The Tusks of Extinction by Ray Nayler

Moscow has resurrected the mammoth. But someone must teach them how to be mammoths, or they are doomed to die out again.

Dr. Damira Khismatullina, an expert in elephant behavior, was brutally murdered trying to defend the world's last elephants from the brutal ivory trade. Now, her digitized consciousness has been downloaded into the mind of a mammoth.

As the herd's new matriarch, can Damira help fend off poachers long enough for the species to take hold? Or will her own ghosts, and Moscow's real reason for bringing the mammoth back, doom them to a new extinction?

A tense SF thriller from a new master of the genre.

Ray is steadily establishing himself as one of the core voices in contemporary Science Fiction, and deservedly so. Tusks is entrancing, imaginative, and fearlessly crosses the borders of what we expect from the modern genre.

I received this one from NetGalley and this is actually one of two mammoth cloning books coming out this year!

This starts as a pretty typical eco-thriller, at least from my experience, but when the book has the elements of scifi mixed in, things truly take off. In a not-so far off future, computers can make a copy of your brain and conscious. One such conscious is the late expert in elephant behaviors, Dr. Damira Khismatullina. Not just a doctor, but a strict protector of the remaining elephant population, readers have to understand just how far some people will go to protect them. And when Russias newly cloned mammoths end up more like blubbering, stagnant copies then re-evolved miracles, they have to ask if they can imbed the doctor’s conscious into one of the mammoths in the hopes that she can teach them to survive and have future generations be born with intact instincts.

All of the above alone should be enough to entice a scifi or eco reader to grab at this one. But unfortunately for me, the other parts of the book were kind of a confusing blend of “what?” That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy this, because I did enjoy more than I disliked, I just found there to be issues.

To be honest, I did start this one on a long drive right after finishing a much longer story that I really loved. As a novella, this one didn’t last long enough for me to connect past that initial changing of setting and characters. So the “tense eco-thriller” promised in the blurb didn’t hit for me, as I really didn’t find this thrilling.

The messages behind the not-so distant future worked for me, as well as the continued greed of humanity with high priced mammoth hunting, but there was a decent amount that was simply flat for me. Personally a 3/5* for me.

This book was very different from what I expected. It is more contemplative and an exploration of ideas than I expect from a thriller.

I would have loved to explore the ethics of uploading someone's consciousness into another body, and how you have a body without a consciousness in the first place, but this book didn't explore that. Instead it explored revenge and the human capabilities for violence juxtaposed with the mammoth's peaceful nature - which was interesting to explore!

There were a lot of interesting ideas presented here, but I would have loved it if more of them were explored. Ultimately I was underwhelmed by this book, but I am interested in checking out more books from this author

I received a copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley

His first book, The Mountain in the Sea, led me to read this, and I wasn't disappointed. This light novel, in a short span of under 100 pages, packs quite a punch.

The main events deal with poachers, elephants, and their ancient cousins the mammoths. It speculates on de-extinction and narrates cruel events in a human greed impacted future. I was a bit confused at the start, which always happens to me when there are POV changes or time shifts, but by page 30 I was settled in the story and enjoyed a direct ride until I finished it.

The writing feels very well researched, it brings fictional events to a very near feel of reality –of what is and what could be.

Loved it 🧡