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Where the Axe Is Buried
All systems fail. All societies crumble. All worlds end.
In the authoritarian Federation, there is a plot to assassinate and replace the President, a man who has downloaded his mind to a succession of new bodies to maintain his grip on power. Meanwhile, on the fringes of a Western Europe that has renounced human governance in favor of ostensibly more efficient, objective, and peaceful AI Prime Ministers, an experimental artificial mind is malfunctioning, threatening to set off a chain of events that may spell the end of the Western world.
As the Federation and the West both start to crumble, Lilia, the brilliant scientist whose invention may be central to bringing down the seemingly immortal President, goes on the run, trying to break out from a near-impenetrable web of Federation surveillance. Her fate is bound up with a worldwide group of others fighting against the global status quo: Palmer, the man Lilia left behind in London, desperate to solve the mystery of her disappearance; Zoya, a veteran activist imprisoned in the taiga, whose book has inspired a revolutionary movement; Nikolai, the President’s personal physician, who has been forced into more and more harrowing decisions as he navigates the Federation’s palace politics; and Nurlan, the hapless parliamentary staffer whose attempt to save his Republic goes terribly awry. And then there is Krotov, head of the Federation’s security services, whose plots, agents, and assassins are everywhere.
Following the success of his debut novel, The Mountain in the Sea, Ray Nayler launches readers into a thrilling near-future world of geopolitical espionage. A cybernetic novel of political intrigue, Where the Axe is Buried combines the story of a near-impossible revolutionary operation with a blistering indictment of the many forms of authoritarianism that suffocate human freedom.
In the authoritarian Federation, there is a plot to assassinate and replace the President, a man who has downloaded his mind to a succession of new bodies to maintain his grip on power. Meanwhile, on the fringes of a Western Europe that has renounced human governance in favor of ostensibly more efficient, objective, and peaceful AI Prime Ministers, an experimental artificial mind is malfunctioning, threatening to set off a chain of events that may spell the end of the Western world.
As the Federation and the West both start to crumble, Lilia, the brilliant scientist whose invention may be central to bringing down the seemingly immortal President, goes on the run, trying to break out from a near-impenetrable web of Federation surveillance. Her fate is bound up with a worldwide group of others fighting against the global status quo: Palmer, the man Lilia left behind in London, desperate to solve the mystery of her disappearance; Zoya, a veteran activist imprisoned in the taiga, whose book has inspired a revolutionary movement; Nikolai, the President’s personal physician, who has been forced into more and more harrowing decisions as he navigates the Federation’s palace politics; and Nurlan, the hapless parliamentary staffer whose attempt to save his Republic goes terribly awry. And then there is Krotov, head of the Federation’s security services, whose plots, agents, and assassins are everywhere.
Following the success of his debut novel, The Mountain in the Sea, Ray Nayler launches readers into a thrilling near-future world of geopolitical espionage. A cybernetic novel of political intrigue, Where the Axe is Buried combines the story of a near-impossible revolutionary operation with a blistering indictment of the many forms of authoritarianism that suffocate human freedom.
327 pages, Hardcover
First published April 1, 2025
288 people are currently reading
15286 people want to read
About the author
Ray Nayler
83 books988 followersHugo and Locus Award winning author Ray Nayler was born in Quebec and raised in California. He lived and worked abroad for two decades in Russia, Central Asia, the Caucasus, the Balkans, and in Vietnam.
Ray's Locus Award winning first novel was The Mountain in the Sea, which was also a finalist for the Nebula, the Arthur C. Clarke, and the Los Angeles Times' Ray Bradbury Awards.
Ray's novella The Tusks of Extinction won the 2025 Hugo Award, and was also a Nebula and Locus Award finalist.
His third book, the cybernetic political thriller Where the Axe is Buried, was published in April of 2025.
Ray most recently served as international advisor to the Office of National Marine Sanctuaries at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and as visiting scholar at the George Washington University's Institute for International Science and Technology Policy.
Ray lives in Washington, DC with his wife Anna, their daughter Lydia, and two rescued cats.
Ray's Locus Award winning first novel was The Mountain in the Sea, which was also a finalist for the Nebula, the Arthur C. Clarke, and the Los Angeles Times' Ray Bradbury Awards.
Ray's novella The Tusks of Extinction won the 2025 Hugo Award, and was also a Nebula and Locus Award finalist.
His third book, the cybernetic political thriller Where the Axe is Buried, was published in April of 2025.
Ray most recently served as international advisor to the Office of National Marine Sanctuaries at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and as visiting scholar at the George Washington University's Institute for International Science and Technology Policy.
Ray lives in Washington, DC with his wife Anna, their daughter Lydia, and two rescued cats.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 376 reviews
September 28, 2024
this book has left me reeling. in a good way.
the chapters are told from the perspectives of our main characters, which sometimes cross each other.
there’s two elements that i found the most interesting. disclaimer - i am not knowledgeable about all topics and geopolitical aspects that have served as inspiration for this novel, so i will speak of what i know. as a person with russian heritage and family that lives there in near poverty but still blindly and actively supports the regime, or shrugs in apathy, the tale of zoya hit close to home. as someone who has not seen that part of the family in years, lilia was relatable to me. nayler also touched upon the topic of refugees and their worth, depending on their home country. does a refugee from an agressor state deserve pity? in general, i felt like „where the axe is buried“ presented a pretty accurate account of the way russia has been functioning.
„In the years that followed, Zoya and her allies would come to understand that they would never win. Their resistance to power was purely symbolic.“
„And when the West makes their accusations,“ Krotov said, „we accuse them of lying. And we repeat our own lie to them again. Forever.“
these parts of the book reflected the feeling of helplessness that i see in russian speaking anti-authoritarian communities. what can be done against such a system? in „where the axe is buried“, the author describes an ending so not in tune with the bleak starting situation, it gave me whiplash. for that, i am deducting one star.
the second aspect i found interesting was the setup and fall of the PMs.
„We mystified the public with the idea that the machines were intelligent, maybe even conscious, when they really were nothing more than incredibly advanced statistical calculators, designed to give us the kinds of solutions we needed them to give.“
the next person that says „oh let me just ask chatgpt“ to my face will get slapped with this book. the gen ai craze is costing me my last nerve. that is all i will be saying on this matter thank you :)
one last thing - the book was well written, i really enjoyed naylers style. however, my knowledge of the russian language and folklore did help me out at multiple points. if this book is meant for people unfamiliar with russian, perhaps it would be smart to include a glossary. i feel like some small but interesting aspects of the story would be lost otherwise.
thank you to netgalley and farrar, straus and giroux for the arc provided in exchange for an honest review.
the chapters are told from the perspectives of our main characters, which sometimes cross each other.
there’s two elements that i found the most interesting. disclaimer - i am not knowledgeable about all topics and geopolitical aspects that have served as inspiration for this novel, so i will speak of what i know. as a person with russian heritage and family that lives there in near poverty but still blindly and actively supports the regime, or shrugs in apathy, the tale of zoya hit close to home. as someone who has not seen that part of the family in years, lilia was relatable to me. nayler also touched upon the topic of refugees and their worth, depending on their home country. does a refugee from an agressor state deserve pity? in general, i felt like „where the axe is buried“ presented a pretty accurate account of the way russia has been functioning.
„In the years that followed, Zoya and her allies would come to understand that they would never win. Their resistance to power was purely symbolic.“
„And when the West makes their accusations,“ Krotov said, „we accuse them of lying. And we repeat our own lie to them again. Forever.“
these parts of the book reflected the feeling of helplessness that i see in russian speaking anti-authoritarian communities. what can be done against such a system? in „where the axe is buried“, the author describes an ending so not in tune with the bleak starting situation, it gave me whiplash. for that, i am deducting one star.
the second aspect i found interesting was the setup and fall of the PMs.
„We mystified the public with the idea that the machines were intelligent, maybe even conscious, when they really were nothing more than incredibly advanced statistical calculators, designed to give us the kinds of solutions we needed them to give.“
the next person that says „oh let me just ask chatgpt“ to my face will get slapped with this book. the gen ai craze is costing me my last nerve. that is all i will be saying on this matter thank you :)
one last thing - the book was well written, i really enjoyed naylers style. however, my knowledge of the russian language and folklore did help me out at multiple points. if this book is meant for people unfamiliar with russian, perhaps it would be smart to include a glossary. i feel like some small but interesting aspects of the story would be lost otherwise.
thank you to netgalley and farrar, straus and giroux for the arc provided in exchange for an honest review.
December 3, 2024
Not since Cloud Atlas has multi-person perspective been as exciting. The manner in which Ray does scene shift and zooming is nothing short of genius.
