Ray Nayler's Where The Axe Is Buried is one of the best pieces of dystopian fiction that I've read in years. What makes it so compelling is the way it juxtaposes two different kinds of dystopia—the Soviet-style, Putin-esque Federation vs. a version of Europe run by general AI systems—as well as the way it rotates between different perspectives on these dystopias. We get the dissident writer, the naive computer genius, resistance fighters, and a bumbling parliamentary staffer, among others. Some of them have strong feelings about the state of things, others are just trying to get through the day, but all of them share the limitations of not being able to see everything that's going on. This is a novel about social systems and our ability, or inability, to change them as much as it's a story of characters. It's also written very well, a blend of Leo Tolstoy, George Orwell, and William Gibson in its prose style and narrative structures. Highly recommend to anyone interested in sci-fi's potential for imagining political futures.
I'll have a longer review published by the magazine/website Ancillary Review of Books in the near future.

Thank you to NetGalley and Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, MCD for an Advanced Reader’s Copy in exchange for an honest review.

A fantastic read from Nayler per usual.

I was first introduced to his work last year, by reading his novella The Tusks of Extinction. While being an entirely different, stand-alone story, Where the Axe is Buried carries over the same themes: environment, politics, activism, technology, and morality.

The novel follows a large cast of characters, set in a near-distant future, mostly in a nation referred to only as ‘the Federation’, where an oppressive oligarchy has developed. Scientists have discovered a way to download and upload the brain of the President into different bodies as each one breaks down and dies. All citizens are under constant, specific surveillance that has removed all freedoms from everyday life. The effects of this kind of technology have taken hold all throughout Europe in different ways. Some more oppressive than others, all invasive.

The characters include Zoya, an activist and author in internal exile, living in a small house in the deserted taiga; Lilia, a student inventor who creates something with the possibility to change entire nations; her father, Vasily, a disabled veteran who ends up in a concentration camp; Nikolai, and personal doctor of the Federation’s president; and Nurlan, a parliamentary employee; and Palmer, Lilia’s boyfriend who finds himself in way over his head.

Though the cast is large and quite a hodge-podge of personalities and locations, each of character is driven towards the same ultimate goal: changing their circumstances, and the circumstances of their nation, in any way they can. Each shows resistance in any way they know how: small and large, covertly, or openly, all dangerous and life threatening.

Nayler manages to write something both surreal and near realistic at the same time. Nayler’s prose is well done, creating characters and a plot of great depth while still scratching only the surface of the world, leaving the reader with questions that lead beyond the last page.

Looking forward to seeing what he writes next!

Ray Nayler's new novel, WHERE THE AXE IS BURIED, is a near-future science fiction novel about surveillance and algorithmic governance. The scope of the book is mostly restricted to Europe and Asia. "The West" (UK etc) is governed by AIs whose algorithms enforce fairness (in the sense of eliminating corruption) but do not allow the basic class structure and economic system to change (so there are still vast inequalities of rich and poor, among other things). But the lack of overt unfairness in the sense of corruption leads to public acquiescene, there is little revolt or objection. Russia, on the other hand (though it is never named directly in the book, just called "The Federation") is a violently restrictive police state, where every individual is totally surveilled, and punished or rewarded to varying degrees depending on how the surveillance apparatus (a different form of AI from that in the West) judges their behavior, and also their attitudes (even if these are not overtly expressed, the apparatus can read attitudes and implicit thoughts from facial expressions and other physiological features). There is a third strand, taking place in (what seems to be) one of the Central Asian states that used to be part of the USSR), in which the Western algorithmic system is being installed, but it doesn't function correctly and ultimately "escapes" into the world wide web. The book focuses on a number of individual characters, but stresses the fact that their agency is pretty limited, due to the systems of control that reward or punish them, and that they cannot ever escape. The Russian system is considerably worse than the Western system; in the West, political protest is demotivated and not possible, but in Russia they also arrest and torture anybody who seems to have dissident inclinations. In the course of the novel, we see how both these systems operate, and -- in the latter part of the novel -- how they break down. The one hopeful message the novel gives us is that no system is perfect, they will all break down eventually. But the despairing message of the novel is that individual agency is pretty much powerless, in either system, to do anything that would make change or liberation more possible. All in all, then, the novel is pretty grim, even though it ends with at least the prospect of societies (rather than individuals) overthrowing the systems that dominate people on both sides.

