The Tusks of Extinction

"The premise of this book is very neat: mammoths have been recreated, but they are also being hunted for their ivory, in a future where elephants have already gone extinct. We see a few different perspectives, including a boy dragged along with an illegal hunting party, a disgusted husband brought along on a luxury hunting trip – and a mammoth. Specifically, the mammoth has a previously-human consciousness. I won’t say more on that, as part of the enjoyment is slowly piecing together how the puzzling first few perspectives can all hang together. It’s done very well. For my tastes, Nayler does just the right amount – it’s not overdone, and I think it would be easy to get bogged down. He sticks to the interesting stuff: the sensory organs, and the behaviour of the herd. Our mammoth is the matriarch, so she has to teach and enforce this behaviour to the others. The novella explores its own past and makes relatively little progress through its present, certainly not reaching any world-altering new states of affairs. Locus magazine writes, “In its braiding of associations, the novella operates poetically… [it] unpacks, if not forgives, the forces and influences that lead to particular life choices or traps”."

"This is another beautiful, unforgiving setting! The real world this time – we spend most of the book in Siberia. There are also some cutaways to Kenya. To understand the connection, you need to know the central premise: elephants are extinct now, but thanks to advances in genetics, mammoths are back. It takes a little while of perspective-hopping for the reader to sort out how the elephant-defenders of Kenya are linked to the threatened mammoths of Siberia – which is a satisfying process in itself. You spend much of the book joining dots and appreciating links between past and present; as Locus magazine expresses it, “In its braiding of associations, the novella operates poetically”. That feels true to me. Yes. Mercenary ivory hunters and luxury game hunters both feature. There is bafflement from Nayler about both these types – we see them from the perspective of reluctant members of their parties, appalled and alienated by the experience. There is a feeling that the luxury hunt is inexplicable, and both are unspeakably tragic. That’s reinforced by the fact that one of the perspectives we inhabit is mammoth. We see their slaughter through their compatriots’ eyes, as murder. The mammoth perspective is a particular delight – the most fantastical thing in this very plausible feeling world."