Tonight on the GeekNights Book Club, we discuss Ray Nayler's The Mountain in the Sea. Recommended by the staff at LIC Book Culture it's a cyberpunk novel about minds and consciousness (among other things). It's worth a read.
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Got to Dungeon Crawler Carl last year after my nerd friends kept demanding I read it to get all the Princess Donut jokes and such. It was a pretty fun read. Like smashing Hitchhikers Guide together with D&D and a sprinkling of isekai. I enjoyed all the dungeon politics.
This is a debut novel, but Nayler isn’t a new author. He’s been published in short fiction magazines since 2012, and appears regularly in Asimov’s.
I wouldn’t use “cyberpunk” as the main label applied to this book. It has elements of cyberpunk, but it’s various themes are so much different than what that word used to mean so it’s less useful. I would describe it as a near future SF about consciousness in various forms. I keep thinking of M L Clark’s “holy triumvirate” of human, non-human organic, and non-human mechanical intelligence in SF (described here), which is just what this book focuses on, but isn’t a main feature of “cyberpunk”.
I read this around the time of Andor, and the slavery plots felt very similar (both I found very anxiety-inducing). You mention the revelation that the enforcers on the ship are also slaves - this isn’t that far from our modern day equivalents. Most coverage of slavery fishing focuses on the laborers, but I bet some of the crew is also being extorted.
You cannot imagine how happy I was when I was wandering through Bondi, and Not only did I find a place called Mongo Sushi, whose logo was a raptor-looking dinosaur, they also had a Neon sign of a Persian cat, and the kicker, it was on Carl Av.
I gotta get back out to Bondi. It’s been too long since I’ve been out that way.
Out of my last two visits, one was less than ideal, but overall, it’s a hell of a place to be. I’d fly down to hang out, for sure.
Dungeon Crawler Carl is fun as shit, and feels like Hunger Games decanted through Hitchhiker’s Guide starring Bruce Campbell. I find myself constantly surprised by the turns it takes, and while it starts as a cheesy video game thing where the characters get all kinds of achievements and loot, it quickly turns into a takedown of fascism and consumerism, highlighting the importance of unionizing and leveraging what power you have when you feel powerless.
It definitely doesn’t go to the level of Ready Player One, but you have to be willing to accept the silliness of the video game tropes. But it seems like you’ve already made up your minds about it, so ¯_(ツ)_/¯
I didn’t make up my mind about it. I’m just saying that based on what little information I have it appears to be low-brow, nerd-pandering, woo-game, humor.
Even as far as HHG2G and Bruce Campbell stuff go, they are just fine, but I like them a lot less than most other nerdy people. The wild wacky juvenile humor makes me roll my eyes more often than it makes me laugh.
That’s fine, I’m just saying that I’m finding it a lot of fun - it is a little cheesy and silly with the video game stuff, but much less woo-game than you’d think. And once they established the world and turn the focus to the characters, I was locked in. Every book had a turn I didn’t see coming, but made perfect sense and escalated the stakes in an incredibly engaging way. And just like you talked about with Dresden, you can see the author getting better and refining his themes as the series goes on.
I’m not even trying to convince you to read it, I’m just clarifying that while the veneer that you assumed is there, it’s a lot deeper and more engaging than you’d think.
Amina al-Sirafi is such a fun read! Can’t wait to hear what you think. I didn’t realise her next book was out either, thanks for that. Insta-buy.
I might as well read the first Dungeon Crawler book too, just to see what the deal is. If it is short, maybe you can do that as a bonus book club episode 