December 11, 2024
[NetGalley Read #19]
4.5 ⭐
"Any way you looked at it, a human being was doing the killing. The machine was nothing but a tool."
Excellent.
Great story. Good characters.
An acute examination of evil, power, resistance, our overdependence on technology and its pitfalls, and what it means to be human in a world gone mad.
- Observation Shadow (Book 1: Chapters 1–12)
A solid setup. The narrative establishes relationships between characters from different places/countries, builds their motivations, reveals their backgrounds, and creates a dystopian world that is barbaric, cruel, and unforgiving. Despite all this, there remains a glimmer of hope and resistance.
- The Children of Sarez (Book 2: Chapters 13–24)
Secrets are revealed. Governments fall. The world descends into chaos. The plot thickens.
- What the Wasps Know (Book 3: Chapters 25–36)
Heavily focused on The Federation (which makes sense). Great payoffs.
All in all, a great book. Not overly long and definitely worth the time.
Recommended. 👍
- Plot:
In the authoritarian Federation, there is a plot to assassinate and replace the President, a man who has downloaded his mind to a succession of new bodies to maintain his grip on power. Meanwhile, on the fringes of a Western Europe that has renounced human governance in favor of ostensibly more efficient, objective, and peaceful AI Prime Ministers, an experimental artificial mind is malfunctioning, threatening to set off a chain of events that may spell the end of the Western world.
As the Federation and the West both start to crumble, Lilia, the brilliant scientist whose invention may be central to bringing down the seemingly immortal President, goes on the run, trying to break out from a near-impenetrable web of Federation surveillance. Her fate is bound up with a worldwide group of others fighting against the global status quo: Palmer, the man Lilia left behind in London, desperate to solve the mystery of her disappearance; Zoya, a veteran activist imprisoned in the taiga, whose book has inspired a revolutionary movement; Nikolai, the President’s personal physician, who has been forced into more and more harrowing decisions as he navigates the Federation’s palace politics; and Nurlan, the hapless parliamentary staffer whose attempt to save his Republic goes terribly awry. And then there is Krotov, head of the Federation’s security services, whose plots, agents, and assassins are everywhere.
4.5 ⭐
"Any way you looked at it, a human being was doing the killing. The machine was nothing but a tool."
Excellent.
Great story. Good characters.
An acute examination of evil, power, resistance, our overdependence on technology and its pitfalls, and what it means to be human in a world gone mad.
- Observation Shadow (Book 1: Chapters 1–12)
A solid setup. The narrative establishes relationships between characters from different places/countries, builds their motivations, reveals their backgrounds, and creates a dystopian world that is barbaric, cruel, and unforgiving. Despite all this, there remains a glimmer of hope and resistance.
- The Children of Sarez (Book 2: Chapters 13–24)
Secrets are revealed. Governments fall. The world descends into chaos. The plot thickens.
- What the Wasps Know (Book 3: Chapters 25–36)
Heavily focused on The Federation (which makes sense). Great payoffs.
All in all, a great book. Not overly long and definitely worth the time.
Recommended. 👍
- Plot:
In the authoritarian Federation, there is a plot to assassinate and replace the President, a man who has downloaded his mind to a succession of new bodies to maintain his grip on power. Meanwhile, on the fringes of a Western Europe that has renounced human governance in favor of ostensibly more efficient, objective, and peaceful AI Prime Ministers, an experimental artificial mind is malfunctioning, threatening to set off a chain of events that may spell the end of the Western world.
As the Federation and the West both start to crumble, Lilia, the brilliant scientist whose invention may be central to bringing down the seemingly immortal President, goes on the run, trying to break out from a near-impenetrable web of Federation surveillance. Her fate is bound up with a worldwide group of others fighting against the global status quo: Palmer, the man Lilia left behind in London, desperate to solve the mystery of her disappearance; Zoya, a veteran activist imprisoned in the taiga, whose book has inspired a revolutionary movement; Nikolai, the President’s personal physician, who has been forced into more and more harrowing decisions as he navigates the Federation’s palace politics; and Nurlan, the hapless parliamentary staffer whose attempt to save his Republic goes terribly awry. And then there is Krotov, head of the Federation’s security services, whose plots, agents, and assassins are everywhere.
April 3, 2025
"There is no solution to disagreement. No technology that can overcome it. No leader that can repress it. Only the eternal flow of argument."
3.5 stars. This managed to capture my interest, but was generally a pretty bleak and depressing affair that lays bear humanity's innate tendencies towards self-destruction, cruelty and obstinance - traits that technology ultimately amplifies rather than ameliorates. And it is technology of course that accelerates the ceding of personal freedoms in the name of efficiency, leading down a dark, authoritarian road.
The narrative tries to straddle the line between techno-thriller and reflective dystopia, but manages to largely miss the mark on both. Nayler introduces some intriguing high-tech that is leveraged by those mounting a resistance to said authoritarianism, though the explanations never feel like more than high level hand waving. He also introduces some interesting questions about AI, particularly whether AI tasked with improving human society might ultimately end itself, for that very reason? Interesting concept, but seems like wishful thinking to me :)
3.5 stars. This managed to capture my interest, but was generally a pretty bleak and depressing affair that lays bear humanity's innate tendencies towards self-destruction, cruelty and obstinance - traits that technology ultimately amplifies rather than ameliorates. And it is technology of course that accelerates the ceding of personal freedoms in the name of efficiency, leading down a dark, authoritarian road.
The narrative tries to straddle the line between techno-thriller and reflective dystopia, but manages to largely miss the mark on both. Nayler introduces some intriguing high-tech that is leveraged by those mounting a resistance to said authoritarianism, though the explanations never feel like more than high level hand waving. He also introduces some interesting questions about AI, particularly whether AI tasked with improving human society might ultimately end itself, for that very reason? Interesting concept, but seems like wishful thinking to me :)
December 3, 2024
I received an eARC of this book through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
Watching a new voice in SFF flex like this incredible. I was reminded by the author bio that Nayler has an MA in Global Diplomacy, and worked in Central Asia, Russia, and surrounding countries for 20 years, and currently lives in DC. You can see the experience in this book. Readers who read his debut may be surprised by Where the Axe is Buried. His first novel and novella were both deeply concerned with animals, animal consciousness, those webs of interactions on a slightly more individual level. But reading this I found the through-line of Nayler's writing becoming clear: systems.
This book takes you by the hand and pulls you through a constellation of (unnamed, but guessable) places in Europe, seen through the eyes of myriad people thrashing towards one goal: change. Like various creatures caught in a web, they pull in their own directions but they do all, in theory, have one goal. With our birds-eye view we can glimpse the web, see the threads the tie them together, transfer the motion of one person through to another person. It's an intricate book, and one with many questions to ask. Some may walk away from it feeling unsatisfied, because Nayler, wisely, doesn't answer most of them. Can systems ever really change? What does it mean to end a regime? Isn't it really that power simply changes its mask, puts on a new guise the public is happy to play along with? What does it really mean to have responsibility? Is it individual or collective?
I'll be thinking about this book for a long time, just like Nayler's last and I'm thrilled I had the opportunity to read the ARC.
Watching a new voice in SFF flex like this incredible. I was reminded by the author bio that Nayler has an MA in Global Diplomacy, and worked in Central Asia, Russia, and surrounding countries for 20 years, and currently lives in DC. You can see the experience in this book. Readers who read his debut may be surprised by Where the Axe is Buried. His first novel and novella were both deeply concerned with animals, animal consciousness, those webs of interactions on a slightly more individual level. But reading this I found the through-line of Nayler's writing becoming clear: systems.
This book takes you by the hand and pulls you through a constellation of (unnamed, but guessable) places in Europe, seen through the eyes of myriad people thrashing towards one goal: change. Like various creatures caught in a web, they pull in their own directions but they do all, in theory, have one goal. With our birds-eye view we can glimpse the web, see the threads the tie them together, transfer the motion of one person through to another person. It's an intricate book, and one with many questions to ask. Some may walk away from it feeling unsatisfied, because Nayler, wisely, doesn't answer most of them. Can systems ever really change? What does it mean to end a regime? Isn't it really that power simply changes its mask, puts on a new guise the public is happy to play along with? What does it really mean to have responsibility? Is it individual or collective?
I'll be thinking about this book for a long time, just like Nayler's last and I'm thrilled I had the opportunity to read the ARC.
January 15, 2025
When an author makes a debut like Mountain in the Sea, they have my attention for the rest of time. Two years ago my top read of 2023 was the very powerfully philosophical science fiction novel by Ray Nayler. The novel got plenty of attention that year, some readers were interested in the AI issues, some for the climate change horrors. For me, the very Lem-influenced SF novel hit about every sweet spot I have in a piece of SF.
