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.

The writing itself is really good, and I found myself opening a dictionary on more than one occasion - this is not a negative point for me at all! I love when a writer really digs in and uses less used and less known words in the language they're writing in. This novel is very eerily relevant in our current climate, and there are a lot of quotes in this book I just had to underline because they so perfectly reflected the world and how a lot of people are feeling right now.

I really enjoyed this one. I felt it was easy to keep the multiple characters and their individual stories separate, even though there were quiet a lot. I also really enjoyed the world as well as the fact it was spread across many countries. However, the book often doesn't tell you where in the world our characters are which can be confusing. There are only about two times where it's explicitly stated "this character is in this country" so the rest of the time you kind of just have to guess based on culture clues and content clues where our characters might be.

The plot and the tech in this book was great! I really loved seeing how the technology was used for the plot, as well as how it was used to combat or aid the main conflicts. The advanced tech in this was very neat and interesting, although there is one bit of it that doesn't get any answers, and it's one of the more interesting mysteries, which is a shame because I would've really loved to known why that tech ended up like that towards the end. Oh and the bees! There's a lot of bees talk and bee featurage in this one that I thought was an interesting aspect to the story.

I wish there had been just a little more umph at the end. I feel the story just kind of tetters off quietly at the end rather than going for a big final punch of "this is what happened, this is the aftermath, this is the next step". Due to where various characters are at the end of the story, the ending whittles off quietly - an ending that makes complete sense, but I would've liked just a little more explicit resolution and explanation as to how it all ended, especially for Zoya. She just kind of floats through this entire story really.

This would be a cool movie and I can definitely see people who enjoy The Hunger Games or Blade Runner enjoying this one. This is definitely a book for government-overturners and dystopian-lovers!

Some of my favourite quotes are:

Why did Nikolai have to live in this timeline?

Nothing good ever happens. Good only exists when nothing happens at all.

I think that for some of us, the end of the world comes at exactly the right time.

This book was a slow burn for me. For the first half I didn't love it, and I think that's because I kept getting lost in the storyline. It felt disjointed. The story stuck to my hands in a way that wasn't super pleasant. I kept with it because I have always thought I'd be a fan of Ray Nayler, though this was my first book of his.

When the story comes together, it is beautiful and something quite special.

By the end of the book I was a fan.

Thank you to NetGalley and FSG for this advanced copy!

A complex novel with expansive world building. It took me a bit to get into to it but with a running start I enjoyed it quite a bit. Like other readers — I found the multiple POVs difficult at times. Great premise, great book. Thanks NetGalley!

This is a book that I feel will really hold up on reread. There are so many political moves and philosophical ideas included in this story that I think I need another read through to really grasp everything.

Not that this book is bad on first read, in fact, I think it is flawless on first read and will just get better and better as I think about the story and the ideas Nayler presented.

I don't think this is a character story, rather, this is definitely a story with a message that the characters are telling. This might not work for everyone, but I really liked the plot and ideas enough that I loved this experience.

I have thoroughly enjoyed every book Nayler has written so far and I look forward to reading everything else that he publishes.

This futuristic, dystopian sci-fi primarily follows Lilia, a young woman who has returned from the free Republic to the highly controlled Federation to find herself under significant surveillance. Under the rule of the practically immortal President, Federation citizens are surveilled, controlled, and oppressed by their government. Lilia's story is woven together with many others within and outside the Federation, each of whom plays a crucial part in the growing rebellion against the Federation government.

This was a really solid read that, due to reading it immediately after "Sunrise on the Reaping" by Suzanne Collins, surprised me by having a lot of the same themes. I liked that Nayler kept reiterating that revolution and rebellion aren't born in a single day and don't succeed just because of one person. The characters represented different aspects of that revolution, including the perspective of complacency, which was really interesting. While the physics aspect of this novel confused me a little, I enjoyed how everything wove together and the ultimately hopeful tone that the narrative had.

"Paranoia is the only sane response to a world composed of keyholes through which the eyes of our enemies may peer at any time."

