The Mountain in the Sea

Humankind discovers intelligent life in an octopus species with its own language and culture,and sets off a high-stakes global competition to dominate the future. Rumors begin to spread of a dangerous species of hyperintelligent octopus that may have developed its own language and culture. The marine biologist Dr. Ha Nguyenwho has spent her life researching cephalopod intelligencewill do anything for the chance to study them. The transnational tech corporation DIANIMA has sealed off the remote Con Dao Archipelagowhere the octopuses were discoveredfrom the rest of world. Dr. Nguyen travels to the islands to join DIANIMA’s team: a battle-scarred security agent and the world’s first android. The octopuses hold the key to unprecedented breakthroughs in extrahuman intelligence. The stakes are high: there are vast fortunes to be made by whoever can take advantage of the octopuses’ advancementsand as Dr. Nguyen struggles to communicate with the newly discovered speciesforces larger than DIANIMA close in to seize the octopuses for themselves. But no one has yet asked the octopuses what they think. Or what they might do about it. A near-future thriller about the nature of consciousnessRay Nayler’s The Mountain in the Sea is a dazzling literary debut and a mind-blowing dive into the treasure and wreckage of humankind’s legacy.