Nayler’s combination of SF fandom, knowledge of science, and intergovernmental experience created a literary unicorn. One unbelievable alchemy of thought and talent spit out this incredible masterpiece that shook me to my core. If some thought The Mountain in the Sea was preaching to the choir, I would like to point out there has never been anything quite like it.
It was a beautiful feeling to read it. A science fiction novel that has so much to say is not rare, but one that does it with skill, style, and heart in equal measure is a pretty special treat. To follow up that novel was nearly an impossible task. Moving to the novella format was a smart move. Tusks of Extinction was a short but powerful work of Science fiction that had me nearly drooling for the next work. Nayler had shown with those first two books that he was capable of high-concept novels of philosophical SF. In PKD circles we are always looking for and recommending Dickian novels, and I will point out those Dickian moments for sure, but Nayler is more clearly influenced by Stanislaw Lem.
The sophomore novel is Where the Axe is Buried (Axe when I am lazy) when Ray hinted at this book in our second interview I was sold. So that also means looking for a third interview and at this pace, I hope we continue to make the podcast interview a tradition.
Where the Axe is Buried is a fantastic political science fiction novel that tells a story a few hundred years in the future to reflect the insane oligarchy developing right before our eyes. What you need to understand is Nayler’s allegorical lens is informed by the politics in several countries. Certainly it comments on Trump, but I suspect Putin is more of a target.
I also can’t ignore the fact that my next novel (Great America in Dead World - to be released by Quoir date TBA) and Axe comment on many of the same themes. They are very different, but I of course enjoy that Nayler is commenting on similar themes.
Where the Axe is Buried is not released until April so if you want to go unspoiled but you trust me here is where you stop reading and click away to pre-order it. Without spoilers, I would say this is a political thriller set a few centuries in the future, but no date is given. It is our future, it is Earth, but Nayler does a good job of world-building so it feels like a world we are centuries removed from. The politics of Axe are interesting, and the narrative is filled with more ideas than action. The ideas never overload the story and the well-defined characters help to balance it all out.
This novel is a meditation on power and resistance, oligarchy, and activism. Where the Axe is Buried is science fiction at its best because it uses the gee-whiz and the future setting to ask serious questions about the political push-pull between leaders and the population. In other words, I think it is an important piece of work.
There are Dickian, as Phil Dickian elements of world-building like the social credit score. Citizens get benefits by doing good deeds or at least being seen to do them. In a PKD novel the so-called subhuman characters would drive the action being desperate to raise their social credit. In Nayler's novel, it is one of many examples of how this society evolved. The plot is driven by political mechanics that become the structure for which many philosophical ideas are considered. Hell yeah. We are not talking about car chases or shoot-outs but a clash of ideas and I am here for it.
So now let's go deeper into what happened in this novel. When I first read about this I assumed this was a super far-future Dune-like civilization. Some elements border on Cyberpunk, but don’t go into this novel expecting that. This novel is a political drama that is built on Speculative allegory. This is a novel about a totalitarian Federation whose president has remained in power by downloading his mind to multiple new bodies. Lilia is the scientist who has leveled the playing field but figuring out how to digitize Zoya, an old activist in exile for writing the inspiring book The Forever Argument. Many excellent moments are quotes from this book inside the book.
“Zoya let honey run into her cup from a spoon. “I thought you were a ghost. That I was losing my mind. That is what I have been afraid of most of all. That the president exiled me here so the isolation would tear my mind apart. But then I understood - you are real, but my digital eye cannot see you. Only my human eye can. President did not blind me; With a rubber bullet, in that protest decades ago, when I was still young. Just like in Byzantine. He only half finished the job.”
So yes Axe plays with technology in lots of creative ways, these are really the only moments that border on cyberpunk. The idea that Zoya is on the edge of becoming a living computer program reminded me of the saying “You can kill the revolutionary but not the revolution” and this novel imagines if the revolutionary, at least her ideals, her mind cannot be destroyed. Nayler has already experimented with digital souls and disembodied simulated living. Some terrifying moments remind of his last novella, of course, he is expanding the idea here.
In this world, the President is already there. Moving from body to body, is a process that at this point is only available to him. “He hated touching the president. He hated being anywhere near him. He hated being here in the presidential palace, this fake monstrosity of real Italian marble, with its fake empire chairs in real gold leaf and real silk. He hated returning to the federation at all.”
“What a world, Nikolai,” the president had said. “no old age, no sickness, and no death. Finally, we can have both our wisdom and our health.”
The president said we - but it was only he who could have those things. It was only he who could escape old age, sickness, and death.”
The President certainly has hallmarks of both Trump and Putin, even in the short quote above but I suspect it is Putin who is most often satirizing. It doesn’t matter as Axe is about the strongman and oligarchic leader.
At times the novel does a wonderful job of commenting on the tech bros and their approach of trying tech solutions to the functions of wider society. While the Federation in the novel is run by a strong man, another group of nations has given control to the PM’s, AI-run Prime Ministers. This is the Tech Bros ideal leadership. One they don’t just buy governments but programs them. As Elon Musk essentially just bought America this felt prophetic. Sure, they will sell you that it is efficient, rational, practical, and ethical.
“I think the PM is doing what it is designed to do,” George said.
“cause a revolution?”
“No. We designed it to calculate human needs and deconflict those needs in order to promote human thriving. Deconfliction of needs is the core of its assignment. But from the outside it can look chaotic. When Greece rationalized, there were riots. People even died. But their PM pulled grease out of debt, and did it without getting their social services. Their PM saw ways forward no human mind could see. Their economy is humming along now. It's a success story. But they hung by their fingernails for a while. They almost voted to pull the plug. Rationalization one in a secret session by a single vote. It was our biggest test period and rationalization pulled through.”
Look at all the ideas, and commentary in this one paragraph. The humans who have given control to the technology often believe that it always has their best interests at heart. Nayler wrote this a while ago, so how could he have predicted we would have a foreign-born billionaire tech bro shadow president rationalizing suffering in the economy. Multiple political systems are explored through the mirror of SF, and throughout the novel you find dense idea rich passages and no matter how I try to convey them I don’t think I will do them justice. While the topic matter is not as groundbreaking as Mountain in the Sea this novel is a powerful commentary on one of the most important issues of the moment. The stress points of democracy.
“That was how it was. One day you had your own country. Next day you were a refugee. You were in a line, waiting to be someone again. To be legal again. Not to be nothing.
You could spend your whole life waiting.”
As we await the oligarch’s insurrectionist man baby who never stopped crying over the last four years to return to an office he should be disqualified from. The question of becoming refugees in our country hits harder. I know Nayler was hoping he was writing about the fate we narrowly missed, instead, we are left processing this type of SF novel at a time wondering if it is hitting to close to home.
“They came for him at night. There was a knock at the door. Vitaly had been in bed fully dressed, staring at the ceiling, waiting. He had taken two pain pills in preparation for the journey.
He had known they were coming. Late in the evening, his social credit score dropped to 0. The digital lock clicked shut, bolting him inside the apartment. The feed screen on the wall went dark period his portable terminal shut down.”
But Zoya exists out there, her book, and the books she is yet to write, her exile ended as she waits a new body and freedom from the forms that the Federation can jail or destroy.
“But she could not find a body.
Help.
Yes, there it was. Her voice.
We will. You are with friends. And soon, you will have a body as well.
A body?
Yes. Soon. This intermediate space can be disorienting. You are used to having a form, and now you have none. The brain is not meant to operate this way. You are looking for feedback, the feeling of pressing against something in the world. But there is none. We know this is distressing. We won't keep you here for long but we need you to know what is going to happen.
I am dead.
You are a pattern of the person you were all of her, all of Zoya Alekseyena. But yes that person is gone in the physical world.
“… if there were a government out there that could build us a perfect world, our first instinct would be to destroy it…
What I ask most urgently is that someone write the book that counters this one…”
And there is one last part that struck me. As the democrats offer pathetic resistance to the oligarchs, as big tech leaders and media members fly down to Florida to kiss Trump’s ring this next passage hit me like a ton of bricks.
“This morning he read; Imagine what you would be without resistance. Everyone complicit in your plans, or helpless in the face of them. Every desire that flickered in your brain fulfilled. Every person obedient to you. Imagine how, as the day followed and everything was granted to you, your desires would metastasize there is no cancer like the will unopposed.
What we need most is opposition it keeps us not only honest but human. Without it, any one of us is a monster. Where there is complacency, every human power becomes monstrous. Toughness is not agreement; it is the collective act of resisting one another.”
