This could be read as a kind of companion to Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Children of Ruin, even though this book is set entirely on (a seemingly near-future) Earth and features no other-worldy alien life forms—just the alien species we already have on our own planet. The key creatures in this book are hyperintelligent octopuses, like in Children of Ruin, but the affinity between the two books goes deeper in that they both intensively explore questions of consciousness, intelligence, sentience, communication, the value of life, the very nature of life.

The book also cleverly depicts hierarchies of power, with creatures lower on the rungs viewed only in terms of profit or benefit for those on the higher ones. The humans view the octopuses (and, let’s face it, all life on the planet) in this way, and the AI minds in the book view the humans this way, and in each case the higher-ups seem implacable and incapable of being reasoned with. And yet, there’s compassion here, too, and the gradual realization by creatures all along the hierarchy that everyone and everything has its own inherent value.

As a linguist’s aside: I love that the book takes the problem of communication absolutely seriously. I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that nobody suddenly whips together a universal translator that enables humans and octopuses to start chatting away. And as a prolific reader’s aside: I love that not everything in this world is spelled out for you, I love that the book takes its time in getting to where it’s going, and I love where it ends up.

Further reading…