#raynayler — Public Fediverse posts

Just finished reading Ray Nayler's "Palaces of the Crow". Powerful story. Highly recommended.

#PalacesOfTheCrow #SpeculativeFiction #books #reading #RayNayler

https://www.raynayler.net/

As a mail subscriber to #AsimovsScienceFiction magazine, I get a vote in their 2025 reader's awards. It was fun to go back and re-read my favourite stories for the year to decide my rankings:

Best Novella:
1. Quantum Ghosts, #NancyKress
2. The Chronolithographer's Assistant, #SuzannePalmer
3. Spare Parts for the Mind, #GregEgan

Best Novelette:
1. Most Things, #RichLarson
2. On the Night Shift, #ZoharJacobs
3. The Fight Goes On, #HarryTurtledove

Best Short Story:
1. Catch a Tiger in the Snow, #RayNayler
2. Lolo's Last Run, #EMKerkman
3. Woolly, #CarrieVaughn

Best Poem:
1. I Try to Explain the Concept of Teeth to My Alien Roommate, #RachelLinton

Best Cover:
1. July/August, #MaurizioManzieri (attached image)

- My subscription started after the Jan/Feb issue, so that got snubbed.
- For all that print #SciFi magazines are now extremely marginal commercially and culturally, this one at least still attracts some pretty great material (mixed in, admittedly, with some so-so stuff) including by veteran greats of the genre - Kress and Turtledove are still producing amazing work in their mid-late 70s!
- I found the Novella section hardest to trim down to 3, with narrow cuts for stories by T.R. Napper, Ted Kosmatka, and John Kessel.
- It was a great year for pets in SF stories, or maybe as a dog- and cat-lover I'm just sucker for them. I found a place in my heart for Lolo, Magritte, Goobler the miniature woolly mammoth, Sponge, and of course, the tiger in the snow!

The most recent #AsimovsScienceFiction to appear in my mailbox features an absorbing cover future story from #GregEgan about a dementia sufferer's experimental brain implants that lead him to a partial recovery, but also highlights a world of techbro hype, conspiracy theories, and dubious intellectual property claims surrounding the technology. My favourite story in the collection was the beautiful, very short, 'Catch a Tiger in the Snow' by #RayNayler . Also nice to see a rare appearance of a New Zealand author in a #SciFi collection, #SeanMonaghan . @bookstodon #Bookstodon

Book 12: “Where the Axe is Buried” by #RayNayler.

I love this cover so much; it’s like a riso print for a comic. Had to diagram characters, locations, and timelines to follow all of the jumping around. It’s Nayler’s usual fare of capitalism, consciousness, environmental collapse, and AI, but he always manages to write interesting stories about them in different combinations. It’s not all bleak, but what a mess we continue to make for ourselves.

@bookstodon #Bookstodon #Books

I’m reading Where The Axe is Buried by #RayNayler. #book #books #BookSky

RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:5zca2ola2zxpkw37w4f3wxtu/post/3lmmompusrc2e

The new #RayNayler novel is here! The new Ray Nayler #novel is here! (Bearing the somewhat ominous dedication, “For everyone who has lost a country.”) #books #sciencefiction #novels #BookSky

Book 8: “The Tusks of Extinction” by #RayNayler.

“The Mountain in the Sea” was my favorite novel of 2023, so I jumped on this. A novella this time—of course I wanted more. Still, Nayler is able to tell a compelling story involving animals, technology, and humanity’s immense capacity for destruction and cruelty. For all the book’s brevity, or maybe because of it, the betrayals are deeper between these characters. The ending is not without hope though.

@bookstodon #Bookstodon #Books

Book 15: “The Mountain in the Sea” by #RayNayler.

Well-written and smart in the way that makes you notice just how many sci-fi books … aren’t. The ideas aren’t new—alien life forms, AI, mind-hacking, new linguistic systems, and questions of sentience—but Nayler’s take and world-building are inspired. Especially how he connects capitalism to climate collapse, exploitation, and species extinction. Humans really are terrible. Highly recommend this book. 🐙

#bookstodon #Octopuses @bookstodon

I just finished reading The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler, a book that will have you thinking about it days after finishing and sure to be shortlisted for many awards next year. #RayNayler

Highly recommended.

Read my full review on GoodReads at:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5105814221