Ray Nayler’s Where the Axe is Buried is a third piece of evidence that science fiction has found one of its most important voices. Here is hoping that our systems are as fragile as the ones in this book. This made an interesting pairing with my current read Jack London’s The Iron Heel. I hope in a hundred years we can talk about how we should’ve listened to Nayler.
Nayler’s combination of SF fandom, knowledge of science, and intergovernmental experience created a literary unicorn. One unbelievable alchemy of thought and talent spit out this incredible masterpiece that shook me to my core. If some thought The Mountain in the Sea was preaching to the choir, I would like to point out there has never been anything quite like it.
It was a beautiful feeling to read it. A science fiction novel that has so much to say is not rare, but one that does it with skill, style, and heart in equal measure is a pretty special treat. To follow up that novel was nearly an impossible task. Moving to the novella format was a smart move. Tusks of Extinction was a short but powerful work of Science fiction that had me nearly drooling for the next work. Nayler had shown with those first two books that he was capable of high-concept novels of philosophical SF. In PKD circles we are always looking for and recommending Dickian novels, and I will point out those Dickian moments for sure, but Nayler is more clearly influenced by Stanislaw Lem.
The sophomore novel is Where the Axe is Buried (Axe when I am lazy) when Ray hinted at this book in our second interview I was sold. So that also means looking for a third interview and at this pace, I hope we continue to make the podcast interview a tradition.
Where the Axe is Buried is a fantastic political science fiction novel that tells a story a few hundred years in the future to reflect the insane oligarchy developing right before our eyes. What you need to understand is Nayler’s allegorical lens is informed by the politics in several countries. Certainly it comments on Trump, but I suspect Putin is more of a target.
I also can’t ignore the fact that my next novel (Great America in Dead World - to be released by Quoir date TBA) and Axe comment on many of the same themes. They are very different, but I of course enjoy that Nayler is commenting on similar themes.
Where the Axe is Buried is not released until April so if you want to go unspoiled but you trust me here is where you stop reading and click away to pre-order it. Without spoilers, I would say this is a political thriller set a few centuries in the future, but no date is given. It is our future, it is Earth, but Nayler does a good job of world-building so it feels like a world we are centuries removed from. The politics of Axe are interesting, and the narrative is filled with more ideas than action. The ideas never overload the story and the well-defined characters help to balance it all out.
This novel is a meditation on power and resistance, oligarchy, and activism. Where the Axe is Buried is science fiction at its best because it uses the gee-whiz and the future setting to ask serious questions about the political push-pull between leaders and the population. In other words, I think it is an important piece of work.
There are Dickian, as Phil Dickian elements of world-building like the social credit score. Citizens get benefits by doing good deeds or at least being seen to do them. In a PKD novel the so-called subhuman characters would drive the action being desperate to raise their social credit. In Nayler's novel, it is one of many examples of how this society evolved. The plot is driven by political mechanics that become the structure for which many philosophical ideas are considered. Hell yeah. We are not talking about car chases or shoot-outs but a clash of ideas and I am here for it.
So now let's go deeper into what happened in this novel. When I first read about this I assumed this was a super far-future Dune-like civilization. Some elements border on Cyberpunk, but don’t go into this novel expecting that. This novel is a political drama that is built on Speculative allegory. This is a novel about a totalitarian Federation whose president has remained in power by downloading his mind to multiple new bodies. Lilia is the scientist who has leveled the playing field but figuring out how to digitize Zoya, an old activist in exile for writing the inspiring book The Forever Argument. Many excellent moments are quotes from this book inside the book.
“Zoya let honey run into her cup from a spoon. “I thought you were a ghost. That I was losing my mind. That is what I have been afraid of most of all. That the president exiled me here so the isolation would tear my mind apart. But then I understood - you are real, but my digital eye cannot see you. Only my human eye can. President did not blind me; With a rubber bullet, in that protest decades ago, when I was still young. Just like in Byzantine. He only half finished the job.”
So yes Axe plays with technology in lots of creative ways, these are really the only moments that border on cyberpunk. The idea that Zoya is on the edge of becoming a living computer program reminded me of the saying “You can kill the revolutionary but not the revolution” and this novel imagines if the revolutionary, at least her ideals, her mind cannot be destroyed. Nayler has already experimented with digital souls and disembodied simulated living. Some terrifying moments remind of his last novella, of course, he is expanding the idea here.
In this world, the President is already there. Moving from body to body, is a process that at this point is only available to him. “He hated touching the president. He hated being anywhere near him. He hated being here in the presidential palace, this fake monstrosity of real Italian marble, with its fake empire chairs in real gold leaf and real silk. He hated returning to the federation at all.”
“What a world, Nikolai,” the president had said. “no old age, no sickness, and no death. Finally, we can have both our wisdom and our health.”
The president said we - but it was only he who could have those things. It was only he who could escape old age, sickness, and death.”
The President certainly has hallmarks of both Trump and Putin, even in the short quote above but I suspect it is Putin who is most often satirizing. It doesn’t matter as Axe is about the strongman and oligarchic leader.
At times the novel does a wonderful job of commenting on the tech bros and their approach of trying tech solutions to the functions of wider society. While the Federation in the novel is run by a strong man, another group of nations has given control to the PM’s, AI-run Prime Ministers. This is the Tech Bros ideal leadership. One they don’t just buy governments but programs them. As Elon Musk essentially just bought America this felt prophetic. Sure, they will sell you that it is efficient, rational, practical, and ethical.
“I think the PM is doing what it is designed to do,” George said.
“cause a revolution?”
“No. We designed it to calculate human needs and deconflict those needs in order to promote human thriving. Deconfliction of needs is the core of its assignment. But from the outside it can look chaotic. When Greece rationalized, there were riots. People even died. But their PM pulled grease out of debt, and did it without getting their social services. Their PM saw ways forward no human mind could see. Their economy is humming along now. It's a success story. But they hung by their fingernails for a while. They almost voted to pull the plug. Rationalization one in a secret session by a single vote. It was our biggest test period and rationalization pulled through.”
Look at all the ideas, and commentary in this one paragraph. The humans who have given control to the technology often believe that it always has their best interests at heart. Nayler wrote this a while ago, so how could he have predicted we would have a foreign-born billionaire tech bro shadow president rationalizing suffering in the economy. Multiple political systems are explored through the mirror of SF, and throughout the novel you find dense idea rich passages and no matter how I try to convey them I don’t think I will do them justice. While the topic matter is not as groundbreaking as Mountain in the Sea this novel is a powerful commentary on one of the most important issues of the moment. The stress points of democracy.
“That was how it was. One day you had your own country. Next day you were a refugee. You were in a line, waiting to be someone again. To be legal again. Not to be nothing.
You could spend your whole life waiting.”
As we await the oligarch’s insurrectionist man baby who never stopped crying over the last four years to return to an office he should be disqualified from. The question of becoming refugees in our country hits harder. I know Nayler was hoping he was writing about the fate we narrowly missed, instead, we are left processing this type of SF novel at a time wondering if it is hitting to close to home.
“They came for him at night. There was a knock at the door. Vitaly had been in bed fully dressed, staring at the ceiling, waiting. He had taken two pain pills in preparation for the journey.
He had known they were coming. Late in the evening, his social credit score dropped to 0. The digital lock clicked shut, bolting him inside the apartment. The feed screen on the wall went dark period his portable terminal shut down.”
But Zoya exists out there, her book, and the books she is yet to write, her exile ended as she waits a new body and freedom from the forms that the Federation can jail or destroy.
“But she could not find a body.
Help.
Yes, there it was. Her voice.
We will. You are with friends. And soon, you will have a body as well.
A body?
Yes. Soon. This intermediate space can be disorienting. You are used to having a form, and now you have none. The brain is not meant to operate this way. You are looking for feedback, the feeling of pressing against something in the world. But there is none. We know this is distressing. We won't keep you here for long but we need you to know what is going to happen.
I am dead.
You are a pattern of the person you were all of her, all of Zoya Alekseyena. But yes that person is gone in the physical world.
“… if there were a government out there that could build us a perfect world, our first instinct would be to destroy it…
What I ask most urgently is that someone write the book that counters this one…”
And there is one last part that struck me. As the democrats offer pathetic resistance to the oligarchs, as big tech leaders and media members fly down to Florida to kiss Trump’s ring this next passage hit me like a ton of bricks.
“This morning he read; Imagine what you would be without resistance. Everyone complicit in your plans, or helpless in the face of them. Every desire that flickered in your brain fulfilled. Every person obedient to you. Imagine how, as the day followed and everything was granted to you, your desires would metastasize there is no cancer like the will unopposed.
