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seattlefraggle 's review for:
The Mountain in the Sea
by Ray Nayler
Murderous octopuses! I'm in!
Or so I thought....The concept here was top notch and the book design is absolutely stunning. But this one left me cold in the way that so much sci fi writing unfortunately does. There is no character development! Everyone is written with such a flat affectation that I found it impossible to distinguish between the various voices. This quality paired with almost no physical descriptions meant that I wasn't able to imagine, identify, or care about these people at all. I started to wonder at one point if they were ALL robots.
Also, as other readers have pointed out, there is a ton of exposition weighing down the text, and this applies not only to the hard science but to the protagonists' interiority as well. We are told a lot about WHAT our characters are grappling with emotionally but not WHY. Gobs of telling and no showing, heavy on the science with too little emotional resonance.
It also got on my nerves that the one character whose appearance is described quite a bit - is actually the one we can't see as she's wearing some sort of virtual reality shield over her face.
I wasn't sorry I read this one, I found the world building interesting - the fishing ships in particular were super disturbing and compelling. But after nearly 450 pages, I wanted to feel invested in these characters. This would make a stellar TV or movie adaptation though, good casting could fill in the blanks.
Or so I thought....The concept here was top notch and the book design is absolutely stunning. But this one left me cold in the way that so much sci fi writing unfortunately does. There is no character development! Everyone is written with such a flat affectation that I found it impossible to distinguish between the various voices. This quality paired with almost no physical descriptions meant that I wasn't able to imagine, identify, or care about these people at all. I started to wonder at one point if they were ALL robots.
Also, as other readers have pointed out, there is a ton of exposition weighing down the text, and this applies not only to the hard science but to the protagonists' interiority as well. We are told a lot about WHAT our characters are grappling with emotionally but not WHY. Gobs of telling and no showing, heavy on the science with too little emotional resonance.
It also got on my nerves that the one character whose appearance is described quite a bit - is actually the one we can't see as she's wearing some sort of virtual reality shield over her face.
I wasn't sorry I read this one, I found the world building interesting - the fishing ships in particular were super disturbing and compelling. But after nearly 450 pages, I wanted to feel invested in these characters. This would make a stellar TV or movie adaptation though, good casting could fill in the blanks.