Ray’s book, The Mountain in the Sea, was one of my favourite reads of 2023; an ecological story that combined science fiction with fiercely intelligent, detailed and literate prose, it made me relate to octopi in a way I’d not considered before. At the time I said that “For its thoughtful depth, its dealing with big ideas such as the manner and matter of intelligence and communication and its education about the oceans, it is very, very good.” Understandably it was a Nebula Award, Ray Bradbury Prize and Arthur C. Clarke Award finalist and a Locus Award winner.

Where the Axe is Buried is a near future political technothriller, involving AI and a number of different characters giving varying perspectives on a future governmental situation.

The story is told through short chapters, each with different viewpoints. We have the autocratic Federation, a small Eastern European run by a Prime Minister whose longevity in autocratic power is maintained by being downloaded into a new body once his present one begins to fail. Nikolai is the medical physician in charge of maintaining the President through all his changes, reporting to Krotov, the head of the government’s secret services. (For those who may remember, Krotov reminded me a great deal of Colonel Stok, the Soviet intelligence officer in the 1960's Harry Palmer movies, starring Michael Caine!)

To this we also have Nurlan, an official working for the government, whose presence in Parliament has been unremarkable up to this point but who is unwittingly involved in revolution. In contrast, Zoya is an old revolutionary who was exiled for her resistance actions in the past, but also for writing a book, The Forever Argument, which carries a death penalty in the Federation. (Readers of The Man in the High Castle may also recognise this aspect of the novel), who becomes an important part of an assassination plot.

Lilia is a student scientist who is originally from the Federation, but who has been given permission to study in The Union – parts of Western Europe and the USA. However, she is placed under conditional release whilst visiting Vitaly, her infirm father, on a return to the Federation and cannot return to her studies in Western Europe. When Lilia does manage to escape to the West, her boyfriend Palmer (perhaps another Michael Caine movie reference - coincidence?) also becomes a person of interest in the Union and has to go into hiding as well. Elmira is an assassin entrusted in hunting them down.

Whilst the countries involved here are in the main deliberately vague, it is clear that there are deliberate parallels between Where the Axe is Buried and our own world environment. It’s not for nothing that the book is dedicated “For anyone who has lost a country.” This means not only in the past, but also the present, and even what could happen in the future.

Ray makes it clear in his Acknowledgements that this book is about the effects of “authoritarianism… in its many forms”, going on to say that “Some oppressions are easy to see. It is easy to identify the malevolent dictator clinging to power for decades, bleeding his country of its resources, killing and imprisoning anyone who stands in his way, maintaining as much personal power as he can. He always wears a dollar-store mask of religion or patriotism, but nothing about him is really hidden. The question is not who he is— it is how to dislodge him.

Other oppressions are more subtle, as countries succumb to increasing limits on personal choices and watch the value of their citizenship eroded by invasive algorithms, decreasing access to basic services, and by a raft of bland technocratic pseudo-efficiencies that habituate the population to massive income disparities, political gridlock, and a bleaker, more precarious, more limited future in which the “gig economy” is just another name for piecework, and economic survival demands monetizing every element of one’s life and identity.”

At a basic level then, the book is a techno-thriller set in a grim future with corporations and governments doing their best to hold onto power. However, one of the strengths of this book is that the book goes beyond this surface level, and shows us something deeper, more complex and perhaps more important. Ray manages to avoid simplistic, facile generalisations and point out that the situation is complicated and that the solutions are not easy.

In spite of this, and in the end, Where the Axe is Buried gives a degree of hope, that even if things are bad, they can get better. Whilst all systems fail, the results can be catastrophic, generative or even both, and although things may fail, there are those who resist, who should, could and do.  As Ray points out that the book was inspired by the birth of his daughter: “I want her to live in a better world than the present one— a world where authoritarian government is the rarest aberration, and the future is something her generation thinks of with excitement and optimism, not dread.” And in 2025 that’s a good thing to want, I feel.

