The Mountain in the Sea

by Ray Nayler

About This Book

Ray Nayler's debut novel follows a marine biologist sent to a cordoned-off archipelago to study an octopus species that appears to have developed language, symbol, and culture. Braided alongside it are an AI-piloted fishing trawler crewed by trafficked labor and the first android built to house a human-equivalent mind. The result is less a thriller than a sustained argument about consciousness: how we recognize it, how badly we're equipped to communicate across it, and what we destroy while deciding whether it counts.

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