Ray Nayler w/ Nicola Griffith at Seattle Public Library

In partnership with Seattle Public Library, Ray Nayler, author of The Mountain in the Sea and The Tusks of Extinction, discusses his latest book Where the Axe is Buried alongside Nicola Griffith, author of Hild and Spear. A cybernetic novel of political intrigue, Ray Nayler's 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.

This event is held in the Microsoft Auditorium at the Central Branch.

A high-tech thriller about a crew of rebel spies and scientists on a mission to thwart a tyrannical autocrat.

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 away 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. Each of them must navigate seemingly insurmountable dangers and threats to remain free and, ultimately, put humanity’s future back into its own hands.

A cybernetic novel of political intrigue, Ray Nayler's 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.

Ray Nayler is the author of the critically acclaimed novel The Mountain in the Sea, which won the Locus Award for “Best First Novel,” and was a finalist for the Nebula Award and the Los Angeles Times' Ray Bradbury Prize. Called “one of the up-and-coming masters of SF short fiction” by Locus, Nayler’s stories have been published in Asimov’s Science Fiction, Clarkesworld, Analog Science Fiction & Fact, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Lightspeed, Vice, and Nightmare, as well as in many “Best Of” anthologies. His stories have won the Clarkesworld Readers’ Poll and the Asimov’s Readers’ Award, and his novelette “Sarcophagus” was a finalist for the Theodore Sturgeon Award. Born in Quebec and raised in California, Nayler lived and worked abroad for two decades in Russia, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Vietnam, and Kosovo. A Russian speaker, he has also learned Turkmen, Albanian, Azerbaijani, and Vietnamese. He is currently a visiting scholar at the Institute for International Science and Technology Policy at The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs. He holds an MA in global diplomacy from the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy at SOAS University of London.

Nicola Griffith (she/her) is a dual UK/US citizen living in Seattle. She is the author of award-winning novels including Hild and Ammonite, and her shorter work has appeared in Nature, New Scientist, New York Times, etc. She is the founder and co-host of #CripLit, holds a PhD from Anglia Ruskin University, and enjoys a ferocious bout of wheelchair boxing. She is married to novelist and screenwriter Kelley Eskridge.

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