Where the Axe is Buried is a different kind of book in many ways to Mountain in the Sea, but continues to show shows that Ray is definitely an author to watch. It is a book that warns and makes you think, that makes you observe and relate to the situations uncovered. It is quite an intense read – there’s not a lot of humour here to lighten the mood – but it has things to say and does so extremely well. Another memorable read that I can see doing very well; I’m definitely thinking that this is one of my best reads of 2025.

The latest book by Ray Nayler follows in the footsteps of his earlier work of somewhat difficult reads. But whether that difficulty is due to the choice of a complex topic, the plethora of characters, or my inability to focus – that I cannot tell you.
But one after the other.
Where the Axe is Buried balances somewhere between political thriller and science fiction set in the near future. It highlights the dangers of artificial intelligence, is wary of dictatorships, and hints at where unchecked technological progress could lead. All this in such a way that it reminded me of the British TV show Black Mirror.
Artificial intelligence takes the place of the world’s governments, installing permanent state surveillance over everything and everyone. We witness resistance, the police state, the Federation, persecution, and oppression. The book presents us with a crude view of a possible future: paranoia, helplessness, and the last attempt of the few remaining brave ones to resist.
Despite a fantastic first chapter, the carousel of characters and an overabundance of philosophical thoughts make it difficult to fully get into the story. Moreover, as with his last book The Tusk of Extinction, I had difficulty relating to any of its characters. They were just figureheads on the politically philosophical canvas of the story (yes, Nayler also comments on AI in relation to art). There’s not enough distinction or interesting life stories to any of them.
“So I have come to duplicate you.”
I would love to tell you more about the story, but I’m not even sure where to start. I believe that if I were to read it for the second time, the book would feel more concise and comprehensible. But assuming that readers will return to your book when the market is so oversaturated would show a certain naivety on the part of the author. However, in complexity also lies the strongest suit of Nayler’s writing. He creates intricate settings of technological progress, which uncomfortably resemble the world we live in, but he also develops them in a way that accentuates current topics even more.
If only similar attention had been paid to the development of the characters.
Does Nayler, then, follow the masters of this genre, who explore all the imaginable scenarios of future life? Well, yes and no. In The Mountain in the Sea, Nayler truly found his footing, making me reread my favorite passages again and again. That said, I do not have the same desire with Where the Axe is Buried Where the story was put aside in favor of thoughts and reflections. But maybe that’s what makes the book if not distinguished then distinct. And every attempt to push the boundaries of this particular genre I regard with great reverence and admiration. I also appreciate that even though the author writes about AI, he did not use it. At least I hope so.
The regimes had learned, from watching how other autocratic systems were toppled, that compromise was death. They made no reforms. They promised nothing. They simply jailed, beat, harassed, and killed as many people as was necessary.

Where the Axe is Buried was a super interesting read. I loved the character study and the writing felt propulsive. I'd read more from the author.

Ray Nayler proves himself again as one of the best new science fiction writers. After The mountain in the sea and The tusks of extinction that uses animals as a mirror to human society, Where the axe is Buried focuses on humans and technology and the excuses we make to not take responsibility.
It's difficult to give a summary without spoilers because there are many plot lines and many pov characters, going from modern England, to Russia, to Turkey and more. The focus on the book is "The forever argument" a fictional political manifesto that one of the character wrote years before the start of the story, and that is banned in some country for its message. The argument it talks about is the struggle for freedom. People familiar with Angela Davis will immediately recognize that theory. Why is fighting so important, when it seems that nothing changes? Or worse, what would it actually take for it to change?
The book also offers an insightful perspective on "fake" artificial intelligence (not conscious intelligent like Evrim from Mountain in the sea, but more like chatgpt) and how they allow us to shift responsibility with the excuse of true objectivity and absence of bias, when in fact, we are the ones creating those processes in the first place.
Nayler is getting less and less subtle with his message, but his writing doesn't get less pleasurable.
I would still recommend reading this book when you have a free mind, because the number of characters and events going on requires a certain amount of attention. Everyone can read it, even those unfamiliar with science fiction, but younger readers could struggle with historical references.

