Ray Nayler
Ray 'Nayler' is a Hugo and Locus Award-winning American and Canadian writer. His 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.Ray 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 will be 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 Consulate General of [the United States, Ho Chi Minh City|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, 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.
Novels
- The Mountain in the Sea
- The Tusks of Extinction - winner of 2025 Hugo Award for Best Novella
- Where the Axe Is Buried
- ''Palaces of the Crow''
Short stories
| Year | Title | First published | Reprinted/collected | Notes |
| 2015 | "Mutability" | |||
| 2016 | "Do Not Forget Me" | |||
| 2019 | "Fire in the Bone" | Nayler, Ray. "Fire in the Bone". Clarkesworld. ' | ||
| 2019 | "Beyond the High Altar" | Nayler, Ray. "Beyond the High Altar". Nightmare. ' | ||
| 2019 | "The Death of Fire Station 10" | Nayler, Ray. "The Death of Fire Station 10". Lightspeed. ' | ||
| 2020 | "Albedo Season" | Nayler, Ray. "Albedo Season". Clarkesworld. ' | ||
| 2020 | "The Swallows of the Storm" | Nayler, Ray. "The Swallows of the Storm". Lightspeed. ' | ||
| 2020 | "Outside of Omaha" | Nayler, Ray. "Outside of Omaha". Nightmare. ' | ||
| 2021 | "Sarcophagus" | Nayler, Ray. "Sarcophagus". Clarkesworld. ' | ||
| 2021 | "Yesterday's Wolf" | Nayler, Ray. "Yesterday's Wolf". Clarkesworld. ' | ||
| 2022 | "The Summer Castle" | Nayler, Ray. "The Summer Castle". Nightmare. ' | ||
| 2022 | "Rain of Days" | Nayler, Ray. "Rain of Days". Clarkesworld. ' | ||
| 2023 | "The Job at the End of the World" | Nayler, Ray. "The Job at the End of the World: A Tor.com Original" Tor.com |