What we need most is opposition it keeps us not only honest but human. Without it, any one of us is a monster. Where there is complacency, every human power becomes monstrous. Toughness is not agreement; it is the collective act of resisting one another.”
Ray Nayler’s Where the Axe is Buried is a third piece of evidence that science fiction has found one of its most important voices. Here is hoping that our systems are as fragile as the ones in this book. This made an interesting pairing with my current read Jack London’s The Iron Heel. I hope in a hundred years we can talk about how we should’ve listened to Nayler.
October 13, 2024
Thanks to the editors at Farrar, Straus and Giroux for letting me read an advanced reader's copy through Netgalley.
I am very happy to have the chance to read the book before it's out!
This is a timely science fiction novel that deals with themes of AI and politics in Russia. To say more would be a spoiler, but I can say it is very much worth reading and listening to what the author hast to say.
Ray Nayler is a relatively new author, I started following him after reading some of his short stories in Asimov's. He has a background in foreign relations and knows the world beyond the USA. This shows in his writing which has a sensibility for different cultures.
I suffered with his characters in their impossible situations, trying to do the right thing more often than not.
This is not light reading. There are more questions than answers.
Like in Nayler's previous novel The Mountain in the Sea, I hoped the main point of view characters would interact more towards the end. But this is a minor point, the novel has many interesting ideas that will stay with me and I definitely recommend it.
I am very happy to have the chance to read the book before it's out!
This is a timely science fiction novel that deals with themes of AI and politics in Russia. To say more would be a spoiler, but I can say it is very much worth reading and listening to what the author hast to say.
Ray Nayler is a relatively new author, I started following him after reading some of his short stories in Asimov's. He has a background in foreign relations and knows the world beyond the USA. This shows in his writing which has a sensibility for different cultures.
I suffered with his characters in their impossible situations, trying to do the right thing more often than not.
This is not light reading. There are more questions than answers.
Like in Nayler's previous novel The Mountain in the Sea, I hoped the main point of view characters would interact more towards the end. But this is a minor point, the novel has many interesting ideas that will stay with me and I definitely recommend it.
didnt-finish
April 3, 2025DNF at 44% because I cannot go down the route of doing another hate read, and that is where this is leading.
I can't even try to come up with a brief description of this because its left such a bad taste in my mouth. Thin plot, obvious and unoriginal world building, and not a single character that I cared for. 44%, nearly half of this book, and not only was I still trying to keep characters straight (many of them are so similar that you could exchange one for another and nothing would change in their plots) but I JUST DIDN'T CARE ABOUT ANYONE OR ANYTHING.
Not for me. Sooo not for me.
I can't even try to come up with a brief description of this because its left such a bad taste in my mouth. Thin plot, obvious and unoriginal world building, and not a single character that I cared for. 44%, nearly half of this book, and not only was I still trying to keep characters straight (many of them are so similar that you could exchange one for another and nothing would change in their plots) but I JUST DIDN'T CARE ABOUT ANYONE OR ANYTHING.
Not for me. Sooo not for me.
December 24, 2024
This new stand-alone novel by Ray Nayler is an awkward combination of darkly serious themes with childish characterizations and simplistic future speculations.
It seems in the mold of the great early-to-mid twentieth century dystopias like We and Nineteen Eighty-Four. but updated with current geopolitical status and contemporary technology. Global dehumanization is the norm, through “rationalization” in “The Union," and authoritarianism in “The Federation.” I’m not sure why Nayler has abstracted these national groupings, as they are simply identical with Western Europe and post-Soviet Russia. And a lot of the action also takes place in “The Republic,” which is one of the central Asian former Soviet states. As is characteristic of the classical dystopias, the system is challenged by an impossible romantic relationship – between Lilia of The Federation and Palmer of The Union. From there, the plot diverges along several threads and distantly interconnected situations, following a theme of the futility of resistance in an authoritarian regime. Major characters die. Survivors become disillusioned. “She had watched resistance to the state whittled away for decades. Even when she began her own fight, there was little will left in the people. Watching the same leader elected, over and over again, they had become numb to it. At first – many decades ago, when Zoya was no more than a child herself – they had gone to squares with enthusiasm. There were so many of them then. But with each new election, there were fewer. And who could blame them? Sometimes, the people who fought against autocracy were simply killed – beaten to death, as Yuri had been. But there were so many other ways to silence them. They were arrested, tortured, stripped of careers, forced to denounce their loved ones, labeled traitors, imprisoned, sent to punishment battalions in one after another colonial war. The state always hit back, and it always hit where it hurt most. If you were personally courageous – if you could not be broken with pain or the destruction of your own life – it went after those you cared about.” “One by one, the dissidents fell silent. Some stopped fighting. Some chose a life in exile. Many were dead.” “Eventually, there was only her, and her ghosts.”
The possibility of change comes about through the secret technological machinations of a select few insiders, rather than the dissidents. This is all so simplistically described, that I literally thought for a while that this must be YA or even MG writing – except that the plot is too dark for that.
Overall, I am disappointed to give this novel such a low rating. I was highly enthused about Nayler’s debut novel The Mountain in the Sea, but this is nothing like that. Perhaps with more work, aiming the characters and technologies at a more adult level of comprehension, this could have been great at something beyond its post-Soviet cultural awareness.
I read an Advance Review Copy of Where the Axe is Buried in an ebook format, which I received from Farrar Straus and Giroux through netgalley.com in exchange for an honest review on social media platforms and on my book review blog. This new title is scheduled for release on 1 April 2025.
It seems in the mold of the great early-to-mid twentieth century dystopias like We and Nineteen Eighty-Four. but updated with current geopolitical status and contemporary technology. Global dehumanization is the norm, through “rationalization” in “The Union," and authoritarianism in “The Federation.” I’m not sure why Nayler has abstracted these national groupings, as they are simply identical with Western Europe and post-Soviet Russia. And a lot of the action also takes place in “The Republic,” which is one of the central Asian former Soviet states. As is characteristic of the classical dystopias, the system is challenged by an impossible romantic relationship – between Lilia of The Federation and Palmer of The Union. From there, the plot diverges along several threads and distantly interconnected situations, following a theme of the futility of resistance in an authoritarian regime. Major characters die. Survivors become disillusioned. “She had watched resistance to the state whittled away for decades. Even when she began her own fight, there was little will left in the people. Watching the same leader elected, over and over again, they had become numb to it. At first – many decades ago, when Zoya was no more than a child herself – they had gone to squares with enthusiasm. There were so many of them then. But with each new election, there were fewer. And who could blame them? Sometimes, the people who fought against autocracy were simply killed – beaten to death, as Yuri had been. But there were so many other ways to silence them. They were arrested, tortured, stripped of careers, forced to denounce their loved ones, labeled traitors, imprisoned, sent to punishment battalions in one after another colonial war. The state always hit back, and it always hit where it hurt most. If you were personally courageous – if you could not be broken with pain or the destruction of your own life – it went after those you cared about.” “One by one, the dissidents fell silent. Some stopped fighting. Some chose a life in exile. Many were dead.” “Eventually, there was only her, and her ghosts.”
The possibility of change comes about through the secret technological machinations of a select few insiders, rather than the dissidents. This is all so simplistically described, that I literally thought for a while that this must be YA or even MG writing – except that the plot is too dark for that.
Overall, I am disappointed to give this novel such a low rating. I was highly enthused about Nayler’s debut novel The Mountain in the Sea, but this is nothing like that. Perhaps with more work, aiming the characters and technologies at a more adult level of comprehension, this could have been great at something beyond its post-Soviet cultural awareness.
I read an Advance Review Copy of Where the Axe is Buried in an ebook format, which I received from Farrar Straus and Giroux through netgalley.com in exchange for an honest review on social media platforms and on my book review blog. This new title is scheduled for release on 1 April 2025.
November 4, 2024
Pretty good book! It took a while to get me invested, and I personally felt that it was a little heavyhanded with the amount of POVs, especially for such a short book. That being said, after it got me invested and the main story kicked off, it was really gripping throughout and was overall well written. I must also mention the prose, which I felt was exceptional. Everything was so vivid and real. It's overall an excellent first impression of the author, and I plan to start on his other books as soon as possible.
Thanks to the editors and Netgalley for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Thanks to the editors and Netgalley for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
November 13, 2024
I enjoyed this book. I think Nayler is finding his voice and his sophomore novel is really proving it! I docked because the multiple POVs were very difficult to keep straight (this is very common with Nayler). I love the concept of the dioramas and the plot was really engrossing. I look forward to reading Nayler’s next work.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC!
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC!
February 17, 2025
Full disclosure: I read this book twice. I really had to, and I got so much from the second read. It's a complex novel, or at least I found it to be so.
