The Mountain in the Sea - Ray Nayler

The Mountain in the Sea

By Ray Nayler

  • Release Date: 2022-10-04
  • Genre: Sci-Fi & Fantasy
Score: 4
4
From 173 Ratings

Description

*WINNER OF 2023 LOCUS AWARD FOR BEST FIRST NOVEL * FINALIST FOR THE NEBULA AWARD, and THE LOS ANGELES TIMES RAY BRADBURY PRIZE

The Mountain in the Sea is a wildly original, gorgeously written, unputdownable gem of a novel. Ray Nayler is one of the most exciting new voices I’ve read in years.”
Blake Crouch, author of Upgrade and Dark Matter

Humankind discovers intelligent life in an octopus species with its own language and culture, and sets off a high-stakes global competition to dominate the future.


The transnational tech corporation DIANIMA has sealed off the remote Con Dao Archipelago, where a species of octopus has been discovered that may have developed its own language and culture. The marine biologist Dr. Ha Nguyen, who has spent her life researching cephalopod intelligence, will do anything for the chance to study them. She travels to the islands to join DIANIMA’s team: a battle-scarred securityagent and the world’s first (and possibly last) android.

The octopuses hold the key to unprecedented breakthroughs in extrahuman intelligence. As Dr. Nguyen struggles to communicate with the newly discovered species, forces larger than DIANIMA close in to seize the octopuses for themselves.

But no one has yet asked the octopuses what they think. Or what they might do about it.

A near-future thriller, a meditation on the nature of consciousness, and an eco-logical call to arms, Ray Nayler’s dazzling literary debut The Mountain in the Sea is a mind-blowing dive into the treasure and wreckage of humankind’s legacy.

Reviews

  • Thoughtful

    4
    By StevenNYC
    A good tale of the difficulties of communicating, whether it’s with another species, another person, or to ourselves.
  • The octopus is a bit too sentient

    3
    By Loopless
    Interesting ideas, but goes a bit too far in turning the protagonist octopus into an unstoppable killing machine. And taking the idea of protecting the island into “we will sink your boat and then massacre all your crew” seems to be too easily passed over as an acceptable response.
  • A wonderful ride into a near future what-if, who-dun-it

    5
    By WebPrincess
    A dystopian future where multinational companies provide wonders of technology while skimming profits of organized crime activities. A back drop to a world where the first sentient AI robot assists in the investigation of the first discovery of a non-human biological intelligence.
  • A book that makes a (prior) non-reader love reading

    5
    By Awesome dude Man Woman
    Smart, thought-provoking, intricate. A book that kept me interested from the first page to the last.
  • Thought Provoking

    4
    By Zach7277
    There were multiple times throughout the book where I stopped and pondered questions about the nature of consciousness and perception, which is what I think the author was aiming for. I think either the book is a little too smart for it’s own good, or I might not be intelligent enough to understand what was being conveyed. There were times the story lost me, as it felt disjointed between the multiple perspectives and the reasons for character actions and at other moments it felt like there wasn’t enough meat on the bones. Anything that makes you think this much is probably worth the time overall and I respect the author for the talent and dedication. Only taking a star off because I can’t help shaking the feeling this would have been better without the metaphor of it all and just been presented more straightforward in terms of what the author wanted to discuss.
  • Prescient, stunningly clever

    5
    By davidrperry
    Such a great story, fantastic character work and a whole lot of other levels of things going on.
  • Enough with the pronouns!

    1
    By vfdtuuyr
    It seems like sci fi is rapidly going woke. This book, like so many others recently, insists on shoving the author’s wokeness about pronouns in the face of the reader. Makes a good story like this hard to read.