This is a story about authoritarianism, change, the fall of a system no one thought could fail, and revolutions. This book has a lot of different point of views, sometimes even multiple in the same chapter, and that caused this book to suffer a problem that you can see in some of the author's previous works, like the fact that the characters are are more like vessels for ideas and themes that the author wants to explore, and less like fully fledged characters themselves. Fortunately, this isn't anywhere near as big of a problem here compared to his debut novel, where it was a major problem. The ideas and themes themselves are interesting and presented with a lot of nuances, especially because there are a lot of point of view characters. The plot is exciting, but sometimes it feels like some subplots are finished too quickly so the book probably could've been slightly longer and it wouldn't negatively affect the book, if anything, it might have made some of the character arcs more impactful and memorable.

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 will be honest, i dnf-ed this book a little bit after hitting the 50% mark. i just couldn’t engage with it. i don’t think the characters were given enough emotional depth or personality for me to personally connect with them, i just didn’t care. i was reading for the sake of it. i don’t tend to read science fiction so this could totally be on me, but i also thought the plot was uninteresting and unoriginal. i’ve seen this movie before and i didn’t like the ending type of deal. it’s not a new thought and it couldn’t hold my attention. i also didn’t click with the writing style? which is not the author’s fault at all!!

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.

This is not the book for me. I didn't really vibe with the writing style, which is totally okay! I appreciate the opportunity to give a new-to-me author a try. I wish this book all the very best (and who knows, maybe someday down the line, the writing style WILL be for me).

As an American, what a simultaneously great and awful book to read today (Jan 20, 2025). Nayler once again crafted a (near-future) dystopian story to address the very real problems threatening the world. This book is (mostly) set in future Russia, however, The United States is well on its way to a future like this as well which is just…scary…..

I really enjoyed the many different points-of-view and the way Nayler used them to tell this story from so many different sides. If you loved “The Tusks of Extinction,” then you will enjoy this book as well.

4.5 stars, Metaphorosis reviews

Summary
The world is divided into rationalized economies run by AIs, and the Federation, run by the same autocrat for decades. But both societies are about to break down, with substantial help from shadowy but powerful cabals whose aims and allegiances aren't entirely clear. Each of a half dozen characters have an important part to play, despite never being quite sure what it is.

Review
The central theme of Where the Axe is Buried is a familiar one – systems containing the seeds of their own collapse – but Nayler’s approach to it is astonishingly good. I liked Nayler’s previous novel, The Mountain in the Sea , but it also left me a little cold. Here, there’s also a bit of a clinical, distant feel, but the story is so well done that he gets away with it. This is one of the best constructed novels I’ve read for a while.

There are a lot of characters in the story; Nayler shifts among half a dozen to allow each to give us snippets of information and perspective on systems collapsing. None is really at the center (one is slightly more central) and none is indispensable. For the first third of the book, that left me intellectually interested, but not really emotionally invested. After that, my emotional engagement grew in small increments, though it never quite reached my heart.

It’s generally clear where the story is going, though there are enough twists and turns to keep it interesting. One final twist toward the end feels like a step too far, and unnecessary. That’s in part because, despite the emotional distance, Nayler is focused on the characters’ experiences, and the system collapse that is the story’s backdrop is too vague to really fit the pieces together. In that sense, this is an impressionist story – you get the gist of the theme without ever really seeing quite how the pieces fit together (and my feeling, frankly, was that they don’t). The key, though, is that it works. It’s an impressionist sketch without a central focus point or character, but it’s also extremely well executed.

It probably helps that it appears Nayler draws on a professional background quite similar to my own, so the names, cultures, and concepts are familiar. In any case, just as the last book moved me from uncertain bystander to impressed onlooker, this books is moving me closer to enthusiast status – I still can’t really say ‘fan’, because I look for more emotional involvement, but I certainly enjoyed this story.

I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review.

