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The Mountain in the Sea

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The Mountain in the Sea

By: Ray Nayler
Narrated by: Eunice Wong
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About this listen


'I loved this novel's brain and heart'
DAVID MITCHELL, AUTHOR OF CLOUD ATLAS

'A first-rate speculative thriller, by turns fascinating, brutal, powerful, and redemptive'
JEFF VANDERMEER, AUTHOR OF ANNIHILATION

There are creatures in the water of Con Dao.
To the locals, they're monsters.
To the corporate owners of the island, an opportunity.
To the team of three sent to study them, a revelation.

Their minds are unlike ours.
Their bodies are malleable, transformable, shifting.
They can communicate.
And they want us to leave.

When pioneering marine biologist Dr. Ha Nguyen is offered the chance to travel to the remote Con Dao Archipelago to investigate a highly intelligent, dangerous octopus species, she doesn't pause long enough to look at the fine print. DIANIMA - a transnational tech corporation best known for its groundbreaking work in artificial intelligence - has purchased the islands, evacuated their population and sealed the archipelago off from the world so that Nguyen can focus on her research.

But the stakes are high: the octopuses hold the key to unprecedented breakthroughs in extrahuman intelligence and there are vast fortunes to be made by whoever can take advantage of their advancements. And no one has yet asked the octopuses what they think. And what they might do about it.

Locus Award 2023 - Winner of First Novel award
Nebula Award 2023 Finalist.
Ray Bradbury Prize 2023 Finalist.
Shortlisted for the 2024 Arthur C. Clarke Award

©2022 Ray Nayler (P)2022 Weidenfeld & Nicolson Animals Environment Genre Fiction Nature & Ecology Outdoors & Nature Science Science Fiction Conservation Fiction

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All stars
Most relevant  
An unusual and captivating listen. You need to listen hard but it is well worth it. Lots of interesting ideas.

Beautifully written

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This was my favourite audible listen of 2023. I thought the novel was compelling, the performance, dynamic and emotive.

Superb

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A mash up of AI, environment and human dislocation is a dystopian world that’s our future unless we reverse course

Incredibly tense and yet beautiful

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⭐ 3/5 ⭐

A complex sci-fi. There is an archipelago where the octopuses may have evolved advanced intellect. A scientist goes to research them and figure out their society.

- This book was pretty confusing. I like a good complex sci-fi but this was more convoluted. I also couldn't decide what the actual plot or message of the book was. There were overlapping themes of environmentalism, non-human and AI intelligences, the ethics of AI, human-caused planetary destruction and consequences, what it means to be human and honestly a few others. None particularly dominate or guide the narrative.

- The characters I didn't particularly care about for the most part. The exceptions being Evrim, who I found to be the most relatable oddlly, and the octopuses which a million times more personality and interesting interactions than most of the rest of the book.

- The octopuses and the study of their society was awesome and I would have loved the book if it was more focused on this. However, the author seems to have used this novel as a "sci-fi ideas I think are cool" dumping exercise and most of them do not add anything of value. More focus on one or two themes or ideas would have been much more interesting.

Sadly disappointed with the lack of cephalopod offerings. However, a reader may like this book if they enjoy exploring many sci-fi concepts superficially or wandering narratives.

.

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Highly original multi layered science fiction that surprises at every turn. The narration is good and adds to the story.

Fantastic

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As someone already fascinated by octopuses, i started this book with relish. The story is good, the narration excellent. It's very thought provoking, causing the reader to think about our own intelligence and our arrogance that humans are the only real intelligence on Earth. I wish the octopuses had featured more though, more details of how they thought and lived. It's still very human focused. However, it does bring up thoughts of although humanity CAN do things, should we actually do them? Overall a good listening experience, if you like your fiction a little more cerebral

Very thought provoking

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Arrival meets Playground! An intricate tale in which future technology is subtly presented as the backdrop to a story of what drives research. Some sub-plots I found a little cryptic but pieces dropped into place for me at the end.

Science fiction becomes future fiction?

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I couldn’t put this down. It was beyond amazing. Ugyan itt bojler eladó. 15 words are needed.

Amazing

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As an AI professional and an avid reader of science fiction, I often find there is often a mismatch between science fiction and real science with regards AI. While it still has some tropes characterisation of AI, this probably the best book that manages for deal with all the subtleties and possibilities of a generally poorly understood area. Ideas like explainable AI, perception, Turing tests and semi-automated AI are dealt with in an understandable way. Alien consciousness and intelligence is similarly well done and works as a perfect compliment.

Listen carefully

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An intelligent and thought provoking story about communication; between people with very different goals, between humans and AI, between species. This is a philosophical sci-fi with its roots very much in the Earth, with an environmental message about looking after what we already have here on our home planet. The story highlights human ignorance with a compelling argument that animals we share our world with are already communicating and creating in ways that we just haven’t recognised because we’re too busy celebrating our own cleverness and destroying anything we regard an as existential threat. Octopuses might have suckers on their tentacles but humans just suck.

Octopolis

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