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A novel by Matt Locke

See the truth. Or let them see for you.

A blind coder gets sight from a neural implant, then finds its makers editing what everyone else sees.

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Eye See by Matt Locke, official book cover

They gave him sight.

A thriller built on one question: if the images reaching your brain are a product someone else configures, what exactly is left of free will?

In a world where everyone is connected to the OptiLink neural network, privacy is a myth and perception is a commodity sold to the highest bidder. Kane Lewis, a brilliant coder born without sight, has always lived outside the system.

But when an experimental implant grants him vision, he doesn't just see the world: he sees the code that constructs it. Glitches in reality. Subliminal commands. A digital prison built to enslave the mind. Kane is the only one who can see the bars of the cage, and the only one who can tear them down.

Read onMild spoilers

Kane's position, born blind and then given sight through OptiLink, means he can perceive the system's architecture in a way nobody else can. As he digs, he finds that OptiLink doesn't just show you the world, it tells you how to feel about it. Neural advertising overlays. Hormonal regulation. Mandatory reality filtering. The deeper he goes, the more dangerous he becomes to the system, and the harder it works to find him.

Look closer.

Everyone on OptiLink sees the same calm, comfortable world. Kane sees the instructions underneath it. Move the lens across the feed.Drag across the feed.

An interactive passage. On the surface it reads: The sky is clear. You feel calm. You want this. Nothing is wrong. Under the lens it reads: The sky is leased. You feel owned. You obey this. Nothing is yours.

What it's really about.

  • Digital surveillance

    The OptiLink network doesn't just monitor what you see. It monitors how you feel about it. Every emotional response is logged and fed back to optimise your behaviour. The panopticon is inside your head.

  • Neural manipulation

    If they edit what you see, they edit what you believe. The implant can rewrite memory, inject commands and manufacture desire. Sometimes blindness is a choice, and sometimes sight is a burden.

  • Identity erosion

    When your preferences are algorithmic and your dreams are sponsored content, what remains of the self? Eye See follows the erasure of a person when perception is commercially optimised.

  • False reality

    The world is beautiful. The world is perfect. The world is a fabrication, a managed interface sold to the highest bidder. Kane is the only one who can see the seams.

A miracle, sold as a product.

The world of Eye See is not a ruined one. It is a comfortable one, which is exactly what makes it hard to leave.

Inside the world
OptiLink
A neural-vision implant that bypasses the eye entirely, rendering the world as dynamic overlays fed straight to the brain. To its users it is a miracle. To its makers it is a channel.
Glimpse Inc.
The company that built OptiLink and sold it as salvation. Its public work is restoring sight. Its private work is everything that becomes possible once you are the one drawing the picture.
CyberTech
Glimpse's shadow partner. The half of the operation that never appears in the marketing, and the reason the feed contains things no medical device has any business containing.

Books like Eye See.

It's a debut, so there are no press quotes yet. Here is the company it keeps. If these are on your shelf, this one belongs beside them.

  1. Dark Matter

    Blake Crouch

    A propulsive, high-concept thriller that runs on one impossible premise and never lets the pace drop.

  2. Nineteen Eighty-Four

    George Orwell

    Control exercised not by force but by editing the record of what is true.

  3. The Circle

    Dave Eggers

    A benign-sounding tech company, a product everyone loves, and the slow realisation of what it costs.

  4. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

    Philip K. Dick

    Perception as the unreliable narrator. What happens when your senses are the thing being tampered with.

Matt Locke, author of Eye See and host on WBAP News Talk 820 / 93.3 FM

Matt Locke

Twelve years behind a microphone, asking who decides what an audience gets to hear. Eye See is that question pointed somewhere harder to argue with.

“Talk radio taught me that whoever controls the feed controls the argument. I wanted to write about what happens when the feed is your eyesight.”

Full biography Matt on WBAP

Read it.

Out now in three editions. Pick a retailer and you'll go straight to the listing.

Eye See by Matt Locke, official book cover
  • HardcoverCasebound edition
  • PaperbackTrade paperback, 346 pages
  • KindleInstant delivery to any device
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Read a free sample first. Pricing is set by each retailer and shown on their listing. Bookshops, libraries and book clubs can order Eye See through standard distribution.

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Everything worth asking.

The book, the world, the author. Answered plainly.

All questions

Eye See is a near-future techno-thriller about a blind coder who is given sight by a neural implant and discovers the company behind it is editing what everyone else sees. Kane Lewis is one of the first recipients of OptiLink, a neural-vision implant built by Glimpse Inc. and its shadow partner CyberTech. The implant works, but inside the visual feed Kane starts finding manipulations, emotional triggers and behaviour-shaping algorithms. What begins as a fight for his own autonomy becomes a mission to free millions from a corporate-engineered digital prison.

Eye See was written by Matt Locke, a talk-radio host and debut novelist. He hosts mid-mornings on WBAP News Talk 820 / 93.3 FM in Dallas-Fort Worth, after building his career at WOWO Fort Wayne and 95.3 MNC in South Bend. Eye See is his first novel.

Eye See is available now from Amazon and Barnes & Noble in hardcover, paperback and Kindle editions. It can also be ordered through bookshops and libraries via standard distribution.

Eye See is a dystopian science-fiction thriller: a techno-thriller with strong surveillance-fiction and near-future elements. Readers who enjoy Blake Crouch's Dark Matter, George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four or Dave Eggers' The Circle will recognise the territory.

OptiLink is the fictional neural-vision implant at the centre of Eye See. Created by Glimpse Inc. with its shadow partner CyberTech, it restores sight by rendering the world as dynamic visual overlays fed directly to the brain. Because the feed is generated rather than simply seen, whoever controls it controls what its users believe is real, which is exactly what Kane Lewis uncovers.

Kane Lewis is the protagonist of Eye See: a brilliant coder born without sight who becomes one of the first people to receive the OptiLink implant. His background in code is what lets him recognise the manipulation buried in the visual feed. He is supported by Emily King and his service dog, Apollo.

Know what's next, first.

Occasional notes from Matt Locke on the next book, appearances and anything worth your attention. Only when there's something to say.

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