Sometime in the next hundred years, the EU will decide to hand over the reins of government to an AI (called "the rationalisation"). Concurrent with this, The Russian Federation will have achieved the means to transfer a dictator's consciousness to a new body as his old body wears out. In another Eastern European nation, a technocrat tries to survive amid a violent political crisis by starting a virtual relationship with a mysterious woman.This is the structure of Ray Nayler's brilliant and original novel Where the Axe is Buried. Through this, there's the story of Lilia, a scientist who has achieved a stunning neurological breakthrough that could aid the resistance in Russia.
This is such a brilliant book that I find it difficult to write about. The two novels I keep comparing this to in my mind are The Dispossessed and Neuromancer, the former the best science fiction novel ever written about the the struggle between anarchism and capitalism, the latter a wholly original (at the time) novel of where the new development in technology and cyberculture will lead. Nayler's characters are fully drawn. There are no predictable outcomes, no strictly happy endings, but, for all plotlines, hopeful ones.

This book is a thought provoking sci-fi approach to the dangers of succumbing to authoritarians - either in the form of rulers who refuse to leave, or supposedly neutral AI. The author writes well and is very imaginative. I also recommend “The Mountain in the Sea” and “The Tusks of Extinction”.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.

"Where the Axe Is Buried" is a masterfully crafted dystopian novel that asks bold questions about the nature of self-governance, surveillance, and the meaning of freedom. Told through a diverse cast of characters in an interconnected story, "Where the Axe Is Buried" shows how everyone, from the lowliest civilian to the charismatic leader, are affected by authoritarianism and technology.

Rare for a science fiction book, especially one so steeped in geopolitics rather than action, "Where the Axe Is Buried" hooked me immediately. I loved seeing the perspectives of all of the different characters and trying to figure out their loyalties and motives. The world the Nayler creates is rich, feeling simultaneously alien and real enough to see how it could one day be our own world.

Many of the ethical questions posed in the book about what means justify the ends for revolution and justice were fascinating and complex. A month after finishing the book (I'm behind on reviews, whoops), I'm still pondering a lot of what happened. In our current political climate, this book is especially relevant today.

4 stars

Thank you NetGalley and MCD for the eARC. All opinions are my own.

Fascinating dystopian world, but I found it hard to get through the heavy, expositionary (expository?) narrative style. I got about halfway before I decided to give up.

Authoritarianism and fascism never seems to go out of style, and in this latest from Ray Nayler, we meet six individuals in the future whose lives are controlled by AI algorithms managing everything. This has gone to an extreme within the Federation, where everyone is heavily monitored and repressive laws enforced, with people disappearing and killed regularly, all under the aegis of a President who has gone through multiple bodies in his bid to continually rule.

The five people are:
-Zoya, whose book is seen as a dangerous, revolutionary manifesto, and she lives in isolation on the taiga
-Lilia, a brilliant Federation engineer, whose invention may be the key to finally stopping the President, and who goes on the run, trying to hide from Federation security
-Nikolai, the President's doctor, who has done all manner of things to prolong the President's life
-Palmer, who desperately attempts to find out what happened to Lilia
-Nurlan, a Republic parliament staffer, who accidentally sets off a crisis affecting all of Western Europe
-Krotov, head of Federation security who must keep a handle on the many plots, assassinations and other activities perpetrated by his agents.

When his doctor determines that the President's latest body is failing fast, a number of things begin happening, and the six people's lives begin moving toward a plan of deposing the President. How they'll meet, if ever, evolves through this devastating and deeply sad story. Though, really, it also feels like it could happen within a few years, as too many people are comfortable surrendering their freedoms and accepting easy, comfortable, and often cruel, answers from authoritarians.

