Ray Nayler – författare

*WINNER OF 2023 LOCUS AWARD FOR BEST FIRST NOVEL * FINALIST FOR THE NEBULA AWARD, and THE LOS ANGELES TIMES RAY BRADBURY PRIZE “The Mountain in the Sea is a wildly original, gorgeously written, unputdownable gem of a novel. Ray Nayler is one of the most exciting new voices I’ve read in years.”—Blake Crouch, author of Upgrade and Dark MatterHumankind discovers intelligent life in an octopus species with its own language and culture, and sets off a high-stakes global competition to dominate the future. The transnational tech corporation DIANIMA has sealed off the remote Con Dao Archipelago, where a species of octopus has been discovered that may have developed its own language and culture. The marine biologist Dr. Ha Nguyen, who has spent her life researching cephalopod intelligence, will do anything for the chance to study them. She travels to the islands to join DIANIMA’s team: a battle-scarred securityagent and the world’s first (and possibly last) android.The octopuses hold the key to unprecedented breakthroughs in extrahuman intelligence. As Dr. Nguyen struggles to communicate with the newly discovered species, forces larger than DIANIMA close in to seize the octopuses for themselves.But no one has yet asked the octopuses what they think. Or what they might do about it.A near-future thriller, a meditation on the nature of consciousness, and an eco-logical call to arms, Ray Nayler’s dazzling literary debut The Mountain in the Sea is a mind-blowing dive into the treasure and wreckage of humankind’s legacy.

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 Ray Nayler's speculative novel of the recent past, four young teens caught between Nazis and the Red Army survive winter in the woods with the help of a flock of highly intelligent crows with a magnificent secret of their own to protect. Neriya, a young Jewish girl who dreams of becoming a biologist, has befriended a local flock of crows in her shtetl. Czeslaw is an underage Polish soldier who deserts the Red Army and runs into the freezing Lithuanian woods. Kezia is a Roma horse trader whose family is on the run from Soviet collectivization. As the German blitzkrieg crashes across the border in June 1941, all three are caught up in the onslaught. Along with Innokentiy, an abandoned boy who cannot speak, they are driven into the primeval forest, where they survive by forming an unbreakable bond with one another-and with Neriya's intelligent crows, who for years have been bringing her intricate gifts suggesting they are no ordinary corvids. As the war goes on, the crows warn the children of danger and help them hide from the human threats of the forest-not only the Germans but also Russian deserters, Polish partisans, fascist Lithuanian police, and the other bandits and outcasts wandering the benighted landscape.From the Ray Bradbury Prize and Arthur C. Clarke Award finalist, and Hugo and Locus Award winner, Ray Nayler, Palaces of the Crow blends history and haunting speculative wonder into a story of survival, loyalty and the fragile beauty of life in the darkest of times.

A weary resilience worker should know better than anyone: no one is safe when the world is always ending...At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

When you bring back a long-extinct species, there’s more to success than the DNA.Moscow has resurrected the mammoth. But someone must teach them how to be mammoths, or they are doomed to die out again.Dr. Damira Khismatullina, an expert in elephant behavior, was brutally murdered trying to defend the world's last elephants from the brutal ivory trade. Now, her digitized consciousness has been downloaded into the mind of a mammoth.As the herd's new matriarch, can Damira help fend off poachers long enough for the species to take hold? Or will her own ghosts, and Moscow's real reason for bringing the mammoth back, doom them to a new extinction?A tense SF thriller from a new master of the genre.

All systems fail. All societies crumble. All worlds end.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 where an authoritarian Federation ruled by a near-immortal President is beginning to crumble, paralleled by the collapse of AI-governed Western societies.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. Lilia, a brilliant scientist on the run from the authorities, may have invented a way to bring down the President and escape a near-impenetrable web of Federation surveillance. Her fate is bound up with a worldwide group of others fighting against the global status quo. All systems fail. All worlds end. But what will rise to take their place?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.