I've been an enthusiastic fan of Ray Nayler since his debut novel, and believe him to be the heir apparent to Michael Crichton. His first novel and novella were full of really smart science supporting first rate thrillers. There's science here again. It builds on the story told in his sophomore novella, actually. But as much as science is a part of the plot, he doesn't really get into the nuts and bolts this time around, because what this book really is is a political thriller. A distinctly dystopian one. Nayler looks at technology today, and at current authoritarian trends, and in best Crichtonesque form he looks forward. It ain't a pretty picture.
I don't feel the need to give further plot details. What I will say is this... While there is a female scientist at the center of the novel, it is more of an ensemble cast. There were a fair number of characters to keep track of, and many of them had challenging names. (Kurlan, who was that? Man? Woman?) There were also quite a few narrative threads. And while generally when I compare an author to Michael Crichton, it's a compliment, he wasn't the best with character development. That is also not Mr. Nayler's strong suit. For all of these reasons and more, there was a lot to keep track of. I'm sure a single read will suffice for most readers--or at least that's what most will be willing to invest--but it wasn't for me.
This is an intelligent speculative thriller. Yes, it's a little different than what we've seen from Mr. Nayler before, but this is only his third novel. It's good to shake things up. He remains at the top of my must-read list, and I look forward with anticipation to what he comes up with next.
I've been an enthusiastic fan of Ray Nayler since his debut novel, and believe him to be the heir apparent to Michael Crichton. His first novel and novella were full of really smart science supporting first rate thrillers. There's science here again. It builds on the story told in his sophomore novella, actually. But as much as science is a part of the plot, he doesn't really get into the nuts and bolts this time around, because what this book really is is a political thriller. A distinctly dystopian one. Nayler looks at technology today, and at current authoritarian trends, and in best Crichtonesque form he looks forward. It ain't a pretty picture.
I don't feel the need to give further plot details. What I will say is this... While there is a female scientist at the center of the novel, it is more of an ensemble cast. There were a fair number of characters to keep track of, and many of them had challenging names. (Kurlan, who was that? Man? Woman?) There were also quite a few narrative threads. And while generally when I compare an author to Michael Crichton, it's a compliment, he wasn't the best with character development. That is also not Mr. Nayler's strong suit. For all of these reasons and more, there was a lot to keep track of. I'm sure a single read will suffice for most readers--or at least that's what most will be willing to invest--but it wasn't for me.
This is an intelligent speculative thriller. Yes, it's a little different than what we've seen from Mr. Nayler before, but this is only his third novel. It's good to shake things up. He remains at the top of my must-read list, and I look forward with anticipation to what he comes up with next.
December 7, 2024
*I received an ARC via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Thanks for the free book.*
"Where the Axe is Buried" is about Europe falling apart told through various focalisers from all over the world (England, Russia, Turkey...). It is a dystopia set in a world where surveillance has taken over and freedom is a lost concept.
The book is quite short and we don't get enough depth: characters, story, world-building, it only scratches the surface. But I nevertheless couldn't put the book down. Reading it right now when peace is more fragile than ever felt weird. I am quite thankful that Netgalley let me discover this author, I am sure going to check out his other books.
4.5 stars
"Where the Axe is Buried" is about Europe falling apart told through various focalisers from all over the world (England, Russia, Turkey...). It is a dystopia set in a world where surveillance has taken over and freedom is a lost concept.
The book is quite short and we don't get enough depth: characters, story, world-building, it only scratches the surface. But I nevertheless couldn't put the book down. Reading it right now when peace is more fragile than ever felt weird. I am quite thankful that Netgalley let me discover this author, I am sure going to check out his other books.
4.5 stars
September 5, 2025
I zipped through this book, hard a hard time putting it down. It’s a science-fiction, political, dystopian, techno book, taking place in the future (far?). A bit confusing through the first part of the book, different POVs and different technologies. At first I just wanted to get beyond the confusing part. Then I was sucked in.
This is a future where everything and everyone is watched constantly. In the free west it is for advertising purposes, in the totalitarian states it is to ensure the people are controlled. Many countries are run by A.I. Prime Ministers, and The Federation is run by a president whose consciousness gets transferred to new bodies one the old ones deteriorate. Then there are the dissidents. The book is mostly about the dissidents.
The book is a commentary on totalitarianism and artificial intelligence. Starts out with a very gloomy outlook but ends with hope and possibility.
This is a future where everything and everyone is watched constantly. In the free west it is for advertising purposes, in the totalitarian states it is to ensure the people are controlled. Many countries are run by A.I. Prime Ministers, and The Federation is run by a president whose consciousness gets transferred to new bodies one the old ones deteriorate. Then there are the dissidents. The book is mostly about the dissidents.
The book is a commentary on totalitarianism and artificial intelligence. Starts out with a very gloomy outlook but ends with hope and possibility.
Read
April 3, 2025From the author of The Mountain in the Sea, winner of the 2023 Locus Award for Best First Novel, comes this technothriller! It’s set in the near future, where the authoritarian President has held on to his position by downloading himself to new bodies and Europe is governed by AI Prime Ministers. But technology is breaking down all around the globe, threatening everyone, and the scientist who could break the President’s hold on the country has to go on the run, where she discovers a worldwide group of revolutionaries who might be the world’s last hope.
—Liberty Hardy, 11 Awesome New SFF Books Out April 2025
—Liberty Hardy, 11 Awesome New SFF Books Out April 2025
October 19, 2024
This ended up being a hell of a ride. There's a lot going on here, to the point of there almost being too many POVs to track across all the intersecting threads, but at its core it's a story of change and what people are willing to do to enact it. It just also happens to feature using dioramas to implant thoughts in a subject's head, AI Prime Ministers and hellish social credit implementation, a President who's been reimplanting his consciousness in successive bodies, and the woman he exiled decades ago for the book she wrote about the world as it is now. Masterful plot work, and absolutely one of the books to read this coming spring.
December 18, 2024
Ray Nayler does not miss. Where The Axe Is Buried is just another book by an excellent author. His writing style is reminiscent of Isaac Asimov. It leaves the hyper specific details vague, allowing the reader to fill in the details with their own experiences. And due to that, it became a page turner. I'd reckon that this is his best work so far and a book I can not wait to own a physical hardcover copy of. This is the science fiction book for in 2025 and beyond.
February 8, 2025
I received a free copy of the book from Farrar, Straus, and Giroux in exchange for a fair review. Publish date April 1st.
I requested this book since I enjoyed Nayler's previous novel, The Mountain in the Sea. In Where the Axe Is Buried, the world is split between a Federation ruled by an immortal series of cloned presidents, and nations governed by AI. Programmer Lilia's new invention sets in motion a series of events, from an assassination attempt on the President to the recruitment of an elderly revolutionary living in the taiga, which will change the world irrevocably.
Where the Axe Is Buried is a much more explicitly political book than The Mountsin in the Sea. It's structured in much the same way, with multiple interlinked but separate POV characters interspersed by excerpts from a fictional book, revolutionary Zoya's banned text. Here, the central metaphor is the creosote bush rather than the octopus. The creosote bush forms a system of genetically identical cloned plants, following the root systems of long dead Ice Age trees. Like a flawed governing system, removing the piece of the creosote will not change the shape of the overall plant, dictated by patterns laid down centuries ago. We get the anecdote as a piece of Zoya's book on the very first page, and it recurs as different metaphors--a fungal system, a steppe tsar--throughout the book.
It's always a bit tricky to write a book about revolution. Nayler's a very good writer, and he easily dodges the trap that so many books about war and revolution fall into (ie, mouthing empty platitudes about change as the authors demonstrate that they haven't thought deeply about a complex and loaded subject). Nayler's elegantly constructed near future dystopia is split between an authoritarian future Russian regime and countries ruled by supposedly infallible AIs in a very post LLM way. On the one hand, the Federation has developed refinements that the Soviets or even Orwell never dreamed of, in a panopticon where a tiny mistake could collapse your social score and send you plummeting into a shrinking circle of restricted parole, and then to a forced labor camp and death. Or, alternatively, in the rationalized states ruled by AI, you can work in an horrifically optimized Amazon-style warehouse while your every movement is scrutinized by companies trying to sell you things, to the degree that looking at a soda half a world away for a moment with your face covered can identify you.
Whether Nayler threads the other needle and manage to not say something about revolution which the reader has a strong personal disagreement with is, inevitably, more individual. It held together well enough to be a five star read for me, even if I'd quibble with a few points. Although I do think the open ended conclusion carries a lot of the rhetorical weight here. Nayler gracefully presents you with a possibility for change, rather than attempting to answer the unanswerable question.
