Ray Nayler

Ray Nayler is an American and Canadian writer whose works engage with ecology, systems theory, and questions of consciousness and intelligence, including animal and artificial intelligence.

Career

Nayler's debut novel, The Mountain in the Sea, focuses on the discovery of a society of intelligent octopuses off the coast of Vietnam, and was the winner of the 2023 Locus Award for Best First Novel as well as being a finalist for the Nebula Award and the Los Angeles Times Ray Bradbury Award. It was declared one of the best Science Fiction novels of all time by Esquire.

Nayler's second book, the novella The Tusks of Extinction, centers on the de-extinction of the woolly mammoth and was published in 2024. It won the Hugo Award for Best Novella and was a finalist for the Nebula Award and the Locus Award

His third book, a "near-future thriller" titled Where the Axe Is Buried, was released on April 1, 2025 and tells the story of a rebellion against the status quo in a near future dominated by AI and authoritarian regimes. His fourth book, Palaces of the Crow, is a speculative novel of the recent past, in which four young teens caught between the Nazis and the Red Army survive winter in the woods with the help of a flock of highly intelligent crows. It was published May 19, 2026.

Nayler previously served in the Peace Corps and as a US Foreign Service officer, working in Russia, Central Asia, the Caucasus, and the Balkans. He was Press Attaché at the United States Embassy in Baku, Azerbaijan, and Environment, Science, Technology, and Health Officer at the U.S. consulate in Ho Chi Minh City. He was international advisor for the Marine Protected Areas Center at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and was a visiting scholar and diplomat in residence at George Washington University's Institute of International Science and Technology Policy and Space Policy Institute.