When you bring back a long-extinct species, there’s more to success than the DNA.Moscow has resurrected the mammoth. But someone must teach them how to be mammoths, or they are doomed to die out again.Dr. Damira Khismatullina, an expert in elephant behavior, was brutally murdered trying to defend the world''s last elephants from the brutal ivory trade. Now, her digitized consciousness has been downloaded into the mind of a mammoth.As the herd''s new matriarch, can Damira help fend off poachers long enough for the species to take hold? Or will her own ghosts, and Moscow''s real reason for bringing the mammoth back, doom them to a new extinction?A tense SF thriller from a new master of the genre.At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

“Eunice Wong’s measured pacing and mellow tones perfectly complement Nayler’s provocative exploration of memory, minds, and consciousness.” - Booklist"The theme of the nature of consciousness is equal parts intriguing, thrilling, and eerie. Best of all, it''s always compellingly narrated, making for a performance that''s difficult to pause."- AudioFile MagazineHumankind discovers intelligent life in an octopus species with its own language and culture, and sets off a high-stakes global competition to dominate the future. Rumors begin to spread of a species of hyperintelligent, dangerous octopus that may have developed its own language and culture. Marine biologist Dr. Ha Nguyen, who has spent her life researching cephalopod intelligence, will do anything for the chance to study them.The transnational tech corporation DIANIMA has sealed the remote Con Dao Archipelago, where the octopuses were discovered, off from the world. Dr. Nguyen joins DIANIMA’s team on the islands: a battle-scarred security agent and the world’s first android.The octopuses hold the key to unprecedented breakthroughs in extrahuman intelligence. The stakes are high: there are vast fortunes to be made by whoever can take advantage of the octopuses’ advancements, and as Dr. Nguyen struggles to communicate with the newly discovered species, forces larger than DIANIMA close in to seize the octopuses for themselves.But no one has yet asked the octopuses what they think. And what they might do about it.A near-future thriller about the nature of consciousness, Ray Nayler’s The Mountain in the Sea is a dazzling literary debut and a mind-blowing dive into the treasure and wreckage of humankind’s legacy.A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Pre-order Ray Nayler''s brand-new speculative thriller Where the Axe is Buried, coming soon! ''I loved this novel''s brain and heart''DAVID MITCHELL, AUTHOR OF CLOUD ATLAS''A first-rate speculative thriller, by turns fascinating, brutal, powerful, and redemptive''JEFF VANDERMEER, AUTHOR OF ANNIHILATIONThere are creatures in the water of Con Dao. To the locals, they''re monsters. To the corporate owners of the island, an opportunity. To the team of three sent to study them, a revelation. Their minds are unlike ours. Their bodies are malleable, transformable, shifting. They can communicate. And they want us to leave. When pioneering marine biologist Dr. Ha Nguyen is offered the chance to travel to the remote Con Dao Archipelago to investigate a highly intelligent, dangerous octopus species, she doesn''t pause long enough to look at the fine print. DIANIMA - a transnational tech corporation best known for its groundbreaking work in artificial intelligence - has purchased the islands, evacuated their population and sealed the archipelago off from the world so that Nguyen can focus on her research.But the stakes are high: the octopuses hold the key to unprecedented breakthroughs in extrahuman intelligence and there are vast fortunes to be made by whoever can take advantage of their advancements. And no one has yet asked the octopuses what they think. And what they might do about it.Locus Award 2023 - Winner of First Novel awardNebula Award 2023 Finalist.Ray Bradbury Prize 2023 Finalist.Shortlisted for the 2024 Arthur C. Clarke Award

All systems fail. All societies crumble. All worlds end.Nebula Award, Ray Bradbury Prize and Arthur C. Clarke Award finalist and Hugo and Locus Award winner Ray Nayler returns with a gripping technological thriller.''A fast-paced dystopian thriller'' - SFX Magazine''First-rate science fiction'' - Cory Doctorow''As much a novel of ideas as it is a techno-thriller . . . A more erudite and emotionally engaging Philip K Dick'' - Irish TimesIn a familiar yet different Europe governed by AI, life is more efficient, objective, and peaceful. Yet all is not as it seems. Meanwhile, at Europe''s eastern edge, the Federation endures under the rule of a President who has preserved his power by transferring his consciousness from body to body.As both worlds begin to crumble, Lilia, a Federation scientist, discovers a way to slip the nets of surveillance and alter the balance of power. On the run, she becomes the reluctant centre of a struggle between resistance and control. Yet the systems and people surrounding her may already be beyond redemption. Is there any way to put humanity''s future back in its own hands?