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The Mountain in the Sea, Ray Nayler (wrap up)

I finished it. I liked it!

It's not about making friends with octopi. It is very much about identity and connection (and isolation).

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. Rumors begin to spread of a species of hyperintelligent, dangerous octopus that may have developed its own language and culture. Marine biologist Dr. Ha Nguyen, who has spent her life researching cephalopod intelligence, will do anything for the chance to study them. The transnational tech corporation DIANIMA has sealed the remote Con Dao Archipelago, where the octopuses were discovered, off from the world. Dr. Nguyen joins DIANIMA’s team on the islands: a battle-scarred security agent and the world’s first android. The octopuses hold the key to unprecedented breakthroughs in extrahuman intelligence. The stakes are high: there are vast fortunes to be made by whoever can take advantage of the octopuses’ advancements, and 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. And what they might do about it. A near-future thriller about the nature of consciousness, Ray Nayler’s The Mountain in the Sea is a dazzling literary debut and a mind-blowing dive into the treasure and wreckage of humankind’s legacy.

More thoughts and spoilers under the jump.

So, as I said: this book is not about making friends with octopi, but it's very much about consciousness/intelligence and connection/isolation/loneliness. There are octopi, and there are attempts at communication, but the book is much, much more about humans trying to connect with other humans.

The setting is very bleak. I think you could call it near-future Sci-Fi; everything happens on Earth as we know it--more or less. But various corporate forces have reshaped the planet politically in ways that are impossible to miss without the book stopping to explain what has happened. The role of... super-capitalism? In shaping the world reminds me of Murderbot, but it actually feels more bleak overall, I think because of the focus of the story and because of how vividly illustrated the consequences are. There are little glimmers of not-suck here and there, but they're like stars on a cloudy night. All of which is to say, I think the setting is very, very good.

The environment (as in, environmentalism, as in conservation) also features heavily in the book. The stuff about the over-exploitation of the ocean feels very accurate (I grew up with two marine conservationists). It's threaded through the entire book, which is interesting because... it is related to the more "universal" themes that are already present (connection), but it is a theme in its own right.

Another component of the book is the question of "what measure is a non-human?" (* I was about to hit "post" and then remembered a more succinct way to encompass this theme is just "personhood.") Despite the octopus appearing ON THE COVER, there's a lot more near-human AI stuff on the page. Heck, one of the characters is an AI in a body. I personally don't have much to say about this topic overall, but I can't not talk about it when thinking about this book.

This book had a high concept- and thematic-density, while still providing a fast-paced read. Despite the girthiness of the book, I finished it pretty quickly. (This write-up was sitting in drafts because that's how I roll.)

As I was reading it, I actually dug out my little sticker flag thingies and flagged pages throughout the book where the writing was just good. I rarely do that. I just couldn't move on until I'd done something to acknowledge this moment, and that moment, throughout.

Reading it made me feel like I wasn't quite smart enough to get enough out of it as I wanted--and I mean that in a good way! It was challenging in an exciting way.

When I finished it, I wanted to talk to someone smarter/savvier than I was about the book--or better yet, listen to them talk about what they found interesting about it.

Not just the worldbuilding (although that is fabulous and interesting) and the vision of the future that it presents (ditto), and not just the consciousness/communication/AI stuff and the subject matter, but the way the book is put together in itself is interesting! From a writing-craft perspective, I feel like there's more going on under the hood than I gleaned on my first read, and that's exciting too.

Another thing I found interesting was the ending--despite how bleak the book was overall, the ending was... not exactly hopeful, but lighter than I expected. It ends on something like a question mark rather than the period I was expecting.

Okay. Overall: Recommend. Strongly recommend! I have to sit and think about it STILL, EVEN MORE because I... really liked this book but I'm not sure how to talk about it/recommend it yet. I am still digesting.

Oh, and below please find some of the questions I scribbled down after I finished. Please forgive my spelling; I returned my copy to its owner and can't refer back for the characters' names.

Compare and contrast Rustem and Eiko and their roles in the story. What does each respective character's presence (and that of the Sea Wolf) add to the story?

Who or what controls the faceless woman?

Alongside the broader themes of identity, connection, and isolation, there is also the contrast between top-down and networked "control." (How) do these themes connect?

Altansteg is first portrayed as one thing, then another. She goes out of her way to be a cyper with her different translator. Everim is portrayed as whole and complete, as singular, as known yet mysterious. Compare and contrast other features of these characters.

Compare and contrast Ha and Dr Minervudottoir-Chen.

Anyway, if anyone out there goes and reads this book and enjoyed it, please @ me because I want to know what others thought.

2022 reading retrospective: summa cum laude

I've never done a reading retrospective blog post thingy before, but i started one for 2022 and it immediately spiraled out of control. we're breaking it into parts.

For structure, I threw together these categories:

Nonfiction

Fear and Fungi

Mystery

Romance

summa cum laude

This post is about my summa cum laude picks!

(Summa cum laude means "with highest honor," in case anyone is unfamiliar. Latin. Can't escape it.)

Here are the ones that I've already written about but that deserve to be on this here summa cum laude list:

Every single book on my mystery list (yep!)

Mexican Gothic (Silvia Moreno-Garcia) (horror)

The Heroine's Journey (Gail Carriger) (nonfiction)

The Duke Who Didn't (Courtney Milan) and The Perfect Crimes of Marian Hayes (Cat Sebastian) (capital-R genre Romance)

Here are the ones that are AMAZING and don't fit in those other categories:

The Galaxy, and the Ground Within, Becky Chambers

Nettle and Bone, T Kingfisher

the Echo Wife, Sarah Gailey

The Mountain the Sea, Ray Nayler

Spoilers & opinions below the jump

SCI FI: The Galaxy and the Ground Within (Becky Chambers) is the last(?) installment in her Wayfarers series, which started with the fantastic Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, continued through the very different A Closed and Common Orbit, and then to the Record of a Spaceborn Few. In my opinion, The Galaxy and the Ground Within is something of a return to what I loved about Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet. It's a bottle episode and there's a cast of characters (not a single human in the bunch) who basically explore their similarities and differences. I really, really liked this one. There was some really neat worldbuilding, and I felt like there was some good work with theme and identity as well. Also, I can't talk about Chambers's writing without gushing about how her aliens feel really alien--you really get the bio vibe, they don't just feel like re-skinned humans.

FANTASY: Nettle and Bone (T Kingfisher/Ursula Vernon). This one was very gripping. Vernon can be very grim when she wants to be, but the grimness is in the world more than the story, if that makes sense? So the story itself has a satisfying ending, but some of the--okay so this one has big content notes for sexism, abuse, pregnancy and pregnancy loss, all that. It's really well done, but the themes are so so present.

Also the magic is very evocative and... numinous? Which is to say, not hard magic at all, but things Feel right in a "rooted in folklore" way while still being original in the actual mix. It's such good stuff. This book has it all; it's one of the ones I preordered as a hard copy because I was so, so excited about it, and I'm very pleased with my purchase.

Dramatic sci-fi: The Echo Wife by Sarah Gailey. This book is insanely good, it's gripping, it's disturbing. I wrote about it already so I'll just drop a link.

Near Sci-fi: The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Naylor. I also wrote about this one. I finished it a while ago, and I'm still thinking about it and digesting it. Link here.

In conclusion, that's 13 excellent books that I strongly recommend! Here's to 2023!