He was a Hugo and Locus Award finalist[1][2] for the group biography Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction.

[32] Syndromes, an audio original collection of thirteen of Nevala-Lee's stories from Analog read by Jonathan Todd Ross and Catherine Ho, was released in 2020 by Recorded Books.

[34][better source needed] In 2023, to support the writing of his biography of physicist Luis W. Alvarez, Nevala-Lee received a $40,000 grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

[35] The author Barry N. Malzberg described Nevala-Lee as "science fiction’s most promising writer and thinker to emerge since Alfred Bester stumbled into the room almost eight decades ago.

At this point, the contrast between Campbell’s racism and the diversity of the writers who have recently received the award was really just too glaring to ignore.”[37] In her acceptance speech for the 2020 Hugo Award for Best Related Work, writer Jeannette Ng, whose speech criticizing Campbell the previous year was widely seen as catalyzing the name change, thanked Nevala-Lee, "who wrote the book and brought the receipts.

"[41] Nevala-Lee's work has been cited by multiple publications, including The Atlantic,[42] for its treatment of the author Isaac Asimov's conduct toward women and its impact on the science fiction community.

[45] Nevala-Lee's debut novel, The Icon Thief, a conspiracy thriller inspired by the work of artist Marcel Duchamp,[46] received a starred review from Publishers Weekly.

[47] A sequel, City of Exiles, is partially based on the Dyatlov Pass incident,[48] while the concluding novel in the trilogy, Eternal Empire, incorporates elements from the myth of Shambhala.

[64] In SFRA Review, the critic Andy Duncan praised its writing and research, but questioned the continuing relevance of the book's four subjects: "As I enjoy and admire it, I can’t help but wonder whether it hasn’t been published a generation too late.

"[70] Rebecca Onion of The New Republic praised the book as "meticulous and clearly written," but questioned the value of Fuller's legacy: "Despite his shortcomings as a thinker and a person, Inventor of the Future insists, many brilliant people—from the sculptor Isamu Noguchi, his longtime friend and collaborator; John Cage and Merce Cunningham, his colleagues at Black Mountain College; designer Edwin Schlossberg, his later-in-life protégé; Nevala-Lee himself—have loved Fuller, and found something in his ideas.