Ray Nayler

Debut novelist Ray Nayler has written one of the most masterful science fiction novels to come along in some time. This near-future thriller takes place mostly on an archipelago off the coast of Vietnam, where a species of octopus appears to be developing culture. A multinational tech company has purchased and sealed off the islands for further study, and Dr. Ha Nguyen is there to research the creatures. There are others on the team, including Evrim, who is the first humanoid artificial intelligence to have been created, and indeed every character in this novel adds substantially to the story. I’ll be honest: I felt like this book broke my brain several times. It’s just so profound and well written. Ultimately, it’s a study of culture, language, consciousness, and the nature of intelligence, as well as a rumination on ambition and how we treat the world. It’s lyrical and thoughtful, and I'll immediately pick up the next Ray Nayler novel as soon as it’s available. —Chris Schluep, Amazon Editor

A Novel

The Mountain in the Sea

'I loved this novel's brain and heart' DAVID MITCHELL, AUTHOR OF CLOUD ATLAS 'A first-rate speculative thriller, by turns fascinating, brutal, powerful, and redemptive' JEFF VANDERMEER, AUTHOR OF ANNIHILATION There are creatures in the water of Con Dao. To the locals, they're monsters. To the corporate owners of the island, an opportunity. To the team of three sent to study them, a revelation. Their minds are unlike ours. Their bodies are malleable, transformable, shifting. They can communicate. And they want us to leave. When pioneering marine biologist Dr. Ha Nguyen is offered the chance to travel to the remote Con Dao Archipelago to investigate a highly intelligent, dangerous octopus species, she doesn't pause long enough to look at the fine print. DIANIMA- a transnational tech corporation best known for its groundbreaking work in artificial intelligence - has purchased the islands, evacuated their population and sealed the archipelago off from the world so that Nguyen can focus on her research. But the stakes are high: the octopuses hold the key to unprecedented breakthroughs in extrahuman intelligence and there are vast fortunes to be made by whoever can take advantage of their advancements. And no one has yet asked the octopuses what they think. And what they might do about it.

When you bring back a long-extinct species, there’s more to success than the DNA.

Moscow has resurrected the mammoth, but someone must teach them how to be mammoths, or they are doomed to die out, again.

The late Dr. Damira Khismatullina, the world’s foremost expert in elephant behavior, is called in to help. While she was murdered a year ago, her digitized consciousness is uploaded into the brain of a mammoth. 

Can she help the magnificent creatures fend off poachers long enough for their species to take hold?

And will she ever discover the real reason they were brought back?

A tense eco-thriller from a new master of the genre.

The Tusks of Extinction

There's something in the water of Con Dao. To the locals, a monster. To the newly minted corporate owners of the island, an opportunity. To the team of three sent to study and protect, a revelation. Here developed, for an unknown number of years, the first known sentient species beyond humans in the modern era. Their minds are unlike ours. Their bodies are malleable, transformable, shifting. They can communicate. And they want us to leave.When pioneering marine biologist Dr. Ha Nguyen is offered the chance to travel to the remote Con Dao Archipelago to investigate a highly intelligent, dangerous octopus species, she doesn't pause long enough to look at the fine print. She will be the only scientist to have access to these octopuses, who just may hold the key to extrahuman intelligence.DIANIMA- a transnational tech corporation best known for its groundbreaking work in artificial intelligence - has purchased the islands, evacuated their population and sealed the archipelago off from the world so that Nguyen can attempt to understand the octopuses' sophisticated communications. But she may not have much time. Forces larger and more powerful than DIANIMA want access to the octopuses and are ruthless and innovative in their pursuit. And meanwhile, of course, the octopuses themselves may have something to say about it...

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.

