The Tusks of Extinction

October 23, 2023
After exploring octopus intelligence in 2022’s Locus Award–winning The Mountain in the Sea, Nayler peers into the vast brains of the extinct woolly mammoth, brought back to life by futuristic gene-splicing techniques, in this impassioned and impressive sci-fi novella. The story follows the late Dr. Damira Khismatullina as her memories and expertise on elephants, backed up on a hard drive after her death, are implanted into a mammoth, giving its captivity-raised herd a chance to survive in the wild. (“We propose to make you a matriarch,” the scientist in charge tells Khismatullina before her death. “We propose to transfer your mind into one of theirs. You will lead them. You will teach them how to be mammoths. Under your leadership, they will thrive.”) Tracking the herd are a team of hardscrabble ivory poachers and a wealthy philanthropist who harbors dark hopes of bagging a mammoth. The conflict between herd and humans is tensely portrayed, even if the ending is unsurprising. Nayler makes clear which side readers should be on, though he is fair in presenting both the lure of ivory riches to indigent locals and the pressures on scientists to fund conservation through elite indulgence. The result is an uncompromising climate fiction that strikes like a spear to the gut.

Starred review from June 1, 2024

This science-fiction thriller captivates with its quick pace and its ecological message. Once, Dr. Damira Khismatullina was the world's foremost expert on elephants--until she was brutally murdered by poachers. Later, her digitized consciousness is downloaded into the body of a woolly mammoth recreated in a Russian lab. Now Damira is the matriarch of a recreated mammoth herd that has learned how to survive this new world. There are still hunters looking for mammoth trophies, however, and she is more than willing to protect her herd. Nayler (The Mountain in the Sea) moves this fast-paced story quickly and efficiently between the viewpoints of humans like Vladimir, who accompanies his lover Alexander on a mammoth-hunting trip, and Damira, now residing in a massive mammoth and slowly unlearning her human life. The stellar voicework of both Gabrielle de Cuir and Stefan Rudnicki emphasizes the contrast between Damira fighting back in a way she couldn't when she was alive and humans like Vladimir who are slowly, and with some dawning horror, awakening to humanity's arrogance. VERDICT This novel is made for fans of character-driven ecofiction like Lee Mandelo's Feed Them Silence and Octavia E. Butler's Parable of the Sower.--James Gardner

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