Where the Axe is Buried

All systems fail. All societies crumble. All worlds end.

Nebula Award, Ray Bradbury Prize and Arthur C. Clarke Award finalist and Hugo and Locus Award winner Ray Nayler returns with a gripping technological thriller.

'A fast-paced dystopian thriller' - SFX Magazine

'First-rate science fiction' - Cory Doctorow

'As much a novel of ideas as it is a techno-thriller . . . A more erudite and emotionally engaging Philip K Dick' - Irish Times

In a familiar yet different Europe governed by AI, life is more efficient, objective, and peaceful. Yet all is not as it seems. Meanwhile, at Europe's eastern edge, the Federation endures under the rule of a President who has preserved his power by transferring his consciousness from body to body.

As both worlds begin to crumble, Lilia, a Federation scientist, discovers a way to slip the nets of surveillance and alter the balance of power. On the run, she becomes the reluctant centre of a struggle between resistance and control. Yet the systems and people surrounding her may already be beyond redemption. Is there any way to put humanity's future back in its own hands?

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 favour 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 out 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.

Nebula Award, Ray Bradbury Prize and Arthur C. Clarke Award finalist and Locus Award winner Ray Nayler returns with a gripping technological thriller.

• | Author: Ray Nayler
• | Publisher: Orion
• | Publication Date: Apr 01, 2025
• | Number of Pages:
• | Language: eng
• | Binding: Paperback / softback
• | ISBN-13: 9781399627894
• | ISBN-10: 1399627899