This novel is scary, not just for the future it posits, but for the way it highlights aspects of our present. There is also a slight, small vein of hope running through this book. I cannot say I enjoyed this story, but I appreciated it. Ray Nayler has again crafted a story with believable science and characters, and I look forward to his next story.

Thank you to Netgalley and to Farrar, Straus and Giroux for this ARC in exchange for my review.

A dystopian novel that will join the ranks of classics like 1984 or Fahrenheit 451. Gives a grave look to what the future of humanity is unfortunately leaning towards.
(Minus one star only because it was a little dense at times, although I understood the gist of it.)

Audio: 3.5/5
Egalley: 3.5/5

This was a really interesting concept, and I think overall it asks a lot of important questions of us as a society—specifically about where we’re heading with technological advancement and daily incorporation of AI. I do think the larger conversation at hand was intriguing to see explored in this way.
I definitely see what other readers are saying: this book is bleak and grim. And that’s also part of the sad reality of this topic—the outcome might not be some beautiful utopia, but something much more aligned with the world described in these pages. The book also emphasizes the power in revolution and protest—how these things are not only necessary, but also, in many cases, feel futile, deadly, and dangerous.

A lot of what’s being discussed in this book also feels reflective of how the world currently is, so part of me struggled to see this as some crazy, distant future. I also felt a lot of the political messaging here was connected to the representation of the Soviet Union and Russia, which other reviewers have mentioned as well.
Though for me, the biggest disconnect was that, while the book presents these really interesting conversations around political leadership, technology, and authoritarianism, I found myself not really caring about the characters. I think readers will be split on this—some will fall into the story because it’s so representative of the path we’re currently on. We already live in a time when rights and freedoms are slowly being taken away, and much of that is done under the guise of creating a stronger, more efficient system.

But I think other readers may feel overwhelmed. There’s a lot going on—several POVs, and while I understood the differences between them, I found it helpful to have both the audiobook and the ebook. I wouldn’t recommend this book as audio-only, because there’s just so much to keep up with. There are moments where a character will die—and then another right after—and there’s barely any time to process it. So you’re kind of just like, huh? There are also some crossover moments between characters and their stories, so it can feel like a lot to manage at times.

That said, I do think this book would make for a really compelling transition to TV or film, and I could actually see it working even better in that format. I’ll definitely be checking out more of this author’s work because I’m always interested in writers who bring complex, relevant conversations to the forefront and craft dynamic stories around them.

I also think the book’s relatively short length means that some aspects of worldbuilding and character development are missing—but that’s not necessarily a flaw, just something that made me more curious about the author’s longer works.

Thanks to MCD and NetGalley for this read.

Nayler is one of the best writers working today, and this is his best book so far. Set in a near-future world, the book takes us into two dystopic social orders, one in the West and one in Eastern Europe, where total surveillance and governments run by AI (in the West) and fascist totalitarianism (in the East) blight the world. This is a book about revolutions, and specifically about revolutionary acts, and their cost. An excellent, important book.

I almost don't want to give this novel 5 stars because it feels so dark and prophetic of where humanity is headed. However, I feel like it does illuminate some universal things about people that are true. The "eternal argument" - humans will always be at odds with one another. A depressing, but ultimately feels true, assessment of how we are unable to leave our base desires behind.

I started reading Ray Nayler a couple years ago, and I’ve been consistently impressed with his quiet explorations of how big political and technological shifts affect ordinary people on the ground. His debut novel, The Mountain in the Sea, was one of my favorite books of the year in 2022, so I jumped at the chance to read his second book, the standalone Where the Axe is Buried. 