An ambitious and sophisticated dystopia about revolution with a compulsively readable pacing. Highly recommended, especially if you liked Nayler's The Mountain in the Sea.
I requested this book since I enjoyed Nayler's previous novel, The Mountain in the Sea. In Where the Axe Is Buried, the world is split between a Federation ruled by an immortal series of cloned presidents, and nations governed by AI. Programmer Lilia's new invention sets in motion a series of events, from an assassination attempt on the President to the recruitment of an elderly revolutionary living in the taiga, which will change the world irrevocably.
Where the Axe Is Buried is a much more explicitly political book than The Mountsin in the Sea. It's structured in much the same way, with multiple interlinked but separate POV characters interspersed by excerpts from a fictional book, revolutionary Zoya's banned text. Here, the central metaphor is the creosote bush rather than the octopus. The creosote bush forms a system of genetically identical cloned plants, following the root systems of long dead Ice Age trees. Like a flawed governing system, removing the piece of the creosote will not change the shape of the overall plant, dictated by patterns laid down centuries ago. We get the anecdote as a piece of Zoya's book on the very first page, and it recurs as different metaphors--a fungal system, a steppe tsar--throughout the book.
It's always a bit tricky to write a book about revolution. Nayler's a very good writer, and he easily dodges the trap that so many books about war and revolution fall into (ie, mouthing empty platitudes about change as the authors demonstrate that they haven't thought deeply about a complex and loaded subject). Nayler's elegantly constructed near future dystopia is split between an authoritarian future Russian regime and countries ruled by supposedly infallible AIs in a very post LLM way. On the one hand, the Federation has developed refinements that the Soviets or even Orwell never dreamed of, in a panopticon where a tiny mistake could collapse your social score and send you plummeting into a shrinking circle of restricted parole, and then to a forced labor camp and death. Or, alternatively, in the rationalized states ruled by AI, you can work in an horrifically optimized Amazon-style warehouse while your every movement is scrutinized by companies trying to sell you things, to the degree that looking at a soda half a world away for a moment with your face covered can identify you.
Whether Nayler threads the other needle and manage to not say something about revolution which the reader has a strong personal disagreement with is, inevitably, more individual. It held together well enough to be a five star read for me, even if I'd quibble with a few points. Although I do think the open ended conclusion carries a lot of the rhetorical weight here. Nayler gracefully presents you with a possibility for change, rather than attempting to answer the unanswerable question.
An ambitious and sophisticated dystopia about revolution with a compulsively readable pacing. Highly recommended, especially if you liked Nayler's The Mountain in the Sea.
Want to read
November 11, 2024After The Mountain in the Sea, I'll read anything Ray Nayler writes. so excited for this one!!!
January 29, 2025
Where the Axe Is Buried is Ray Nayler’s newest novel coming off the success of The Mountain in the Sea and The Tusks of Extinction. This is a story of political intrigue and revolution in the face of a tyrannical and all controlling government, reminiscent of 1984. Nayler’s skill as a serious science fiction writer is on full display. This novel will likely be a contender for the 2026 Hugo award for Best Novel.
In Where the Axe is Buried the President of the authoritarian Federation exerts his control, seemingly indefinitely, as he downloads his mind into new bodies, never truly dying. While it is never said outright, the Federation is understood to be the near-future version of Russia. In Western Europe, governmental control has been handed over to AI Prime Ministers. The story follows several characters living in the Federation or Western Europe. The characters include Zoya, an exiled revolutionary, Lilia, an engineer whose invention has the power to change the status quo, Nikolai, the Federation President’s personal doctor, Nurlan, a parliamentary staffer, and Palmer, a man forced into events beyond his control.
This story is full of profound thoughts about authoritative governments and the revolutionaries who oppose them. The concepts of AI Prime Ministers and an undying President are interesting and provide the hook for an intriguing plot. The differing character viewpoints and individual stories weave together as the book moves along and events fit together at the end. The only criticism of the story is that the characters spend a little too much time reminiscing on the past.
Ray Nayler has shown for a third time that he is a scifi author worth reading and has become a must read for me. I would recommend his newest novel, Where the Axe is Buried, and I eagerly await what he writes next.
(ARC from Netgalley)
In Where the Axe is Buried the President of the authoritarian Federation exerts his control, seemingly indefinitely, as he downloads his mind into new bodies, never truly dying. While it is never said outright, the Federation is understood to be the near-future version of Russia. In Western Europe, governmental control has been handed over to AI Prime Ministers. The story follows several characters living in the Federation or Western Europe. The characters include Zoya, an exiled revolutionary, Lilia, an engineer whose invention has the power to change the status quo, Nikolai, the Federation President’s personal doctor, Nurlan, a parliamentary staffer, and Palmer, a man forced into events beyond his control.
This story is full of profound thoughts about authoritative governments and the revolutionaries who oppose them. The concepts of AI Prime Ministers and an undying President are interesting and provide the hook for an intriguing plot. The differing character viewpoints and individual stories weave together as the book moves along and events fit together at the end. The only criticism of the story is that the characters spend a little too much time reminiscing on the past.
Ray Nayler has shown for a third time that he is a scifi author worth reading and has become a must read for me. I would recommend his newest novel, Where the Axe is Buried, and I eagerly await what he writes next.
(ARC from Netgalley)
April 11, 2025
Incredibly contemplative amd stuffed full of discussions on many types of politics, human nature and why we cant find world peace!
This dystopian turned uptopian (?) story follows many povs in a world where most countries have dumped democracy or any other kind of politics for “rationalization”— AI run government. There are still hold outs including the federation which is more a dictatorship and surveillance state of the future. We follow a girl growing up in federation whose father sacraficed everything to get her out, returns to say goodbye only realizing how bad an idea that is when she is retrapped inside. Lucky for her her london boyfriend and most revent invention might just save her and everyone else…..
This is a pessimistic one but love the discussion of dismantling dictatorship and how its not as simple as is should be…. High recommend!!!!!!!!
This dystopian turned uptopian (?) story follows many povs in a world where most countries have dumped democracy or any other kind of politics for “rationalization”— AI run government. There are still hold outs including the federation which is more a dictatorship and surveillance state of the future. We follow a girl growing up in federation whose father sacraficed everything to get her out, returns to say goodbye only realizing how bad an idea that is when she is retrapped inside. Lucky for her her london boyfriend and most revent invention might just save her and everyone else…..
This is a pessimistic one but love the discussion of dismantling dictatorship and how its not as simple as is should be…. High recommend!!!!!!!!
February 3, 2025
Beyond excellent!!! The epitome of the phrase 'in the near future', this mixed sci-fi and political philosophy with tragic, well-written characters in a way that made big world problems seem small and personal. Nayler touches on AI, different systems of governance, immigration & conflict along with a myriad of other topics with grace and sympathy to those affected by them. His writing is gorgeous as well. Very much the speculative side of speculative fiction.
January 13, 2025
Set in the same near future version of our world as Tusks of Extinction. Absolutely fascinating. Feels like if Kim Stanley Robinson was an expert on Russia
March 14, 2025
This is perhaps my favorite style of speculative fiction, and if the themes hearken back to the 1960s era UKL, PKD, and Stanisław Lem books I love, it is because we face the threat of a different rising authoritarianism today. Speculative fiction is a lens in which we can analyze our own time and the near future and then challenge with radical ideas to look to shift ideology.
In the frightening future society Nayler envisioned, it is not human dictators we watch out for, though human greed does contribute, but AI prime ministers, built to make aggressive decisions the people cannot see and presidents seeking immortality of mind.
Where the Axe is Buried is centered around perspectives of the ordinary and extraordinary people some pushing the limits of rebellion, others of science, and others who just happen to be caught in the web. The technology feels terrifyingly real to the 2025 reader, and the politics even more so.
Thank you to MacMillan Audio for an ALC and Farrar Straus and Giroux for an eARC for review. Where the Axe is Buried is out 4/1/25.
In the frightening future society Nayler envisioned, it is not human dictators we watch out for, though human greed does contribute, but AI prime ministers, built to make aggressive decisions the people cannot see and presidents seeking immortality of mind.
Where the Axe is Buried is centered around perspectives of the ordinary and extraordinary people some pushing the limits of rebellion, others of science, and others who just happen to be caught in the web. The technology feels terrifyingly real to the 2025 reader, and the politics even more so.
Thank you to MacMillan Audio for an ALC and Farrar Straus and Giroux for an eARC for review. Where the Axe is Buried is out 4/1/25.
April 12, 2025
Nayler’s previous works impressed me. They are quieter, more cerebral, and heavier than most sci-fi I see nowadays. Where the Axe is Buried is no exception - it’s ambitious, sometimes dense, often cerebral, and very much not here to hold your hand.
