Palaces of the Crow - Books Babb.no

English language

Published May 2026 by Weidenfeld & Nicolson.

ISFDB ID:: 3612634

In Ray Nayler’s speculative novel of the recent past, four young teens caught between Nazis and the Red Army survive winter in the woods with the help of a flock of highly intelligent crows with a magnificent secret of their own to protect. This program is read by fan favorite and multi-award-winning narrator Eunice Wong.

“It takes just the right narrator to weave a story of the world ending. Eunice Wong proves up to the task in this fascinating audiobook.”—Locus on Where the Axe Is Buried

Neriya, a young Jewish girl who dreams of becoming a biologist, has befriended a local flock of crows in her shtetl. Czeslaw is an underage Polish soldier who deserts the Red Army and runs into the freezing Lithuanian woods. Kezia is a Roma horse trader whose family is on the run from Soviet collectivization. As the German blitzkrieg crashes across the border …

In Ray Nayler’s speculative novel of the recent past, four young teens caught between Nazis and the Red Army survive winter in the woods with the help of a flock of highly intelligent crows with a magnificent secret of their own to protect. This program is read by fan favorite and multi-award-winning narrator Eunice Wong.

“It takes just the right narrator to weave a story of the world ending. Eunice Wong proves up to the task in this fascinating audiobook.”—Locus on Where the Axe Is Buried

Neriya, a young Jewish girl who dreams of becoming a biologist, has befriended a local flock of crows in her shtetl. Czeslaw is an underage Polish soldier who deserts the Red Army and runs into the freezing Lithuanian woods. Kezia is a Roma horse trader whose family is on the run from Soviet collectivization. As the German blitzkrieg crashes across the border in June 1941, all three are caught up in the onslaught. Along with Innokentiy, an abandoned boy who cannot speak, they are driven into the primeval forest, where they survive by forming an unbreakable bond with one another—and with Neriya’s intelligent crows, who for years have been bringing her intricate gifts suggesting they are no ordinary corvids.

As the war goes on, the crows warn the children of danger and help them hide from the human threats of the forest—not only the Germans but also Russian deserters, Polish partisans, fascist Lithuanian police, and the other bandits and outcasts wandering the benighted landscape.

From the Ray Bradbury Prize and Arthur C. Clarke Award finalist, and Hugo and Locus Award winner, Ray Nayler, Palaces of the Crow blends history and haunting speculative wonder into a story of survival, loyalty and the fragile beauty of life in the darkest of times.

3 editions

sol2070@velhaestante.com.br reviewed Palaces of the Crow by Ray Nayler

Moving and beautiful page-turner

5 stars

(em português: sol2070.in/2026/05/palaces-of-the-crow-ray-nayler/ )

I mark the release dates of Ray Nayler’s novels on my calendar. That was also the case with Palaces of the Crow (2026, 384 pages), the best of his four books, and also the most surprising.

Not only is it an exciting page-turner thriller, but it also manages to be beautiful and poetic within a horrific setting, with emotions so powerful they verge on the transcendental, without resorting to anything supernatural.

I started reading it simply because I’m a fan of the author, since the synopsis itself was only moderately interesting: a group of children and teenagers tries to survive in a forest during World War II, receiving help from crows.

Although it could be classified as science fiction, it is fundamentally a historical novel, with no advanced industrial technology. But it returns to one of Nayler’s favorite themes: animal consciousness, with …

(em português: sol2070.in/2026/05/palaces-of-the-crow-ray-nayler/ )

I mark the release dates of Ray Nayler’s novels on my calendar. That was also the case with Palaces of the Crow (2026, 384 pages), the best of his four books, and also the most surprising.

Not only is it an exciting page-turner thriller, but it also manages to be beautiful and poetic within a horrific setting, with emotions so powerful they verge on the transcendental, without resorting to anything supernatural.

I started reading it simply because I’m a fan of the author, since the synopsis itself was only moderately interesting: a group of children and teenagers tries to survive in a forest during World War II, receiving help from crows.

Although it could be classified as science fiction, it is fundamentally a historical novel, with no advanced industrial technology. But it returns to one of Nayler’s favorite themes: animal consciousness, with evolutionary speculation and nonhuman “technology” that does, in fact, bring it into the realm of science fiction.

I saw this praise online: “Ray Nayler keeps getting better and Palaces of the Crow has already reached another level.” I agree. That is even more impressive because his first novel, The Mountain in the Sea, was already extraordinary.

The new book has been widely praised for its portrayal of nonhuman consciousnesses. Yes, not only is it plausible and captivating — like alien first contact — but it is also emotionally moving and expands the limitations of the dominant mind and culture. But that has been Nayler’s specialty from the beginning; it wasn’t what surprised me most.

What affected me just as deeply was the bond established between the characters, a connection that transcends friendship or family, as the protagonist Neriya — a Jewish preteen in Lithuania before the Soviet annexation — puts it. She eventually joins other orphaned survivors in the forest (a Romani preteen from a decimated village, a little Lithuanian boy) and a Polish teenager who deserts the Red Army.

The war surrounding them turns almost every other human being into an enemy: antisemitic Bolsheviks, hunters, Nazis, militiamen, police, and so on. Neriya had befriended the forest crows while still a child. As a result, they help keep the group alive for years, but their abilities are not limited to friendship.

The World War II setting — amid snow, hunger, and mutual predation — is apocalyptic. It is, after all, a survival novel set at the end of the world, which means that this past is also a projection of the future, or perhaps even of the present.

One of the narrative’s greatest strengths is how it counterbalances total desolation and despair with welcoming, utopian attitudes and emotions. The anarchist classic Mutual Aid, by Kropotkin, appears in the novel’s epigraph, and its basic principle not only guides the plot but also gives its name to the final chapter.

Different nationalities, ethnicities, and even animal species intertwine in mutual aid, not merely to survive, but to flourish.

It had been a long time since I had read a story this moving — my glasses kept fogging up from the steam of tears. And yet it never once slips into sentimentality.

Another masterful aspect is the complete convergence of different plotlines, across different timelines and points of view: the secret of the crows, the fate of the group, what happened in the characters’ adult lives, what came before.

It was one of the most powerful reading experiences I’ve had in years.