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64 pages 2 hours read

Ray Nayler

The Mountain in the Sea

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2022

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Important Quotes

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Content Warning: This section of the book and the guide discusses enslavement and death by suicide.

“The faces are uncanny. Most people prefer the blur.”


(Part 1, Chapter 1, Page 6)

The novel begins with the woman in the abglanz identity shield. An anonymous figure, never named, she hides her facial features behind digital filters. As an opening character, she establishes the setting as a world where technology contributes to social isolation. The mask is a literal interface and highlights the ways that communication has become less personal and more distanced. People’s preference for the blurred setting rather than a human face references the uncanny place where verisimilitude evokes feelings of revulsion or unease. The preference foreshadows Evrim’s backstory and rejection from society. Additionally, the shield suggests that facial recognition technology monitors the citizenry, and only people with the right resources are immune to surveillance and accountability.

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“We, on the other hand, can now reconstruct the entire castle, down to the finest detail: not only every stitch of its tapestries, but every scheme that flitted through the minds of the courtiers who lived and died in it.”


(Part 1, Chapter 5, Page 31)

In an epigraph from her book, Dr. Mínervudóttir-Chan brags that modern science has unlocked the mysteries of the human mind. She compares her predecessors to archaeologists who could capture only traces of a fortress from ruins and shards. In contrast, her company can paint a vivid picture of not only the structure and its contents but all the thoughts of the people who once lived there. Dr. Mínervudóttir-Chan is credited for inventing impressive and groundbreaking AI technology, but her assertion is a foreboding description of technology that is too invasive and all-encompassing in scope. To manufacture a mind is also to control and own it.

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“The truth was, Rustem lived much of his time outside of his physical environment, glued to his terminals for hours, lost in the world of his work, coming to with the light through the window gone and his throat parched or his stomach empty.”


(Part 1, Chapter 5, Page 34)

A genius hacker, Rustem learned at a young age to think as AI systems do. His talent left him socially and physically isolated as he immersed himself in his work. This scene suggests that Rustem is good at his job not only because he’s intelligent but also because he actually lives more like a machine than a human being. He forgets the minimal human needs of eating and sleeping when he’s deep in his work. In addition, the scene recalls a description of Evrim as an android that neither eats nor sleeps. In mastering AI systems, Rustem has become more robotic himself.

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“They have been placed at about a zero-point-five on the Shchegolev Scale. They would have, with that rating, about the same rights as a house pet: protection from overt abuse, humane decommissioning.”


(Part 1, Chapter 6, Page 41)

Evrim explains to Ha that the automonks rank no higher on the fictional consciousness scale than a domesticated animal. The existence of such a scale highlights how the novel’s world encompasses a diversity of minds. The assessment of nonhuman minds is more than a philosophical exercise: It’s a means of determining rights and protection. Evrim’s casual comment indicates the novel’s concern with ecological empathy and the ethical implications of scientific advancement.

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“I remember Dr. Mínervudóttir-Chan saying she couldn’t tell whether they were a nation-state, a religion, or a corporation—but that they certainly know how to operate like all three, using whichever rules and laws are convenient to get their way.”


(Part 1, Chapter 6, Page 42)

Dr. Mínervudóttir-Chan describes the Tibetan Buddhist Republic as a conglomerate that combines politics, religion, and business into one unified agency. The description is a commentary on how transnational capitalism has infiltrated and redefined social institutions to maximize power and influence. Although the Tibetan government plays a heroic role at the novel’s end, Dr. Mínervudóttir-Chan’s comment highlights how such entities can take advantage of loopholes. Her comment, however, is also hypocritical: DIANIMA’s livelihood depends on selling its AI products to such governing and economic entities. In addition, Dr. Mínervudóttir-Chan is frustrated that she can’t buy the entire archipelago and must respect a previous contract held by the Tibetans, who are her AI tech competitors. Her comment exemplifies how corporations hypocritically criticize a system that they exploit if they can’t get their way.

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“[T]he smile was like the shadow of your own death. Evrim’s existence implicated yours. It implied you, too, were nothing more than a machine.”


(Part 1, Chapter 6, Page 45)

Ha theorizes that people feared Evrim because Evrim reminded them of their own mortality and insignificance. Instead of empathizing with Evrim because the android was conscious like humans, the public ostracized Evrim to maintain its superior hierarchical position. Ha hypothesizes that humans need to feel exceptional and superior, and Evrim’s manufactured perfection threatens both qualities.

