The Mountain In The Sea by Ray Nayler (book review).
Anyone who has seen the film ‘Arrival’ will be aware of the problems with trying to communicate with a truly alien species. Since the aliens were spacefarers they would have some concepts, such as physics and math, which are common to both species. The situation becomes more difficult when there are no such links and there is no concept of how intelligent the alien species is. This is one aspect that ‘The Mountain In The Sea’ tries to address, with the alien species being the octopus.
The novel is set in a near future when the world has radically changed but is still in touch with developments that are happening now. There is a great deal more automation with AIs controlling many aspects of life, especially transport. At sea, huge autofreighters either transport goods or fish. The relatively minor plot strand illustrates this. Eiko is kidnapped and finds himself sold into slavery aboard an automated fishing freighter. Although originally manned by robots, people need less maintenance and it is easier and cheaper to replace them. If he doesn’t work, he doesn’t get fed. The number of these vessels means that the oceans have been raped and fish stocks have plummeted.
There is only one place where marine life has a sanctuary. That is the Con Dao archipelago, off Vietnam. It was bought by a global corporation, DIANIMA, who evacuated all the inhabitants and set up a marine conservation and research area. To make sure it was untouched, the boundary is protected and anyone or anything trying to breech the exclusion zone would be destroyed. On this island is a small group of Tibetan automonks, which the company was unable to evict.
Dr. Ha Nguyen is a marine biologist with experience of working with cuttlefish. She is hired to work on the archipelago to do research on the octopus population, in particular to assess their intelligence. The only others there are Altantsetseg who is responsible for security and Evrim. Altantsetseg’s brief is to stop anyone getting in or out. Evrim is a humanoid AI who has passed all the tests to be indistinguishable from a human but has been exiled here because the authorities are scared of them as Evrim is asexual.
The octopus population of Con Dao act differently to other populations. These are social and have a longer lifespan. Observations suggest that they care for their young and old, are tool-users and have developed a language. Part of Ha and Evrim’s task is to try and communicate with the cephalopods. The only symbols they manage to decipher seem to be an emphatic go away.
This comes across as a ‘worthy’ novel. It tackles a number of issues but none of them satisfactorily. There is the problem of over-fishing which already apparent. It is difficult to see a future where huge autofreighters will constantly patrol the oceans scooping up everything that is left. Many, particularly western countries, are looking at more sustainable methods of fishing, developing fish farms and setting up no-fish conservation areas. It is hard to imagine that Asian countries would not follow suit.
There are concerns in some quarters that automation will get out of hand. It would be foolish to allow huge ships to wander the oceans without some kind of off switch. Think of the fun terrorist hackers could have with them.
The main thrust of the book is the intelligence of the octopuses. This is not just a communication problem with an alien species but a matter of empathy. If the intention is to make the reader think twice about eating the cephalopod, it is unlikely to change many minds as these creatures are, from the start, killers. A book more likely to affect your attitude towards cephalopods is ‘Monarchs Of The Sea’ by Danna Staaf.
Probably the biggest problem with the book is the overload of information. Not only do the characters need to explain a lot of what is going on to each other, each chapter is prefaced by a large chunk of exposition written as passages from two fictional textbooks, one written by Dr. Ha Nguyen ‘How Oceans Think’ and by Dr. Arnkatla Minervudóttir-Chan ‘Building Minds’, who is the CEO of DIANIMA who only appears in person towards the end of the novel.
It is disappointing that this book fails to engage the reader in areas where the present climate needs it to.
Pauline Morgan
November 2023
(pub: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2023. 452 page hardback. Price: £16.99 (UK).ISBN: 978-1-399-60956-2)
check out website: www.weidenfeldandnicolson.co.uk