I like the person who recommended The Mountain in the Sea, but not the book itself

The Mountain in the Sea

Ray Nayler

USA

2022

It’s a bummer to get a recommendation from someone you like and have it be a complete failure. I won’t name and shame but this was recommended by a blogger I’ve followed for a long time. He’s great, but Ray Nayler‘s The Mountain in the Sea ain’t for me.

Fifty pages in, I was thinking of Michael Crichton — the story is very science-based but accessible and fast-paced. But it ran out of steam fast. The story wasn’t terribly interesting, there were too many threads that weren’t all interesting, and the characters are flat. Everything is accomplished in dialogue and I didn’t feel any tension. There is a lot of faux-philosophical discussions about conciousness (“What does it feel like to be a bat?”), and several descriptions of what octopuses do on YouTube videos.

Overall it seemed geared to younger audiences, but I’m not even sure that’s the case. I gave up a little past halfway.