Zoya, a revolutionary leader, is living on borrowed time. Lilia, a scientist, is quietly lighting a match under a corrupt regime. Both feel their world is falling apart in slow motion. Resistance movements aged into institutions, rebellion calcified into bureaucracy, and some people became symbols at the expense of their humanity. Surveillance became part of daily life, social credit systems force social obedience. Huh. Actually, it doesn’t feel like a far-off dystopia.
The story here is complex and drops readers into a tangled web of politics, ideologies, and slippery truths. There were definitely moments where I had to pause, re-read, or just pause. It’s dense, and not every reader is going to vibe with that. Especially if you come to sci-fi for character-driven stories -because while the characters here are interesting, they’re not always warm or even likable.
There’s a lot of high-concept tech in here (consciousness transfer, AI-run governments, memory networks), which is cool and disturbing. What happens when history is controlled by algorithms? Who decides what the future looks like? Can power ever truly be neutral? And so on, and so on, with no simple answers.
Overall, I felt Where The Axe is Buried is more interested in systems than individuals, in ideology over intimacy. It’s intellectually rich, occasionally chilly, but worth the effort.
Zoya, a revolutionary leader, is living on borrowed time. Lilia, a scientist, is quietly lighting a match under a corrupt regime. Both feel their world is falling apart in slow motion. Resistance movements aged into institutions, rebellion calcified into bureaucracy, and some people became symbols at the expense of their humanity. Surveillance became part of daily life, social credit systems force social obedience. Huh. Actually, it doesn’t feel like a far-off dystopia.
The story here is complex and drops readers into a tangled web of politics, ideologies, and slippery truths. There were definitely moments where I had to pause, re-read, or just pause. It’s dense, and not every reader is going to vibe with that. Especially if you come to sci-fi for character-driven stories -because while the characters here are interesting, they’re not always warm or even likable.
There’s a lot of high-concept tech in here (consciousness transfer, AI-run governments, memory networks), which is cool and disturbing. What happens when history is controlled by algorithms? Who decides what the future looks like? Can power ever truly be neutral? And so on, and so on, with no simple answers.
Overall, I felt Where The Axe is Buried is more interested in systems than individuals, in ideology over intimacy. It’s intellectually rich, occasionally chilly, but worth the effort.
Read
May 16, 2025DNF @ 38%
Absolutely a case of it’s me and not the book. I started reading it, was having trouble maintaining traction so I put it aside, but then I just never felt like I wanted to continue.
Absolutely a case of it’s me and not the book. I started reading it, was having trouble maintaining traction so I put it aside, but then I just never felt like I wanted to continue.
March 8, 2025
#gifted I received an early audiobook from netgalley and MacMillan Audio. The narrator is very well suited to the book! She did the variety of accents beautifully. 4.75 stars, if that were possible. Mountain in the Sea got 5 stars from me.
I am baffled at how much Nayler was able to fit into this book without it being overly long. I could not summarize the plot without writing something at least half as long as the book lol!
The plot is sharp, the themes well thought through, the characters a complex web of drama that is yet simple enough to push the action forward at a steady pace through the end.
I love dystopian literature. This absolutely fits on a shelf with We by Yevgeny Zamyatin, 1984 by Orwell, Brave New World, and so on. It's a brilliant modern take on the same issues. The context is updated for our technology now and the dark potential we fear, yet the same political fears still exist around the world.
What I took from the book is how inevitable that decline is if and once that Pandora's Box of technology and autocracy is opened, yet that personal courage and anarchy is still beautiful and worth it.
I found the writing beautiful and quotable. The characters were well fleshed out. What one reviewer considers too simple and childish in the technology, I judged to have kept the story from being too bogged down. I appreciate that for the dark and intense themes of this book, I was able to enjoy and follow the audiobook while my kid was at baseball practice or walking around Costco.
I am baffled at how much Nayler was able to fit into this book without it being overly long. I could not summarize the plot without writing something at least half as long as the book lol!
The plot is sharp, the themes well thought through, the characters a complex web of drama that is yet simple enough to push the action forward at a steady pace through the end.
I love dystopian literature. This absolutely fits on a shelf with We by Yevgeny Zamyatin, 1984 by Orwell, Brave New World, and so on. It's a brilliant modern take on the same issues. The context is updated for our technology now and the dark potential we fear, yet the same political fears still exist around the world.
What I took from the book is how inevitable that decline is if and once that Pandora's Box of technology and autocracy is opened, yet that personal courage and anarchy is still beautiful and worth it.
I found the writing beautiful and quotable. The characters were well fleshed out. What one reviewer considers too simple and childish in the technology, I judged to have kept the story from being too bogged down. I appreciate that for the dark and intense themes of this book, I was able to enjoy and follow the audiobook while my kid was at baseball practice or walking around Costco.
March 16, 2025
Ray Nayler’s books always, without fail, leave me thinking about the deeper subjects of his plots long after I’ve turned the final page. This book was not an exception, though I found it to be a much tougher read, as the political plots seem so similar to what we are living through in 2025.
As I was reading, I kept finding passages that resonated and passages that I felt in my bones like a warning look ahead for my country. I think this book is going to be as talked about, challenged, and culturally relevant as Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale.
As I was reading, I kept finding passages that resonated and passages that I felt in my bones like a warning look ahead for my country. I think this book is going to be as talked about, challenged, and culturally relevant as Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale.
April 8, 2025
4.75 - Will be a best book of Q2 2025 for me.
Truly wowed by this unique story that is sadly more prescient than I’m sure the author anticipated when writing it.
With the news of our daily world causing me great anxiety each day, I had some trepidation in deciding if I should pick this up or not. I didn’t want to read more of what is slowly becoming more apparent in real life. However, I wanted to give it a shot since I missed reading the author’s debut last year and the plot summary sounded so interesting. I’m so relieved that I picked it up because it was terrifying yes, but fascinating, contemplative and hopeful - all despite the backdrop of an autocratic system that uses technology to surveil absolutely everything you do with a President that never dies - OR - the alternative Western governments run by an AI President. Just fascinating ideas and honestly I’m upset with myself that I didn’t highlight the many quote worthy passages. It’s something I will need to re-read again.
I also listened to the audiobook and Eunice Wong did a fantastic job of narrating this story. She had a calming presence where the words could be taken in without hysteria…if that makes sense. It was a fantastic production and she ended up reading multiple characters with ease.
The only slight disappointment I had was with the ending. I felt the book was leading up to a much larger and impactful ending, but at the same time, that could be my inner self wishing for that for the book as much as for myself. We all want a nice happy ending where oppressive governments fall and the good guys win. But it’s not always clear cut like that. Real life is not always that easily victorious. The ending was satisfying, but not as much as so had hoped. I’ve seen other reviewers mention this as well so I know I’m not alone. That was the reason for not awarding this a full 5 stars.
All in all, I’m grateful for having read this and am deeply appreciative to @fsgbooks and @mcdbooks for the gifted arc provided in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to @macmillanaudio for the gifted audiobook. Definitely a best book of April and of Q2 in 2025.
Truly wowed by this unique story that is sadly more prescient than I’m sure the author anticipated when writing it.
With the news of our daily world causing me great anxiety each day, I had some trepidation in deciding if I should pick this up or not. I didn’t want to read more of what is slowly becoming more apparent in real life. However, I wanted to give it a shot since I missed reading the author’s debut last year and the plot summary sounded so interesting. I’m so relieved that I picked it up because it was terrifying yes, but fascinating, contemplative and hopeful - all despite the backdrop of an autocratic system that uses technology to surveil absolutely everything you do with a President that never dies - OR - the alternative Western governments run by an AI President. Just fascinating ideas and honestly I’m upset with myself that I didn’t highlight the many quote worthy passages. It’s something I will need to re-read again.
I also listened to the audiobook and Eunice Wong did a fantastic job of narrating this story. She had a calming presence where the words could be taken in without hysteria…if that makes sense. It was a fantastic production and she ended up reading multiple characters with ease.
The only slight disappointment I had was with the ending. I felt the book was leading up to a much larger and impactful ending, but at the same time, that could be my inner self wishing for that for the book as much as for myself. We all want a nice happy ending where oppressive governments fall and the good guys win. But it’s not always clear cut like that. Real life is not always that easily victorious. The ending was satisfying, but not as much as so had hoped. I’ve seen other reviewers mention this as well so I know I’m not alone. That was the reason for not awarding this a full 5 stars.
All in all, I’m grateful for having read this and am deeply appreciative to @fsgbooks and @mcdbooks for the gifted arc provided in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to @macmillanaudio for the gifted audiobook. Definitely a best book of April and of Q2 in 2025.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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