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A review by randi_jo
The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler
informative
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.5
I was so, so excited for this and I am so, so let down. I don't know, it had so much potential based on the summary/blurb that I gave it so much benefit of the doubt that by the time I got 60% in I was lying to myself, saying that something was going to happen and when it did, it would be BIG.
I was wrong.
Let's be honest here, this book is not about potentially sentient octopuses/octopi coming to exact revenge on the human race for devastating the ocean's populations via overfishing and dumping waste. I mean the octopi are there and sure, they kill a couple people, but more in the way that you'd kill a coyote that's been hanging around your property for a few days and you own chickens. This book is actually about AI sentience - specifically the first complete AI sentience: Evrim and the musings of the implications of their existence plusrandomly dropping AT THE VERY END OF THE BOOK that they can self replicate, for very little reason imo . It's actually a big think piece about artificial intelligence and human self-destruction - just throw in some overly smart octopi to make it more appealing, I suppose.
This is also not a thriller. You would need an actual plot for that. There are 3 specific POVs here: Ha the scientist thinking about brains and using octopi as the medium to spout lots of linguistic and sentience related questions to a literal sentient AI; Rustem the hackerman who is tasked to hack into the aforementioned AI by Evil PETA; and Eiko the kidnapped Japanese man forced into illegal slavery aboard an equally illegal AI fishing trawl. All three plots build up slowly seeming to come to a culmination where they all intersect at Con Dao, but guess what? THEY DON'T. The plots never intersect outside of Rustem essentially downloading a message into Evrim's brain! In fact each plot just peters out into nothing! Nothing happens! The scientistsare taken over by a rival company and they say "ok that's cool" , Rustem says no to Evil PETA (which we learn NOTHING ABOUT by the way), and chooses to save Evrim from being hacked , and Eiko survives the wreck of his captor ship and ends up at a turtle temple where he is like YAY! and that is the EPILOGUE .
I think I would be less offended if Ray Nayler himself found my email and crafted a unique and heartfelt letter that told me to fuck myself, than I was by that ending.
Anyway, for a think piece, it was decent.
I was wrong.
Let's be honest here, this book is not about potentially sentient octopuses/octopi coming to exact revenge on the human race for devastating the ocean's populations via overfishing and dumping waste. I mean the octopi are there and sure, they kill a couple people, but more in the way that you'd kill a coyote that's been hanging around your property for a few days and you own chickens. This book is actually about AI sentience - specifically the first complete AI sentience: Evrim and the musings of the implications of their existence plus
This is also not a thriller. You would need an actual plot for that. There are 3 specific POVs here: Ha the scientist thinking about brains and using octopi as the medium to spout lots of linguistic and sentience related questions to a literal sentient AI; Rustem the hackerman who is tasked to hack into the aforementioned AI by Evil PETA; and Eiko the kidnapped Japanese man forced into illegal slavery aboard an equally illegal AI fishing trawl. All three plots build up slowly seeming to come to a culmination where they all intersect at Con Dao, but guess what? THEY DON'T. The plots never intersect outside of Rustem essentially downloading a message into Evrim's brain! In fact each plot just peters out into nothing! Nothing happens! The scientists
I think I would be less offended if Ray Nayler himself found my email and crafted a unique and heartfelt letter that told me to fuck myself, than I was by that ending.
Anyway, for a think piece, it was decent.