My first book by the author, and it won't be the last. I wasn't sure what to expect going in. The description (AI prime ministers and an immortal president) is intriguing, but I wasn't sure how it would translate to the prose. I ended up being blown away by both the quality of the prose as well as the depth of the themes explored.

It's a bit of a 1984/We/Fahrenheit 451 inspired piece. What makes it different is the tie to our current world, in particular the unique threat that the rise of AGI (artificial general intelligence) might mean for the world and our political systems. I thought it was handled brilliantly. It's told in third person, with each chapter following a rotating cast of characters (or occasionally two in the same chapter). I thought the characters were well formed and seemed to have realistic motivations and backstories.

Highly recommended, especially in light of our current world political climate.

Extremely original and relevant, especially with the sudden rise of AI in the past couple of years.

I found the plot around the president “downloading” in to different bodies interesting and, let’s be real, entirely something that would actually happen if this technology was available.

It took me a little while to get into the book, and I found it a little hard to follow with all of the different characters—I kept having to flip back and forth to remind me of who was who and where we had last left them off. By Book 2, though, I found it much easier to follow as all of their plotlines were clearly established.

a couple of reviews I skimmed before reading let me know that there is a lot of POV characters in this book and that it can get confusing due to this. after reading, I would definitely agree with this. it took me until around the 50% mark to get comfortable with these characters and confident in reading about them. sometimes a POV chapter would go on for a while, and it would be a perfectly good chapter, but there would then be a significant gap until there was another chapter from that character, during which I would need to reacclimate myself into that person's perspective. as the plot evened out in the latter half this became less of an issue, but confusion was a common feeling for me as I read through this book.
the message of this book I think was a really high point. it started off immediately with criticism of non-human productive of 'art' (a VERY topical issue considering the AI slop that is trying to be passed for actual art these days, and the people contributing to this), as well as corrupt and technologically obsessed nations. the technology itself was often interesting, though some aspects of it felt half-baked and therefore strange when they came up in the story with little explanation. an example of this is the dioramas that are created, and subsequently we have no pay off for these. the ending gives a glimmer of hope, but leaves quite a few questions open and unanswered, which I have middling feelings about.
I really enjoyed nayler's writing style, they made it a pleasant experience to read even if the plot stood still for a moment or I was reading from a character's POVs that was not as intriguing as another's. the portrayal of a society on the brink of ruin was compelling, and the human effect made more of an impact on me than the overall plot.

Where the Axe is Buried is a dystopian sci fi set in a troublesome future where Western Europe's Prime Ministers are AIs, and the Federation president is undying.

We follow quite a few perspectives that I struggled with in the beginning, but I enjoyed how they all painted a picture of the state of the world and even crossed paths. From the scientist who invents something nobody has been able to, to the immortal president of the authoritarian Federation, to the doctor who attends him, to the lonely member of parliament who places his trust in the wrong people - we see the distressingly bleak and crumbling world through different backgrounds and experiences.

This felt more like a sci fi thriller, but with a distinct focus on our characters and their struggles to do what they felt were the right thing. Nayler writes beautiful prose, with many emotional quotes that are startlingly accurate in our current political setting. I found this to be a heavier book, despite the shorter length, and I found myself reflecting on world politics and humanity's history with war more than I expected to. The sci fi element doesn't get too technical, but there is an underlying cyberpunk-esque theme that I enjoyed.

The strongest part of Where the Axe Is Buried is the setting with a distinct dystopian feel, and the technology and political movements feel all too real and easy to imagine. The characters aren't as well developed, and while I was rooting for some, there are just too many POVs for the shorter length of this novel to really get attached.

Where the Axe is Buried focuses on a terrifying future. But underneath the potentially world-ending plot, is the theme of humanity's faults and triumphs, and the lengths people will go to for the things most important to them.

Thank you to NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for the copy of the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

3.75 stars

"there is no cancer like the will, unopposed."

solid imagined world of where machine-learning will take us, and how our future selves will rationalize it. this also, officially, has one of the best first chapters i've ever read. perhaps even my favorite. i wish that energy sustained until Its end.

thank you netgally for providing an ARC in exchange for a honest review.