The Mountain in the Sea

Ray Nayler has taken on the challenge of a near future that's less certain than ever, and made it gleam - not only with computer terminals and sentry drones (we love those, sure) but also polished coral and cephalopod eyes. From these pages, I got the sense of William Gibson, and Paolo Bacigalupi - and Donna Haraway, and Octavia Butler. This is a planetary science fiction, and a profound new kind of adventure, featuring - among so many other wonders - the best villain I've read in years. In the end, the enormity and possibility of this novel's vision shook tears loose. What a ride; what a feeling; what a future.

Robin Sloan, author of Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore

A wildly original, gorgeously written, unputdownable gem of a novel. Nayler is one of the most exciting new voices i've read in years.

Blake Crouch, author of DARK MATTER

With a thriller heart and a sci-fi head, The Mountain in the Sea delivers a spooky smart read. Artificial intelligence, nascent animal sentience, murderous flying drones: like the best of Gibson or Atwood, it brings all of the plot without forgetting the bigger questions of consciousness, ecocide, and scientific progress. Truly a one-of-a-kind story.

Kawai Strong Washburn, author of SHARKS IN THE TIME OF SAVIORS

I came to The Mountain in the Sea for the cephalopds (I love cephalopods) but I stayed for the fascinating meditation on consciousness and personhood. I loved this book.

Ann Leckie

Nayler's debut is in equal parts page-turning near-future thriller and a profound exploration of language, communication and otherness... exhilarating and kaleidoscopic.

NEW HUMANIST

The Mountain in the Sea is intelligent, ambitious and thought-provoking. . . For its thoughtful depth, its dealing with big ideas such as the manner and matter of intelligence and communication and its education about the oceans, it is very, very good.

SFF WORLD

An action thriller with profound consequences. Groundbreaking stuff.

THE BIG ISSUE

A high tide of ideas and emotion. A compelling vision of other minds sharing our world - a vision you will long to be true.

Stephen Baxter

[A] brilliantly clever and compelling thriller.

PRESS ASSOCIATION syndicated to regional press

Readers of Peter Godfrey-Smith's Other Minds and Eduardo Kohn's How Forests Think will delight in an Anthropocene adventure that brings their ideas so vividly to life.

TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT

Both a profound meditation on the way human actions are affecting the world we live in... but also a breathless thriller and a perfect example of world building, this is a breakthrough novel which I expect to have a major impact over years to come.

CRIME TIME

This is a tour de force in showing how well fiction can explore society's challenges and problems. It also is a delight that, while asking difficult questions, the author offers some hope for humankind, and redemptive joy in the struggles involved in facing our environmental battles.

DIVE MAGAZINE

A hugely accomplished debut.

CULTUREFLY

Nayler's masterful debut combines fascinating science and well-wrought characters to deliver a deep dive into the nature of intelligent life . . . As entertaining as it is intellectually rigorous, this taut exploration of human - and inhuman - consciousness is a knockout

Publishers Weekly, starred review

Less a science fiction adventure than a meditation on conscioussness and self-awareness, the limitations of human language, and the reasons for those limitation, the novel teaches as it engages

Kirkus Reviews

This compelling 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

Booklist, starred review

Exceedingly ambitious . . . [This] is a novel that is alert, intelligent, open

New York Times