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Where the Ax is Buried by Ray Nayler - Cyberpunk Book Review

where the ax is buried ray layer dystopian cyberpunk book cover with dystopian city and lights and forest

Intro:
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‍Where the Ax is Buried is a dystopian book by Ray Nayler about a society resisting totalitarianism in a complete surveillance state. Ax is should also be read as the axis of evil. The state is ruled by a president with an artificial mind who is cloned every time he dies. A variety of characters, Zoya, Lilia, and others act to resist the state’s influence and change society by addressing the AI’s technocracy, experiencing the torture and death of many loved ones along the way.

Analysis:
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Nayler has a reasonable understanding of authoritarianism, conflict theory, and power which authenticates his work. People who have never had a sociology course will learn much from this work, which is remnant of 1984 in ways.

"The state was not interested in whether people believed its lies. A good lie could always be punctured, with enough work... All they needed was implausible deniability. A lie the population would see through immediately but would have to pretend they believed. Even to themselves…"

Sections like the following are strongly Foucaultian. Foucault stated that the state controlled language and other elements of culture to set the boundaries of what could be conceived of.

"From that moment, we understood that the state was everywhere. The state did not need to anticipate us, it was always with us. It shaped the mistakes we would make, and it was there to take us into its prions when we made them… It was also the way the state was built into us, containing our actions from the very beginning, defining the horizons of what we could think and be – even of what we could see.”

Foucault’s panopticon is also present throughout the book, where citizens monitor one another even absent of state intervention, lest they lose their social credit score (note that China really does have social credit scores, so this is believable).

"As long as there is an eye in every keyhole, nothing changes.”
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eye looking through keyhole to dystopian city

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Typical cyberpunk criticism of consumerism ensues, which is welcome,

“…the dilation of the capillaries in your skin when you are about to make a purchase? All the power of private industry is invested in dissected and manipulating those seconds of decision-making. You are never more vulnerable than when you are about to buy something. Ads watch you as you watch them…if you look at an ad, it is always looking back at you.”

‍Zoya and Lillia are the most interesting characters. Zoya’s fictional book The Forever Argument is a revolutionary manual that pushes society forward by not pushing it at all. Progress for Zoya is through opposition, a balancing of power held in place by opposing acts of communicative action that restrain one another’s endless desires.

“What we need most is opposition…without it, any one of us is a monster…Togetherness is not agreement: it is the collective act of resisting one another.”

‍Overall:

The problems with the book were too many character viewpoints, undeveloped characters, some head-hopping perspective wise, and a terrible lack of urgency to the climax despite a legitimate attempt to convey it. Things wrapped up anti-climactically, and then a pseudo-climax was forced upon an already resolved structure. The book is also a bit short for the number of character viewpoints, but the excellent use of extended metaphor (including the title), Foucaultian analysis, and the subject manner are entertaining and informative. A worthy read by a master of the short story format who thankfully decided to also write a few longer novels.‍