Where the Axe is Buried by Ray Nayler

“The irony that haunts our entire history is that we humans have been the ones standing in the way of our own happiness the whole time.” - Ray Nayler

Astute observations soak the pages. Ray Nayler, author of the Locus Award-winning novel The Mountain and the Sea, delivers a poignant story about society's trust in AI to deliver a better human experience. The collapsing infrastructure of futuristic government forces change. Citizens lean on the intelligence of AI to govern. The slight problem being who governs the AI? Does it manage itself? In a horrific, yet all-too-realistic sign of the times, a re-skinned president runs the federation, and prime minister robots run Western Europe. Anarchy runs abound, as Nayler incorporates characters who fight against the machine, literally. Persons planted within the robotic regimes looking to thwart the opposition. Others placed to further the plan of domination. The reader has an up-close look. The artificial intelligence plays a part in its facade it casts over the public; surely it knows best. The algorithms weaving perfect plans for the success of humanity. What comes to fruition is a tightening of the screws, turn by turn; they tighten until the enjoyment of freedom comes to an end. Big Brother is watching, scoring, and exercising punishment without remorse. What can one expect from the all-knowing robotic leadership, deadened with a lack of emotion?

“Somehow, there were never enough resources to help everyone. Somehow, after rationalization, that had not changed. The same systems, replicating themselves through nonhuman means.” - Ray Nayler

A surreal novel that invokes a certain amount of fear for the future. I remember as a child growing up with Burger King’s slogan, “BK, have it your way,” replaced with a slogan telling me there is one menu item, done their way, the optimal way, the way that is best for you. The eyes in the sky looking for a bead of sweat, a flinch of distaste, a slight emotional downturn to dock points off your score. That score being your lifeline to luxury, enjoying BK’s one menu item, for example. Nayler incited a riot not only in the novel but within the confines of my brain. I want to believe in humanity. The good-natured inhabitants on Earth, those upstanding people, will prevail against big corporations and those that seek to control us. As time wears on, it would seem that power is the true currency.

In the end, a form of this story has been told by many. I enjoyed Nayler’s prose and the depth of the characters. It was complex, with plenty of deception I wasn’t anticipating. Cleverly, all things derive to the common theme of recognition that things worked fine the way they were in the “Old Times.” I concluded with the thought that perhaps progression shouldn’t be a focal point until the socialistic problems of today are dealt with. Unfortunately, the agenda of a select few has other ideas. I am giving this 4 out of 5 stars and highly recommend it.

Many thanks to Farrar, Straus, and Giroux for the ARC through Netgalley. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion.

After reading two of his previous works, I can say that Nayler is an auto-read for me.
In a near-future, Nayler imagines a world in which most of the West is led by AI prime ministers that have been programmed through the basis of rationalization. This means that they are designed to do what is best for humanity’s success and prosperity, but this decision making does not place human’s happiness and individualism at its center. In contrast, a country known as The Federation is led by an autocrat who has cheated death by having his consciousness uploaded into a new host when his body has decayed.
The book itself follows a host of characters that oppose these regimes in different ways. The chapters switch through these characters and their individual struggles, which turn out to be shared.
Nayler’s political commentary is intriguing. It’s an exploration of how integral “the argument” is for human expression and societal progress. The argument ensures that people care, that there is a capacity for understanding and empathy and without it we are impoverished of that what makes us community.

The many characters connect well, and I felt invested in their stories. Excellent book.

I received an early review copy of this from Netgalley. I don't think it affected my review.

I was super excited going into this second book, based on the author's first book (which doesn't seem to be set in the same universe but there are a few shared concepts that made me wonder for a while), and early on it sucked me in right away, just immersed in a world of ideas of a future that at least felt vaguely plausible and some characters that I could get attached to. .

However, by the time I finished, I felt I needed to sit with the book and think about it before I could really come up with a review, hence this is coming almost two months later than I wanted it to (to be fair, not all of that was on the book, November was a LOT). There was still a lot I liked about it, but I wasn't sure how I felt about the book as a whole, and to be honest, I'm still not.

