Breakaway Books

Authored by Ray Nayler; Published 2022; Science Fiction

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ / 🏖️🏖️🏖️

Reading The Mountain in the Sea felt like an extended thought experiment, exploring the meaning of consciousness and communication. What does it mean to be sentient? Why is language important? If you like pondering these questions, you will like this novel.

Dr. Ha, the heroine of The Mountain in the Sea, is passionate about the creatures who live under the sea, and in this novel, she is borderline obsessed with the discovery of octopuses who seem to be able to communicate with humans and even learn to write. Lurking in the background is a mega-corporation, which has an unknown interest in these octopuses, somehow connected with their artificial intelligence products.

This novel is not what anyone would call a thriller, but there are certainly a few twists that felt satisfying—like I should have seen it but didn’t quite manage it. But the plot is mostly a way to guide the reader to consider how we treat the life who lives around us on this planet. I can appreciate this, and even for a person like me, who has only a passing interest in environmentalism, I couldn’t stop myself from thinking through how a development like the discovery of animals with fully formed language abilities would affect my worldview

Interestingly, the book addresses the idea of artificial intelligence in a way that seems gentler to me and definitely less afraid. It talks about how humans can substitute technology for real human connection and the dangers that can present, and for me, it was one of the most compelling portions of the novel. The relationships that Dr. Ha forms with artificial intelligence are a common theme, and more and more now, it seems like this sort of relationship is becoming common.

In the end, I couldn’t help but be depressed at how we humans treat the rest of the world. If climate change and the amount of plastic in the sea already bothers you, I can’t recommend reading this one—it’ll just make you sink further into your despair. But if you want to see humanity from an entirely different perspective, The Mountain in the Sea is a good pick.