Reviews
A New York Times Best of the Year!
An Indie Next Pick!
“Ray Nayler’s The Tusks of Extinction is a compact novella that reads like a superb science fiction inversion of Ernest Hemingway’s ‘The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber.’” —Amal El-Mohtar for The New York Times
“Nayler excels at writing about ecosystems, nonhuman communities and the dilemmas of conservation. Tusks also includes a sharp focus on toxic masculinity and the sort of power trip that would drive a person into an extreme environment to slaughter a beautiful, irreplaceable creature. The result is both breathtaking and heartbreaking.” —Charlie Jane Anders for The Washington Post
“Nayler’s (The Mountain in the Sea) compelling sci-fi thriller contemplates human greed and de-extinction through science. Highly recommended for readers of ecoterrorism thrillers and climate fiction.” —Library Journal, starred review
“Impassioned and impressive…an uncompromising climate fiction that strikes like a spear to the gut.” —Publishers Weekly
“The Tusks of Extinction is a moving tribute to the beauty of beasts too often taken for granted and a musing on the gifts of nature; human’s propensity toward violence and greed; and the hidden layers of meaning found in human interactions with the wild.” —Shelf Awareness
“Fans of biology-inspired sf will enjoy this short novel about human greed, the beauty of mammoths, and one human’s consuming fury.” —Booklist
Praise for The Mountain in the Sea
“I loved this novel’s brain and heart, its hidden traps, sheer propulsion, ingenious world-building, and purity of commitment to luminous ideas.” —David Mitchell, New York Times bestselling author of Cloud Atlas
“The Mountain in the Sea is a first-rate speculative thriller, by turns fascinating, brutal, powerful, and redemptive.” —Jeff VanderMeer, author of Annihilation
“The Mountain in the Sea is a wildly original, gorgeously written, unputdownable gem of a novel. Ray Nayler is one of the most exciting new voices I’ve read in years.” —Blake Crouch, author of Upgrade and Dark Matter
“I came to The Mountain in the Sea for the cephalopods (I love cephalopods), but I stayed for the fascinating meditation on consciousness and personhood. I loved this book.”
—Ann Leckie, author of Ancillary Justice
“A novel that is alert, intelligent, open.” —Nicole Flattery, The New York Times
“[A] staggering book . . . [The Mountain in the Sea] has the clothes of a futuristic, eco-punk or cyberpunk thriller, the guts of a philosophy seminar and the soul of a religious tract.”
—Phillip Ball, New Scientist
“Nayler’s masterful debut combines fascinating science and well-wrought characters to deliver a deep dive into the nature of intelligent life . . . As entertaining as it is intellectually rigorous, this taut exploration of human—and inhuman—consciousness is a knockout.”
—Publishers Weekly, starred review
“Less a science-fiction adventure than a meditation on consciousness and self-awareness, the limitations of human language, and the reasons for those limitations, the novel teaches as it engages.” —Kirkus Reviews
