Today I’m reviewing Have You Seen This? By Steven McKay.

Here’s the blurb

“Have you seen this?” An innocent enough question, asked millions of times around the world every day, but tonight it will lead to a shocking, violent event that destroys multiple lives.
Glaswegian forklift truck driver Jack is quietly enjoying his tea break when a friend shows him something on the internet. Outrage follows, quickly spreading through social media, and within hours an angry mob has formed to put the world to rights. Modern justice is soft, as Jack knows, so perhaps its time things were done like they were in the good old days…

Steven A. McKay is the bestselling author of numerous historical fiction novels and short stories including The Druid, The Heathen Horde, and Wolf’s Head. “Have You Seen This?” is his first foray into the modern thriller genre and is every bit as powerful as his previous tales, making the reader ponder the very nature of our present reality, and just where technology is leading us.

Enjoy this quick read that will leave you questioning humanity’s place in the future and, more worryingly, whether it’s too late to do anything about it…
Based on a real event.

Review

Have you seen this is a short tale from author Steven McKay. For fans of the author the biggest thing you’ll notice in the change in genre, but you need not be worried it’s still a cracking tale!

McKay deftly switches to a modern day setting and explores something that has been at the forefront of a lot of press recently, AI.

Artificial intelligence has many benefits but used unwisely, or without oversight could cause some concerns.

I know the author recently discussed the topic of AI on their pod cast Rock, Paper, Swords recently too but a scary thought now is that the written word won’t be real, rather AI generated and the morals behind using such technology. Have You Seen This? Explores one such danger.. what if the information produced is incorrect…

Jack falls victim to AI and mob mentality when a post on a website suggests a teacher may not be the best person to look after his child. As any parent would do, you would be concerned and would want action taken… but what would you do if you had the chance to take action yourself..what would you do with dutch courage running through your system? Hindsight is a wonderful thing and Jack reaps the punishment for believing everything you read online.

I think we would all like to believe in the ideal of innocent until proven guilty but with the way social media is, and how accessible information is, it’s a lot harder to not to form a judgment and the ideal gets knocked on it’s head, to guilty until proven innocent and even then some would still have doubts. I guess it’s kind of human nature, an aspect I don’t particularly like and McKay has picked on that perfectly, the dangers behind acting on emotions…and now the added worry of AI generated articles without research behind it or oversight.

Have You Seen This? Will take around 30 minutes of anyone’s time to read but will stay with you longer than that, it’s thought provoking and emotive 5* read.

To find out more head to Goodreads or Amazon!