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“The movements of the processing shift were efficient, mechanical. No waste of energy. Robotic.”


(Part 1, Chapter 7, Page 48)

On the Sea Wolf, the enslaved men work on an alienating and repetitious production line. They replace physical robots, which were expensive to maintain at sea. The exploitative capitalist system objectifies human lives as an abstract labor force. The ideal worker earns no wages, works like an automaton, and has no rights.

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“It follows the fish and the profit.”


(Part 1, Chapter 7, Page 51)

Thomas, a crew member who dies on the Sea Wolf, explains to Eiko how the AI captain is programmed. The line functions as the ship’s unofficial motto, and its poetic qualities contrast with the brutality of its meaning. The alliteration conveys a flowing quality, reflecting the ship’s setting on water. However, the ocean is nothing more than a place to extract resources, and in being cast asea, the men have no laws or institutions to protect them. The line is also short and efficient, just like the crude capitalist logic of churning commodities into cash.

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“Epicene, roped with muscle, streaked and slashed with scar tissue, Altantsetseg’s body looked like a statue battered but left standing after an air raid.”


(Part 1, Chapter 10, Page 82)

The scars on Altantsetseg’s body represent the memories and trauma of war. They’re visible markers on her body, and the novel draws a parallel between her experiences of violence and those of the enslaved men aboard the Sea Wolf. Eiko and Indra discuss where they can metaphorically store their terrifying memories and heal from the emotional scars of their enslavement. For Indra, the emotional scars never heal. Altantsetseg’s lived experiences are etched on her body and her mind. Her reticence is her way of coping with the emotional scars, which aren’t visible.

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“Despite everything we have done to the ocean, despite everything we have done to this world, life finds a way.”


(Part 2, Chapter 16, Page 132)

At the turtle sanctuary, Ha feels a rush of optimism when she sees the automonks at work releasing the sea turtle hatchlings. The hatchlings represent both the vulnerability and resilience of nature. The turtles can’t reach the waterline on their own, but with the combined efforts of humans and machines, the same combination that made them endangered, they have a chance to survive. The turtle hatchlings represent the hope that nature and humanity will endure.

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“What they want is one-point-five people in the relationship. They want to be the complete one, the person who controls the relationship—and they want the other person to be half a person.”


(Part 2, Chapter 17, Page 145)

Aynur explains the logic of the point-five partner, contending that her relationship with her construct is satisfying. The point-fives represent a narcissistic future wherein individuals no longer have the patience or inclination to interact with someone who is different. People prefer to customize their own companion and avoid the challenge of a real relationship. Aynur explains that she no longer has to deal with someone who has demands, who can annoy her, and who expects her to change. A foil to Ha’s project to communicate with the octopuses, the point-fives essentially remove the need to empathize and communicate with someone who has a different perspective, since the construct partner is based on a person’s mind.

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“I am not afraid of you. Not disgusted. I can be close to you, and not flinch. See?”


(Part 2, Chapter 18, Page 152)

Ha empathizes with Evrim’s singular loneliness, allowing her shoulder to touch Evrim’s as she leans in to look at a terminal. Physical contact is a significant form of communication, especially in the novel’s world, where people prefer holograms to real partners. For Ha, physical touch communicates trust and acceptance to Evrim, and her thoughts reveal that she doesn’t experience the uncanny unease that others do. Evrim flinches initially but then relaxes. Like the gift of the macaroon, Ha’s touch is a rare experience for Evrim and communicates belonging. In addition, the touch suggests that Ha is opening herself up to friendship rather than continuing to isolate herself. As Ha learns to better communicate with the octopuses, she also improves her relationship with Evrim.

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“[W]hat do humans do that doesn’t make the creature feel threatened? And the answer is—almost nothing.”


(Part 2, Chapter 18, Page 153)

As Ha and Evrim theorize about how to communicate with the octopuses, Evrim realizes that they may not like knowing what the animal’s first symbol means. Evrim argues that from the octopuses’ perspective, humans have been their nemesis. The comment suggests that this point of view is one Evrim shares with the octopuses. As the world’s first and possibly last conscious android, Evrim has mainly experienced hostility from humans and has been ostracized from society. Evrim’s character mirrors the octopuses, and both entities force Ha and humanity to see the world from a non-anthropocentric perspective.