Where the Axe is Buried follows a variety of perspectives across an almost-recognizable future Europe, most heavily coalescing around a fascist Federation never named but clearly heavily inspired by Russia. If the book has a main character, it’s a budding genius shackled with heavily restricted movement after returning home from studies in London to visit her ailing father. But we also see through the eyes of her father, of a famous dissident living out her final years in isolation, of the functionally immortal President who simply finds a new body whenever one begins to wear out, and of the scientist who helps him through the transitions. Outside the Federation, the lands to the West are ruled by AI Prime Ministers, tasked to allocate resources algorithmically, heading off criticism even while calcifying inequality. But with the exception of one government staffer in a country facing riots at the decisions of the newly-installed PM, the Western perspectives all have an eye cast toward the imprisoned lead, some hoping to get her back to London and others just wanting a piece of her newest invention. 

Clearly, there’s a lot going on, and perhaps the biggest weakness of the novel is the difficulty summarizing exactly what it’s about. In a lot of ways—and in very Nayler fashion—it’s an exploratory novel, interested in people living under oppressive regimes that aren’t amenable to change, whether those regimes be AI-led or something more garden-variety fascist. And the dominant mood coming from those people is a sort of guilty ennui, whether stemming from past failures to effect change, fear of the consequences of trying, or simply lack of direction and motivation. It’s a thematically powerful look at the way people can see their countries slip away from them, without anything they can do to prevent it. But while it serves as perhaps the most memorable theme, it isn’t the main thrust of the plot. Because, mostly through circumstances changing around them, the bulk of the perspective characters do find themselves ultimately spurred to action. And while the shape of that action takes a long time to come into focus, it’s ultimately aimed at cataclysmic shifts, both in the Federation and the West. 

I wouldn’t expect Nayler to write a book where a revolution neatly solves all of society's problems, and that’s certainly not what we see here. Where the Axe is Buried never ceases to be a deeply messy novel, with the majority of the perspective characters coming from outside the power structure and left mostly in the dark about the big changes happening around them. This is a deeply human book about people acting in ignorance and hoping for the best. It’s full of chaos and uncertainty, both about what is happening and about whether what’s happening is good or bad. And thematically, I love it. 

But it also is a book about creating these seismic shifts, and here the slow-developing, often obfuscated nature of the plot keeps it from building the kind of emotional impact one expects from such tales. I can think of one scene with a revelation I found absolutely stunning—even despite having noticed hints in that direction. But with so many characters who are primarily reactive, a lot of what happens just happens. Even without closure on the big changes, there are plenty of small successes or tragedies that didn’t hit me quite as hard as would have been justified by the events themselves. There being so much going on serves the themes wonderfully, but the book loses a bit of sharpness in the individual scenes.

On the whole, Where the Axe is Buried is a book that I love for the themes. The mood is expertly delivered, as is the social commentary in a couple starkly different cultures, and the ambiguity of the conclusion is perfect. But while there were flashes of excellent plot, there were also some major events in the lives of the characters that didn’t come through quite as sharply as they could have. It’s very much the sort of novel that I’d expect from Nayler, and it’s an easy one to recommend to fans of his previous work. It’s not one that quite hits the sky-high bar of The Mountain in the Sea, but it remains very good. 

Recommended if you like: meditative stories, revolutionary themes.

Overall rating: 16 of Tar Vol's 20. Four stars on Goodreads.

A dystopian novel about a society under constant surveillance and under controlling and fascist leadership is not new. Just from the 20th century we have Karin Boye’s Kallocain, of course 1984 by George Orwell, and We by Yevgeny Zamyatin which inspired 1984. Ray Naylor follow in these authors’ footsteps and he does it well, adapting to our advancements and knowledge and beliefs today. And the timing of this publication couldn’t be more spot on.

Naylor writes idea based novels more than character based, which is a style that works well for this kind of dystopian story. However, I felt it might have been a few too many pov’s, I had trouble keeping them all apart a lot of the time.

