by humanity past and present? They start coming true. Worldwide shipping halts. The stock market crashes. Billionaires head to their bunkers.
So what’s the solution? A system of government that improves on democracies of the past. Authors Russell Razzaque and T.J. MacGregor describe an AI that doesn’t just predict doom, but also prompts a radical solution – participatory democracy, powered by technology, inspired by ancient Athens and meant to bypass corrupt governments entirely. It also champions complete transparency (in a telling scene, what would surely be an illegal meeting is virtually unprotected with a deliberately unlocked door and an open invitation to the neighbors). The conceit turns what could have been a straightforward dystopian chase into a meditation on governance, agency, and the thin line between control and liberation.
We the People: A Premonition is an engrossing, fast-paced tale you can knock out on a coast-to-coast flight. While the novel won’t wow you with vivid imagery or sweeping characters arcs, it’s not trying to. Instead, it’s a warning shot across the bow – a rallying cry for civic engagement that just happens to be a page-turner.