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“Their existence isn’t for us. We can’t treat them like a portent or a symbol. Whatever they mean to us, their existence is their own.”


(Part 2, Chapter 21, Page 176)

Ha insists that the octopuses have not only their own language but also their own culture and way of experiencing the world. For humans to understand this perspective requires them to resist assimilating or appropriating the octopuses’ signs into human models. Ha’s approach respects difference and represents a “biosemiotic” understanding that humans aren’t the only ones who create and bestow meaning.

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“I always talk normally. Now is just the first time you are hearing me normally. I’m using the other translator.”


(Part 2, Chapter 23, Page 190)

Altantsetseg’s voice translator illustrates how communication is always mediated. When she switches to a working device, she points out that none of the words she utters have changed; only the secondary translated words that Ha receives have. Altantsetseg explains that she has been speaking “normally” the entire time, a comment that corrects the assumption that she lacks intelligence and demonstrates how poor translation is a type of misrepresentation. Her switch to the working translator communicates to Ha that Altantsetseg is beginning to trust her and wants to give her access to a more accurate version of herself.

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“They were expensive, but I know the republic now offers them to citizens in need, on a limited scale. And I heard you could have one prescribed to you by your insurance company, and that some private firms were even providing them as a benefit.”


(Part 3, Chapter 25, Page 210)

Deniz explains to Rustem that the point-fives were originally a product that only the elite could afford, but now they can be prescribed or included as a bonus in a hiring package. The expensive price point implies that the product catered to wealthy people who desired partners they could treat as their inferiors. Point-fives were marketed as a therapeutic solution for people who struggled to maintain a relationship, yet Ha admits that Kamran became an addiction that kept her from interacting with a world outside her own making. Companies that intended to overwork their employees included the point-fives as convenient companions to give the illusion of work-life balance. The normalization of point-fives depicts a world where human interaction has less value, and people seek (and are willing to pay for) experiences that don’t demand much from them.

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“I knew I had talent. I had what in the industry they call ‘high plasticity’: the ability to connect well to systems, to adapt to their control mechanisms.”


(Part 3, Chapter 26, Page 221)

Altantsetseg’s exceptional adaptability to different environments allows her to master Tibetan technology in which the controller’s human body merges with the drones. Her “high plasticity” is a character trait that alludes to Ha’s project of translation and communication. Ha considers human perspectives as limited and hierarchical, and such rigidity serves only as an additional barrier to successful communication with the octopuses. In contrast, Altantsetseg can fluidly modify herself to work in different environments, and she works primarily in systems that resemble the octopuses’ physiology and behavior.

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“That’s what we are, we humans—creatures that can forget […] Nothing can reside in our minds forever, etched into us. No resentment, and no joy. Time rubs it away.”


(Part 3, Chapter 29, Page 245)

Ha considers humanity’s ability to forget one of its defining traits. She believes that time gradually erases both positive and negative memories, and sees this as rejuvenation rather than loss. Her position contrasts with Indra’s, who wished to delete his intrusive, traumatic memories but couldn’t. Eiko likewise believed he could burn the memories he no longer wanted to keep in the inn but admitted that this didn’t always work. Ha values the freedom and release that forgetting can bring, where individuals aren’t anchored by or beholden to the past. What she neglects to address is how trauma, for some, can never be completely erased.

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“By the way—remember where that door is. Should you ever need us, come ring the bell. And when the time comes, do what is right.”


(Part 3, Chapter 30, Page 260)

Rustem’s encounter with the man in his fifties occurs in an ambiguous setting where Rustem is unsure whether he’s in a prison. The older man is never named, and the narrative never explains who he is or where Rustem was. Nayler has commented that he intended these ambiguities to give the older man the qualities of symbolizing Rustem’s conscience (Nayler, Ray. “Ray Nayler Answers Your Questions About The Mountain in the Sea.” YouTube, uploaded by Hugonauts, 11 Dec. 2023). When Rustem leaves the building, the man reminds him to remember the door and ring the bell if he needs help. This is a metaphor for remembering to listen to his conscience to make the right decision.

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“This society—what we call modern society, what we always think of as the most important time the world has ever known, simply because we are in it—is just the sausage made by grinding up history.”


