The Mountain in the Sea

Ray Nayler is the author of the novel The Mountain in the Sea, which won the Locus Award for "Best First Novel," and the novella The Tusks of Extinction. Called "one of the up-and-coming masters of SF short fiction" by Locus, Nayler's stories have been published in Asimov's Science Fiction, Clarkesworld, Analog Science Fiction & Fact, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Lightspeed, Vice, and Nightmare, as well as in many "Best Of" anthologies. His stories have won the Clarkesworld Readers' Poll and the Asimov's Readers' Award, and his novelette "Sarcophagus" was a finalist for the Theodore Sturgeon Award.

Born in Quebec and raised in California, Nayler lived and worked abroad for two decades in Russia, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Vietnam, and Kosovo. A Russian speaker, he has also learned Turkmen, Albanian, Azerbaijani, and Vietnamese. He is currently a visiting scholar at the Institute for International Science and Technology Policy at The George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs. He holds an MA in global diplomacy from the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy at SOAS University of London. He lives in Washington, DC.

"A novel that is alert, intelligent, open."
-Nicole Flattery, The New York Times

"[A] staggering book . . . In all my years as a science journalist, I could never quite get my head around the so-called hard problem of consciousness . . . It wasn't until I read Ray Nayler's The Mountain in the Sea that I truly understood it in my bones . . . [The Mountain in the Sea] has the clothes of a futuristic, eco-punk or cyberpunk thriller, the guts of a philosophy seminar and the soul of a religious tract."
-Phillip Ball, New Scientist

"Exciting, cerebral, and surprisingly compassionate, The Mountain in the Sea shines a light on the importance of our fragile ecosystem. Read this riveting novel if you love fresh takes on science fiction or you're just fascinated by the mysteries of nature."
-Apple Books Review

"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 consciousness and self-awareness, the limitations of human language, and the reasons for those limitations, the novel teaches as it engages." -Kirkus Reviews

"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 cephalopods (I love cephalopods), but I stayed for the fascinating meditation on consciousness and personhood. I loved this book."