Where The Axe Is Buried

Tusks of Extinction

Lavie Tidhar

Neil Clarke

Derek Kunsken

Marissa Lingen

Natalia Theodoridou

Jamie Wahls

Karl Bunker

Clarkesworld Issue 148

Ken Liu

Aliette de Bodard

Tade Thompson

Indrapramit Das

Vandana Singh

Rich Larson

Karl Schroeder

Hao Jingfang

Robert Reed

Hannu Rajaniemi

Anil Menon

Suzanne Palmer

Meg Elison

Octavia Cade

Mary Anne Mohanraj

Regina Kanyu Wang

José Pablo Iriarte

Gregory Norman Bossert

Grace Chan

An Owomoyela

Kim Bo-young

Shiv Ramdas

Cooper Shrivastava

R.S.A. Garcia

Alice Towey

Shauna O'Meara

Erin Barbeau

S. Qiouyi Liu

A remote village is determined to keep their robot teacher from being fired. A poetry-loving AI controls the wastewater treatment facility, but a series of malfunctions are beginning to cause concern. The biggest pop idol of the twenty-second century is trapped on Enceladus, and deeply alone. Latchko can talk to the banned AIs and now that his secret is out things are about to get complicated. A former child soldier is raised by a plant-like species but struggles to understand them. Ice fishing on Europa just keeps turning up rocks and things just got worse ... something is changing the world, making it better, but for whom? Short fiction is the heart of science fiction, introducing new voices, experimenting with ideas and technique, and paving the way for the future of the field. Thousands of stories are published every year in the many genre magazines, anthologies, collections, podcasts, and websites, as well as other less common venues. Each year, Hugo and World Fantasy Award-winning editor Neil Clarke sifts through the myriad of offerings to select works that represent the best and the brightest, report on the state of the field, and recommend additional stories for further reading. In this volume, covering 2021, you'll find works by Aliette de Bodard, Meg Elison, Rich Larson, Ken Liu, Ray Nayler, Suzanne Palmer, Hannu Rajaniemi, Robert Reed, Karl Schroeder, Vandana Singh, Tade Thompson, and many more.

The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume 7

Annalee Newitz

Tobias S. Buckell

Leonard Richardson

Alastair Reynolds

Sarah Gailey

Premee Mohamed

Greg Egan

Julianna Baggott

Yoon Ha Lee

Naomi Kritzer

A.T. Greenblatt

Nian Yu

Chinelo Onwualu

Wole Talabi

Marie Vibbert

S.L. Huang

M. Bennardo

Jessica Reisman

Ai Jiang

Hannah Yang

Isabel J. Kim

Congyun "Mu Ming" Gu

J.C. Hsyu

For decades, science fiction has compelled us to imagine futures both inspiring and cautionary. Whether it's a cryptic message encountered by a survey ship, the discovery of alien life in the distant reaches of space, a window into a future Earth, or the adventures of well-meaning AI, science fiction inspires our imagination and delivers a lens through which we can view ourselves and the world around us. At the very heart of the genre is short fiction, the secret lab that has introduced many of the new ideas, techniques, and voices prominent across all other media. In The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume Eight, Hugo and Locus Award-winning editor Neil Clarke provides a comprehensive year-in-review of 2022's short fiction markets and selects thirty-one of its best stories from the wealth of magazines, anthologies, podcasts, and collections that make up the field. In these pages you'll find works by both the new and established authors who are setting the pace for science fiction today and into tomorrow. Start your journey here.

The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume 8

Sarah Pinsker

Jean-Marc Ligny

Ketty Steward

Audrey Pleynet

Voici les causes du désastre : Premièrement : l’estimation de la température de la planète était incorrecte. La balise n’aurait jamais dû être installée. Ce monde ne peut pas supporter davantage la vie humaine que les déserts glacés de nos pôles. Deuxièmement : mes compagnons sont tous morts. J’ignore au juste ce qui est arrivé ; sans doute des défauts d’encodage, une défaillance au cours de la transmission ou une erreur dans la réception de la balise. Quelle qu’en soit la cause, le résultat est le même. Ils ne se sont jamais réveillés. L’analyse de la balise en dira davantage, mais un premier diagnostic a révélé que des séquences entières de leur téléchargement étaient manquantes, ou altérées, ou dans un ordre chaotique. Les matériaux de leurs réceptacles ont été traités par le système de recyclage. Troisièmement : la plupart des dépôts sont perdus, endommagés ou inaccessibles. J’ai retrouvé le premier à treize kilomètres de son emplacement initial et à trois cents mètres au fond d’une crevasse. Mon scanner a indiqué qu’il se trouvait sens dessus dessous, encastré dans la glace. Il est bloqué là depuis déjà plusieurs centaines d’années et fait désormais partie du glacier. Pas question de descendre dans cette faille pour le dégager... Ray Nayler Sarcophage

Bifrost n° 107

Ray Nayler

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