Ray Nayler: Palaces of the Crow + Where the Axe Is Buried
Join Curious Iguana for an exciting evening with science fiction author Ray Nayler on Wednesday, June 10 from 6:00-7:00 pm at Frederick Book Arts Center. Ray will be discussing his new release, Palaces of the Crow, and celebrating the paperback release of Where the Axe Is Buried. His new book follows four children fighting for survival during World War II with the aid of an intelligent group of crows. Following the discussion, Ray will answer questions and sign books. Copies of Palaces of the Crow and Where the Axe Is Buried will be available for purchase at the event.
Location: Frederick Book Arts Center, 127 S. Carroll Street, Frederick, MD 21701
This event is free and open to the public. We are proud to partner with Frederick Book Arts Center for this event.
For accessibility requests, email events@curiousiguana.com at least two (2) weeks prior to the event.
About Palaces of the Crow: In Ray Nayler’s speculative novel of the recent past, four young teens caught between Nazis and the Red Army survive winter in the woods with the help of a flock of highly intelligent crows with a magnificent secret of their own to protect.
Neriya, a young Jewish girl who dreams of becoming a biologist, has befriended a local flock of crows in her shtetl. Czeslaw is an underage Polish soldier who deserts the Red Army and runs into the freezing Lithuanian woods. Kezia is a Roma horse trader whose family is on the run from Soviet collectivization. As the German blitzkrieg crashes across the border in June 1941, all three are caught up in the onslaught. Along with Innokentiy, an abandoned boy who cannot speak, they are driven into the primeval forest, where they survive by forming an unbreakable bond with one another—and with Neriya’s intelligent crows, who for years have been bringing her intricate gifts suggesting they are no ordinary corvids.
As the war goes on, the crows warn the children of danger and help them hide from the human threats of the forest—not only the Germans but also Russian deserters, Polish partisans, fascist Lithuanian police, and the other bandits and outcasts wandering the benighted landscape.
About Where the Axe Is Buried: “Roll over, George Orwell: This post-apocalyptic dystopia makes Airstrip One look like a summer camp . . . A richly detailed evocation of a grim future that is, sadly, absolutely believable.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
All systems fail. All societies crumble. All worlds end.
In the authoritarian Federation, there is a plot to assassinate 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 favor of ostensibly more efficient and peaceful AI Prime Ministers, an 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 of the vast web of Federation surveillance. Her fate is bound up with those of others fighting the status quo around the world: Palmer, the man Lilia left behind in London; Zoya, a veteran activist imprisoned in the taiga, whose book has inspired a revolutionary movement; Nikolai, the President’s personal physician, forced to navigate the Federation’s harrowing palace politics; and Nurlan, the parliamentary staffer whose attempt to save his Republic goes terribly awry. And Krotov, head of the Federation’s security services, whose plots, agents, and assassins are everywhere.
About the author: Ray Nayler is the author of the Locus Award-winning novel The Mountain in the Sea and the Hugo Award-winning novella The Tusks of Extinction. Born in Quebec and raised in California, Ray lived and worked abroad for two decades in Russia, Central Asia, the Caucasus, and the Balkans.
Ray most recently served as international advisor to the Office of National Marine Sanctuaries at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and as visiting scholar at the George Washington University’s Institute for International Science and Technology Policy. He lives in Washington, DC.
