Ray Nayler is an American science fiction writer, born in Montreal and raised in California, and a former US Foreign Service officer who served in Russia, Central Asia, the Caucasus, Vietnam and the Balkans. He began publishing short fiction in Asimov's in the mid-2010s. His first novel, The Mountain in the Sea (2022), about a species of intelligent octopus, won the Locus Award for best first novel; it was followed by the novella The Tusks of Extinction, and the novels Where the Axe Is Buried (2025) and Palaces of the Crow (2026).
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Ray Nayler is an American science fiction writer, born in Montreal and raised in California, and a former US Foreign Service officer who served in Russia, Central Asia, the Caucasus, Vietnam and the Balkans. He began publishing short fiction in Asimov's in the mid-2010s. His first novel, The Mountain in the Sea (2022), about a species of intelligent octopus, won the Locus Award for best first novel; it was followed by the novella The Tusks of Extinction, and the novels Where the Axe Is Buried (2025) and Palaces of the Crow (2026).
