Book Review: "The Mountain in the Sea" by Ray Nayler

 

*Spoiler alert!*

4/5 stars

My heart already wants a sequel to The Mountain in the Sea, but my head says that maybe it's better as a stand-alone. This conflict will continue for some time, because I truly enjoyed The Mountain in the Sea.

"That was one of the keys, Ha knew, to understanding them. That lack of control from the center, that feedback from limbs, that pure embodiment of mind. They were not trapped in a skull, controlling everything from behind a sheath of bone. They were free-flowing, through the entire body. Not a ladder--a ring. A neural ring moving signals from limb to limb to mind, back again. A distribution loop through the whole body. A whole consciousness that could become parts, and then whole again. A whole consciousness that could become parts, and then whole again. It was one of the many problems Ha felt she would have no time to solve."

My co-worker read this book out of his fascination for the octopus. His review, plus the concept reminding me of Adrian Tchaikovsky's Children of Ruin, featuring a species of sentient, space-faring octopus, sealed the deal for me.

The Mountain in the Sea takes place in a very plausible future, filled with AI, political intrigue, and conflicts over how best to preserve precious ecosystems from destruction. This book probably isn't for everyone, as it's not as plot-driven as space-opera sci-fi as much as food-for-thought sci-fi. 

I enjoy me some philosophical sci-fi that makes me view the world differently after I finish reading it, seeing humanity reflected in the eyes of another species, android or otherwise.

(No, not that kind of android!)

Not that the story isn't interesting, but I thought I'd be honest about the kind of sci-fi we're dealing with here. Also, there's a bit of time-switching between characters, so that may be disorienting, but I promise the story manages to fit together decently.

Despite these caveats, the characters were interesting, and well-developed, particularly the villain, a militant environmental protection group, very much anti-humanity, and that's why I kept reading.

It ended up being a fascinating what-if scenario of what happens when humanity encounters another self-aware species on Earth, and how we'd react, particularly considering the context we and this book live in, the climate crisis and political instability. Based on the story, I'd say the results are definitely mixed!

"It was easier to pretend that Altantsetseg was an individual, that all of her choices were her own, than to admit that Altantsetseg was a part of them. That all of them were, in fact, bound together so tightly that they formed a single entity, incapable of functioning--incapable of surviving--without all of its interlocking parts in place."

I won't say too much more about The Mountain in the Sea, except for, if you're a sci-fi fan, I think you'll enjoy this one, and maybe think about humanity and our world differently. For better or worse.

Happy reading!

--BookOwl