The Mountain in the Sea

Starred review from July 11, 2022
Nayler’s masterful debut combines fascinating science and well-wrought characters to deliver a deep dive into the nature of intelligent life. Marine biologist Ha Nguyen gets the opportunity of a lifetime when she’s invited to study a recently discovered society of intelligent octopuses in Vietnam’s Con Dao archipelago. Aiding her are Evrim, the world’s first android, and Altantsetseg, a human expert drone operator, both of whom add nuance to Nayler’s thematic exploration of consciousness through their vivid personalities and backstories: Evrim’s programming gradually breaks down, leaving them contemplating the nature of self, meanwhile drones enhance Altantsetseg’s natural awareness as she uses them to both observe the octopuses in their natural habitat and defend the archipelago from rivals eager to capitalize on Nguyen’s research. Throughout, Nayler provides a tightly focused framework for the challenges Nguyen faces as she attempts to decipher octopus language and culture, which will especially please science-minded readers. Subplots featuring genius hacker Rustem and Eiko, a man trafficked into slavery aboard a fishing vessel, expertly weave into the narrative while also offering readers a broader understanding of the political and technological state of this near-future world. As entertaining as it is intellectually rigorous, this taut exploration of human—and inhuman—consciousness is a knockout.

August 1, 2022
In the not-too-distant future, a marine biologist specializing in cephalopod intelligence discovers a species of octopus with astonishing language skills--research that a giant corporation wants to monetize. Dr. Ha Nguyen is so amazed by her findings that she's willing to submit herself to the odious tactics of the big tech company, which controls the Vietnamese island where the octopuses dwell. Having "resettled" the population of the Con Dao Archipelago, the company not only will kill any outsiders who attempt to set foot there, but also has ordered Ha's death should she attempt to leave. Not that she has any inclination to do so. Once exposed to the octopuses, she is determined to uncover the great mysteries of extrahuman intelligence. In spite of their hostile reputation, these are creatures of transcendent beauty, communicating through glowing visual symbols that move on their skin in complex patterns and sequences. In a world of robot-operated slave ships, bee-size drones, and AI automonks with three-fingered hands and light receptors for pupils, her main ally is Evrim, the world's first and possibly last true android, which not only thinks like a human being, but also believes it is conscious. Ha's benefactor and adversary is Dr. Arnkatla M�nervud�ttir-Chan, the Icelandic brains of the corporation, whose ultimate goal is to create a mind "wiped clean of its limitations." A prolific writer of SF stories making his debut as a novelist, Nayler maintains a cool, cerebral tone that matches up with the story's eerie underpinnings. Less an SF adventure than a meditation on consciousness and self-awareness, the limitations of human language, and the reasons for those limitations, the novel teaches as it engages. An intriguing unlocking of underwater secrets, with the occasional thrill.

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August 1, 2022

DEBUT A community of intelligent octopuses has been discovered off the southern coast of Vietnam. Access to the animals is tightly controlled by the international corporation DIANIMA, which hopes to study and exploit the octopuses for their development of artificially intelligent androids. They hire Dr. Ha Nguyen, an expert on cephalopods, to lead the research into the octopuses' language and culture. It quickly becomes clear that DIANIMA's plans to cash in on the results of Dr. Nguyen's efforts is not something the octopuses agree with--and no one can foresee what the octopuses will do to make their resistance understood. VERDICT Drawing on decades of experience in overseas service (including time with the United States Consulate in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam), Nayler infuses his debut novel with fantastic elements grounded in real contemporary topics and tackles moral issues related to artificial and animal intelligence without sacrificing plot or pacing. This is a classic sci-fi thriller that's easy to read and will have broad appeal for fans of speculative fiction.--Lydia Fletcher

Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from October 1, 2022
In a near-future world haunted by capitalist greed and environmental exploitation, marine biologist Dr. Ha Nguyen has been summoned to the remote island of Con Dao to join a top-secret research project. Ha, the first-ever true android, Evrim, and their reticent security agent must look into the mysterious ""sea monster"" that has long plagued this coast in the hopes of discovering the first hyperintelligent octopuses who may have evolved to the point of language creation and culture. Nayler's novel lands as some combination of Arrival and Mira Grant's Into the Drowning Deep (2017): a suspenseful story of scientific discovery, first contact, and the dark unknown of the oceans. As humans are ruled by computerized profit-loss calculations and link themselves to communities of drones, as Ha gets to know Evrim and thinks about the octopuses, the characters must consider what it means to be human, to have consciousness, to have language. In the Anthropocene, what must hyperintelligent creatures do to survive--whether human or otherwise? This compelling sf debut is impossible to put down, a delightful embroidery of the rush of scientific discovery and the pain of isolation, asking hard questions about what society is and what it means to truly understand another creature.

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