Ray Nayler burst onto the science fiction scene with his debut novel The Mountain and the Sea. That novel, which included, among other things, sentient octopuses and AI fishing fleets, told its story across a number of seemingly unrelated but thematically connected strands all of which were pulled together cleverly by the close. Nayler does something similar in his second novel Where the Axe is Buried but with very different themes.
As with The Mountain in the Sea, Where the Axe is Buried is set in a near, not unrecognisable future. Russia is known as the Federation and is ruled by a despotic leader who has used technology to extend his reign for generations. But there is a plot bubbling to bring him down that involves one of his most trenchant critics who has been banished to the taiga for expressing her political views. Most of Europe is run by Artificially Intelligent leaders known and PMs although at least one of these seems to have glitched leading to a popular uprising. And in the UK, a young man is forced to go on the run after his girlfriend’s disappearance to protect a potentially world changing piece of technology that she has created.
There is plenty going on here thematically. Nayler is interested in what is needed for a society to function effectively, and different forms of authoritarianism. He is curious about the impact of AI but does not take the AI strands of this story in any typical directions. There is plenty here about how humans connect, what it takes to make a working society and what we owe each other. Once again Nayler has a seminal text which he uses to explore his key themes and which is quoted through the story.
But there is nothing dry about Where the Axe is Buried. The enterprise is powered by a number of fascinating, complex point of view characters with intersecting agendas, some of which are being driven by forces even they do not understand. And because of this the fate of any one character is never certain.
Nayler develops a believable day-after-tomorrow world and then starts to pull it apart to see how it ticks but also to explore whether it could be better but what the cost of that improvement might be. There are a number of layers of mystery here that interact with each other only come clear as the stories themselves start to converge. Driven by a cast of fascinating characters, Where the Axe is Buried is another great piece of thought provoking science fiction from Nayler.

I’ve been on a speculative fiction reading kick lately and this one absolutely worked for me. I had really enjoyed Nayler’s previous books The Mountain in The Sea and this one was also fantastic in many of the same ways. While his debut focused more on the personal sides of AI, nature, and what intelligence means, this one is definitely more political.

Nayler balances worldbuilding and giving a great snapshot of the wider world really well with intriguing characters with rich inner worlds and an interesting plot. Nayler has had a very international career and I find the way he approaches politics in his stories to be very compelling. While cities are mostly unnamed, it's easy to make guesses. But beyond that the systems he imagined are not only cool concepts, but they feel very believable.

Very interesting book, with a structure very similar to his previous ones, but politics and sociology instead of science and thecnology. You can find a review here: https://dreamsofelvex.blogspot.com/2025/04/donde-esta-enterrada-el-hacha-ray-nayler.html

This was an excellent book, and the more that I sit with it after reading, the more I like it. Nayler’s writing is strong and thoughtful; there are many powerful passages. It reads as an homage to Orwell’s 1984, even though it is very different. Timely, certainly.

In this Eurasia, there is the totalitarian Federation; The Union, run by artificial intelligence Prime Ministers; and The Republic. Each system is one of human bondage, by different names. There is intrigue as regimes are threatened, with relatable and excellent characters at the centre of the action.

Orwell said, “The object of power is power,” and that’s what becomes clear in this world. Nayler writes:

“Once the regimes had been emptied of ideology–once power became about power alone–there was no breaking them. They had no morality. They did not become disgusted with themselves and turn away from killing. Their will did not break, no matter how many protesters they had to arrest, beat, or kill. They had no conscience, so they were not stung by guilt.”

The only thing they feared was loss of their own power. They understood the simple rule, proven time and again: to hold on to power, never give up power.”

Regimes make their citizens believe lies that are told to them; artificial intelligence smooths down the edges of all lives but engenders a form of servitude. Sometimes I feel like Nikolai, a Federation doctor caught up in events he is helpless to control: “What I want is out. What I want is away from you murderers and monsters. I know what I have been a part of. What I want now is to be a part of nothing at all.”

What hits home after reading this fascinating, sobering near future sci-fi tale is how possible this story actually is.

Thanks to Farrar, Straus & Giroux and NetGalley for a gifted copy.

I really liked this book and also the reflections on the current political climate and stuff like that. Good book.