The Mountain in the Sea: Winner of the Locus Best First Novel Award

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I was reminded of Frank Herbert in that each chapter is preceded by a fictional quote from books written by the protagonists – initially I skimmed these, but then I realised they are quite integral to the story and not superfluous at all. Reflexiones sobre el hombre, la sociedad, la ecología y el futuro se imbrican en todas y cada una de las líneas de la novela. Ha Nguyen, who goes to work on an island off the coast of Vietnam, where a species of ultra-smart octopi have been discovered.

The contact with the octopuses had an eerie grandeur that I enjoyed, but so much of this story involves Ha's philosophical conversations with an android.And therein lies both the strength and weakness of this novel – this sort of intellectual food-for-thought is compelling enough for some of us (raises hand), but while stuff does happen, nobody would describe this as plot-driven storytelling.

Its techno-thriller parts have pacing and suspense issues that would normally decrease my enjoyment. In the outside world there is a young man, Rustem, who is a genius freelance hacker, much like the heroes of William Gibson’s early cyberpunk novels. Of course we would be equally strange to it: a perspectival switch that the novel explicitly plays with. We have three main story and time lines: one taking place on an island where we follow a scientist investigating the emergence of an intelligent octopus species (or I should say, even more intelligent than real octopuses already are); one that follows some hacker dude; and one about a trafficked man enslaved on an automated fishing vessel.She can't leave the place because it's owned by a big tech company that wants to monetize discovery and expects Ha to help them. Ha Nguyen’s supposedly groundbreaking work on octopus consciousness, don’t exactly offer deep insight into the nature of awareness; nor does Dr. Nayler's masterful debut combines fascinating science and well-wrought characters to deliver a deep dive into the nature of intelligent life . Good science fiction is imaginative entertainment, and The Mountain in the Sea certainly is entertaining.

I DID wonder how all those pieces were going to jigsaw together, but it was done flawlessly (even though, on audio, it took my sludgy brain a bit to keep up with the jogs). It reminds me of classic works from authors like Isaac Asimov and David Brin or David Walton's Three Laws Lethal.Esperaba un libro de CF de esos de “primer contacto” que suelen ser muy efectivos pero me he encontrado con un libro en el que ese tema se desarrolla poco o nada hasta este 70%. Este libro es CF de la buena, si bien tiene una al principio estructura confusa, no molesta, te vas adaptando rápido al igual que el autor va moldeando una historia fascinante, original, muy trabajada y estudiada. It's a lot of take on, especially in a book marketed as a "sci-fi thriller," and one that is likely to be in contention for the Hugo this year. Concretamente de " Cómo piensan los océanos", de la Doctora Ha y "Edificando mentes", de la Doctora Arnkatla.