384 pages, Hardcover
Expected publication: May 19, 2026 by MCD
A couple of years ago, a science fiction novel came out that hit me like a lightning bolt. I assumed at some point a science fiction novel would appear that would unseat Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson as the best of the century so far. A Mountain in the Sea is a book I have never stopped thinking about. It is the only modern SF novel I have highlighted and studied. The title is something I just figured out, thanks to an interview I did with Ray as a part of Global Time Slip. As a matter of fact, I kinda feel stupid not getting it. You would think I would consider the title.
Book-wise, Nayler is a 4/4 genius to me. I think his last novel, Where the Axe is Buried, might have lost some readers who thought they were getting a SF takedown of Trump, but it was a deeper look at the Putin dictatorship. Hell, I liked it a lot, although it didn't hit me quite as hard as this one.
Ray Nayler is one of the most exciting writers working today, and when he told me in our last interview that he was working on a historical novel, I was beyond excited. His publisher seems to be pushing the (minor) speculative elements in an attempt to maintain his SF readership. I think Rayś readers have to be smarter than that. They are there, but they are based on real science, and nothing annoys me more than humans who dismiss the intelligence of crows. Yes, I saw a review of this book where they took away a star (in the review) because the crows were "supernaturally smart." My dude, crows are smart, they have a sense of navigation that humans could never understand…never mind, take a breath and focus on the book.
“He heard the crows’ alarm.
It was distant – half a kilometer off? But he had come to know that call well: What Neriya called “the bad man” call.”
I was surprised that I didn't highlight more of these moments. These are light SF touches because the science of animals is almost always a part of the iceberg under the ocean in a Ray Nayler novel. Set mostly during the 1940s ( although it jumps decades a few times) in Lithuania. A group of teens survives the Nazi invasion with the help of Crows, whom they have been feeding and slowly befriending. If that is enough to sell you the book, just know that this is the best novel I have read so far this year. I suspect that at the end of the year, it will be in my top spot.
Our main point of view character is Neriya, who dreams of becoming a biologist, and from a young age has watched, named, and in her own way studied a group of Crows, including Buster, who is the other most important character of the book. Her family is killed when the Nazis invade the country, and then she has to hide in the forest as the Nazis and the Red Army fight over the land.
“We’re Hungry,” the knife man said. “The Germans took everything from our village. Every scrap of bread. And all the livestock. They didn’t do to us what they did to your people…But what they did to us was enough. If we don’t find food, we’ll be dead when winter comes.”
“What did they do to my people?” She said.
Buster and his crow friends help warn Neriya, show her the way to food, and distract the armies looking for folks hiding deep in the woods. She eventually meets Czeslaw, who is a teenage deserter from the Red Army. He is an important character, as he has to be convinced that Buster and the crows are really helping. Circumstances also bring a teenage Roma girl and a mute boy, whom they know as The Boy. They need help with more than Nazis to survive.
“They will be prepared to fight you for it. This forest is filling up with people. Most are from the cities, the town. They do not know the woods. They will only be able to survive by taking what others already have.”
When I interviewed Ray Nayler recently, he talked about the influence of hyperobjectivity in the work of Philip K. Dick in his work. On the surface, this is historical, but Naylor was hinting at this hyperobjectivity in the title of his most famous novel. Much of that novel exists under the water, hidden; you have to explore the ideas. You don’t have to dig as deep with this novel, but the heart of the novel is not just bonds forged over survival during war, but an outsider's eye watching our species at its very lowest moment. It goes deeper still.
Palaces of the Crow might seem like a historical novel, but many themes and concepts of this novel are still below the surface. Sure, it is a story of four teenagers surviving the war. Similar to Mountain it is about communication, animal intelligence, and the tight web of nature that humans find themselves entangled in. The crows feel separate from the war. I often thought about how much the conflict and human folly looked to these birds. This is a powerful thread woven into the novel.
The nature of war and the behavior of the soldiers provided one of the most haunting moments in the novel. “He has a recording inside him; if you opened his head, you would see it, the tape going from one reel to the other.” This odd observation also felt Dickian to me in a really positive way. The next line is a very cold description of the results of the interior dehumanization. “Dead men were scattered all around the smashed staff car the politruk had been hiding behind. The parts of dead men.” Thus, the one-two punch here is brutal and powerful.
A part with Kezia, the Roma girl, also highlighted this disconnect. “She remembered what she had said to her. “Even if a gadjo claims to love you, even then remember: we are nothing to them. For the gadjo we are not alive. We sing and dance and are lovely, but we are no more alive to them than the mechanical wonders at the fair.”
Palaces of the Crow is a historical novel, rich with many textured philosophical themes, and it is also an example of an author with a singular voice. Many authors could have written parts of this novel; one reason why I feel Nayler has released four masterpieces is that they are all books no one else could write. Masterpiece is a word I don’t hand out lightly, but here is a novel that demands this kind of praise. Reviewing this novel on the week that Daniel Kraus just won the Pulitzer Prize it makes me think. I don’t know if this novel will find the acclaim I think it deserves, but damn if I don’t think this novel is worthy of the best of the year from me.
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