Where the Axe Is Buried

This is an apocalpyse novel at its heart - one triggered by social and technological disaster instead of a natural event. We follow several characters who live in several different nation-states, known simply as The Federation, the Union and the Republic (the real-world countries they represent become obvious). The one unifying aspect of all their plots is the need to maintain contact with another human being somewhere in the world, and the ways in which government seeks to prevent/distort/interfere with communication. It's also about the relationship between state and citizen, and whether systems are truly able to change from within or require exogenous factors/black swan events to undergo real transformation.

The author spends a lot of time talking about the Federation's dreadful control architecture and the effects it has on the books characters and Federation society at large. However it struck me that much of it has analogs in Western countries - de facto social credit schemes, surveillance meshnets, advanced behavioral fingerprinting, etc.

The novel isn't totally pessimistic, ending on a note of hope. There's a long afterword by the author regarding his intentions in writing the book (it felt like a cheatsheet though - apparently just putting the answers in the back in case your readers don't get the text is a thing in genre fiction now?). It's a very 2020s novel.

( em português: sol2070.in/2025/04/livro-where-the-axe-is-buried/ )

One of the few books I had marked on my calendar for its release: “Where The Axe is Buried” (2025, 336 pages), by one of the best contemporary science fiction authors, the American writer Ray Nayler.

In addition to being exemplary science fiction — with provocative speculation, memorable characters, and excellent writing — the author often expresses a critical view of the current direction of science and technology, which has been hijacked by multibillionaires. He explores how this trend dominates politics and also connects to environmental destruction.

Even among the titles I carefully choose, I constantly come across the same techno-optimism — almost cult-like — that now spreads from the big tech companies and their defenders. So it’s a relief to dive into a story of this kind that is not only free of that mindset but openly critical of it.

The novel is a breathtaking cyberpunk thriller. In a distant future, Europe is divided between countries that have handed their governments over to AIs and a tyranny — expanding out of Russia — that puts all previous dictatorships to shame due to the extremely granular surveillance and control of individuals made possible by information technology.

There’s a handful of key characters spread across various countries, and the chapters alternate between them during a crisis that seems to be affecting both blocs — involving hacking, popular subversion, an unprecedented new technology, and political conspiracy.

It’s as if William Gibson had written “1984”, with, however, a strong emphasis on the human element. This is what makes the novel emotionally engaging as well, despite the thorny sociopolitical themes that reflect our present reality.

The countries entirely dominated by AIs — that have even surrendered their governments to algorithms — are referred to as "rationalized." One character reflects:

"If everything was better now, why did it feel as if nothing had changed—as if the system that existed before rationalization hadn’t gone away? As if, instead, it had been cemented into place? Made more comfortable for the people at the bottom—but also made permanent, so that they would always be at the bottom?"

Meanwhile, in the bloc of overwhelming techno-totalitarianism, the same dictator has ruled for over a century, having his memories transplanted into new bodies from time to time. A programmer escapes from there to a rationalized London and ends up creating a key technology for change. At the same time, a genuinely revolutionary singularity begins to stir among the AIs. All of this then interweaves with social germs of insurgency, which finally reach maturity.

It was one of the best science fiction stories I’ve read in years — perhaps since Ray Nayler’s debut novel: “The Mountain in the Sea” (2022).