As the story went on, I felt a growing sense that--although I was still having a lot of fun along the way--I wasn't very satisfied with where the narrative was headed and, perhaps, not even why the author wanted to write the book. From the start it's a very political book, both in the sense that it deals with characters who have particular political views, and that it feels like the author has an axe to grind. I want to be clear here, though, that when I say 'politics' I don't mean traditional conceptions of left vs right wing, there are no thinly veiled screeds on gun control or why liberals or conservatives are evil. There's a government that might be described as totalitarian, and others that might be described in other ways, but it's not really about the political axis of how it stands right now, but rather how politics and human rights and dignity might be affected in the future with technological change and AI in the mix. So when I mention the author having an axe to grind, I'm talking about a firm attitude about THAT and honestly don't think either left- or right- wing readers would be particularly turned off by the ideas expressed (though people on each side could still either agree or disagree on some of the central attitudes of the book). With any book that might be described as political, there's always the worry that the author pushing their ideas will get in the way of the story. For me, though, the problem was more that I kept feeling that the characters I was following didn't get very satisfying closure to their stories, they were sacrificed in the service to the larger plot. Often, a character would just be suddenly assassinated. Or survive but never find what they were looking for because, in the meantime, the political landscape around them changed and they just had to deal with that. And, when the book completed, I was left, a little bit, with a feeling of, "okay but so what?" Yes, the world had changed, but it felt like the author had the world as the book's main character whereas for me it was the people in it, and they felt somewhat short-changed.

That said, the book is still chock-full of good ideas, and gave me a lot to think about even when it got political, some ideas I'll be tossing around in my head for a long time, and I love that. For what it is, it felt well done, it just wasn't quite what I wanted it to be. Yet I'd never say I disliked it. Honestly, I'd probably put it between 3 and 4 stars (which for me is still quite a good score), and even after all this time to think of it, I'm still not sure which direction I should push it on places that don't allow half-stars. I feel like if I push it to 4, I'm possibly allowing my love of the author's other work color my score, and if I push it to 3, I'm allowing my disappointment of it not living up to the author's previous work bias me too much. But I have to make a decision, and in the end, I feel like the disappointment is more honest, a 3 with the note that I feel like this could have hit it out of the proverbial park but didn't quite get there and instead wound up with something that was merely quite interesting and still well-worth reading.

*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

[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. 👍

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. Some of the very naïve characters portrayed in the novel are manipulated into introducing a shut-down code into a PM under a ridiculous pretext of giving them the ability to innovate. PM’s being the master computers which have replaced human heads of state in The Union and The Republic and others, as part of global rationalization. At the same time, the President of The Federation is replaced with younger clone, who has been psychologically conditioned for take-over by a more benign leader. To accomplish these, many of the characters are so easily manipulated, that they must be stupid. The technology for psychological take-over is just magical while mentioning a few technical sounding words, like entanglement. 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.

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.

In a far future on Earth, many societies are run by “rationalized” AI leaders. Eastern Europe is a hold out with draconian leadership dictating the social scores of its citizens, which determine who can eat, work, and move about their communities. An ensemble of characters from across these societies tell a story about the true will of humanity, what it means to dissent, and how we relate to each other.

Read. This. Book. It is absolutely going to be up for all the major SFF awards. It’s inventive, engrossing, and ultimately hopeful.

Ray Nayler creates an extremely eerie, yet plausible world in Where the Axe is Buried. The governments of the world are "rationalized," aka. run by AI leaders that may or may not know what's best for their citizens.

As always, Nayler drops you right into the action, so you immediately feel both immersed and curious about the world he's created. The most compelling characters are Lilia and Zoya. And the most terrifying were the Federation's president and it's head of security.

Where the Axe is Buried is an extremely timely novel about humanity's desire to break free from authoritarianism. I couldn't help but draw parallels between current events and this novel while reading.

My favorite moment in the book involves someone talking about wanting to douse individuals who claim to be apolitical and subsequently light them on fire.

If you like political thrillers mixed with sci-fi elements this book is for you!

I received an advance review copy from NetGalley/the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Just some grammatical errors I noticed:
-Loc 2124, 3 sentence, “than” should be “then”

-Loc 2378 “and are they are still working?”

-Loc 2932 “the could access it remotely”

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. My review can be found https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6874162622