(Part 3, Chapter 31, Page 261)

Dr. Mínervudóttir-Chan, who often uses the blunt and dismissive language of corporate-speak, tells a reporter that humans always think of their own era as the height of civilization. She uses the macabre metaphor of history being put through a meat grinder to assert that modern society is nothing more than a sausage, evoking a flippant and cannibalistic assessment of her times. She demystifies society’s greatness by revealing it as nothing more than an achievement made through wars, killings, and the environmental degradation. The metaphor serves as her rebuttal to why humans fear a conscious AI. She contends that an avenging AI is not about fear but the projection of humanity’s guilt for denigrating life and a desire for punishment. Whether Dr. Mínervudóttir-Chan actually believes this is ambiguous, since she later insists to Ha and Evrim that she staged the interview to protect Evrim.

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“This is why it can be so difficult to overcome trauma: Memories are inscribed in us. They are etched into our physical being.”


(Part 3, Chapter 32, Page 275)

In direct contrast to Ha’s contention that time “rubs” (245) memories away, Dr. Mínervudóttir-Chan acknowledges that trauma physically imprints the body. The epigraph appears in the chapter in which Indra dies by suicide. Eiko tried to convince Indra that all he needed was time, yet neither of them truly believed this was an effective coping strategy. Indra is trapped in enslavement on the Sea Wolf with no other resources to help him cope, and his death exemplifies the impossibility of forgetting.

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“[H]ere I think we guess at what being alive actually is. It is the ability to choose. We live in choices.”


(Part 3, Chapter 33, Page 285)

In an epigraph from Ha’s book, she contends that the ability to choose defines selfhood and what it means to be alive. The opposite of living is monotony and apathy, which is devoid of care or necessity for a different outcome, or oppression, which denies choice. Ha’s contention could apply to people who choose a familiar and predictable relationship with a point-five or to those who are oppressed and deprived of choices, like the Sea Wolf crew. The epigraph appears in the chapter where Evrim asserts agency and warns Altantsetseg to stop calling the android a robot. Evrim proves to be a living entity in refusing to return to the room and pretend to sleep as usual. Although not sleeping makes Evrim not human, abandoning pretense and choosing to do another activity is proof of life.

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“To be seen by others is the core of being. Perhaps this is why humans are driven to create minds besides our own: We want to be seen. We want to be found. We want to be discovered by another.”


(Part 3, Chapter 34, Page 295)

In an epigraph from her book, Dr. Mínervudóttir-Chan describes her lonely childhood as her motivation for creating AI. Her comment highlights how the counterpart of giving empathy is receiving it in the forms of acknowledgement, recognition, and validation. Like Rustem, Dr. Mínervudóttir-Chan felt neglected by her parents and found solace in her work on neural networks. Rustem is also her opposite, however, in that she builds AI systems and he hacks them. One layer of her past that the novel complicates is her role as an unreliable narrator. Ha isn’t convinced that the story of “little Arnkatla” is authentic, and she believes Dr. Mínervudóttir-Chan is crafty enough to build a “construct” of herself in her book to hide the true reason for building AI: “control” and “mastery.”

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“Powerful people know what they are doing, and why. All you know is how to do things.”


(Part 4, Chapter 38, Page 349)

Evrim accuses Dr. Mínervudóttir-Chan of incompetence and arrogance for never considering the consequences of her scientific endeavors. She admits that all she ever desired to be as a scientist was an “inventor” and “trailblazer” (347). Evrim’s emphasis on the “why” of science speaks to ethics and sustainability. The indictment is not only conceptual but also highly personal. Evrim characterizes DIANIMA’s projects as “accidents” and “mistakes” (349), implying that Evrim believes they’re also part of her short-sighted errors. Evrim resents Dr. Mínervudóttir-Chan for creating Evrim with no other goal than to reflect her will and genius. Evrim’s desire to know the “why” of existence and purpose demonstrates consciousness and experience of the human condition.

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“We consist only of change—but some change is fast, and some comes only over years, decades, a lifetime.”


(Part 4, Chapter 40, Page 359)

In an epigraph from her book, Dr. Mínervudóttir-Chan asserts that there are two selves: one rooted in the present and the other a permanent self in the past. She comments that a change in one’s permanent self can come too slowly, and the assertion offers a window into her devotion to technology. Technology prides itself on constant innovation to make things faster, more efficient, and more immediate. In addition, technology enables humans to experience the world beyond their own limits. Dr. Mínervudóttir-Chan draws an implicit relationship between people’s desire to undergo personal change and the ways that technology absorbs and distorts those desires.

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