A review by herdingcats
The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler

challenging informative slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

 I picked this book up because I saw the kick-ass cover and read the back and saw that it was about sapient octopuses and because I’m writing a story with sapient squid aliens I knew I had to see how this was pulled off. Despite the rating and the length of this review, I did enjoy it! I came in wanting to know how intelligence and communication with aquatic invertebrates would be handled and I got some of that. But I was sorely missing a strong narrative to explore that through. 

Despite what the blurb on the back says, this is not a thriller. It is indeed however very much a “meditation on the nature of consciousness, and an ecological call to arms.” 

This is very slow-burn, and in the end I was fine with it even if that meant I took a long time to finish this as I lacked a strong pull, but I can see how people would feel lied to, because they were. 

This book follows three points of view and honestly… All of the extras could be dropped. The book description is about Ha and the research of the intelligent octopuses, but then we have two other bonus unrelated POVs crammed in there as well. Like. Two out of the three POVs aren’t about the octopuses at all. 

Really, this book isn’t about intelligent octopuses. It’s all about the nature of consciousness, on how it feels in humans and how it could possibly be replicated in AI or how it could manifest in an animal that exists in a way that is completely alien to us. And so it feels like the octopuses are just one of three narratives exploring that. 

All three POVs feels completely separate, aside from the exploration of minds. There’s Dr. Ha and her research of the rumored intelligent octopuses, there’s Rustem the high-level hacker of AI systems, and then there’s Eiko, who is a slave aboard an automated fishing ship. We explore how different the mind of the octopus is from a human’s, how it feels to explore through the artificial minds of such advanced programs, and the reasoning skills of a ship’s AI that is concerned only with generating profit. 

It always feels like the three POVs are about to intersect but they never do in any meaningful or satisfying way. The side stories could be cut entirely and the main plot would be completely unchanged. 

I think Eiko’s story was such an interesting concept that he honestly could be the star of his own book rather than being crammed into this. Rustem, however, was boring to me. He showed up to spout nonsense about what it's like to hack the VR mainframe of hyper-advanced futuristic AI. His chapters feel more like the future-fantasy that a lot of sci-fis actually are, which I personally am not into and honestly feel doesn’t really fit into this book since everything else is hard speculative sci-fi, in my opinion. 

All three POVs sound really similar and none of them have a very strong unique voice. The voice of the prose is pretty distant and disconnected and in a way bland. I think if it was just Ha it’d make sense since she has issues with dissociation, but then all the other characters are written with the same style so, yeah, it’s just a writing issue. 

In the end I feel like the science and philosophy were really cool but the narrative itself just wasn’t there. I wanted more of it. Not only was the prose disconnected, but the story felt a bit meandering and meaningless. 

None of the characters really take initiative at all. They’re all passive and simply react to the plot happening around them rather than instigating any of it. Which results in a book where everything is just aimlessly coasting along with no plans to reach its goal. The characters were mostly vessels for the author to talk about the philosophy first and characters second. Thankfully I was interested in what the author was talking about but if you’re not, then, you won’t have much fun. 

I think a really clear example of how reactive yet complacent the characters and narrative are is a moment at the end of part 3. I’ll be vague but spoiler tag anyways. 

At the end of act 3, a new character shows up. Their arrival is the last line before part 4 begins and it’s meant to be a big moment but then… Nothing really comes of it? The status quo remains completely unchanged. The characters all just accept this new person in and this new person seamlessly blends into the norm and the routines of the rest of the cast's life… They were such a big foreshadowed character, and then nothing happens when they show up. That person should’ve been a wrecking ball that completely destroyed the status quo and disrupted everyone’s lives and routines and instead they’re just… Chilling together.

But despite those issues I still enjoyed it and will definitely be referencing it more for personal uses when I need inspiration for writing aliens because one thing this book is amazing at is tackling the issue of interspecies translation and deconstructing just how many differences and issues could arise when interacting with nonhumanoid sophonts and how comparing those beings to humans is not only devaluing their uniqueness but also just asking for bias and miscommunication to occur.