Moscow has resurrected the mammoth. But someone must teach them how to be mammoths or they are doomed to die out again. Dr. Damira, an expert in elephant behavior, was brutally murdered trying to defend the world's last elephants from the ivory trade. Now, her digitalized consciousness has been downloaded into the mind of a mammoth.

I choose it from some "book of the month" choices in a SFF GR group.

I was worried that my instinct to protect myself from witnessing the suffering of animals would be too much but I made it through. The author did not abuse his power to inflict great suffering onto the reader so I am grateful for that.

The story opens and had me "back and forth-ing" the pages a bit to see if I misread something. The first section we have Damira with a "trunk" and the very next section Damira is "shifting a rifle from one shoulder to the other". I hadn't misread, so my only choice was to continue on and hope the meaning became clear.

I felt the author masterfully weaved a couple different timelines and many characters, keeping us just a bit confused as more and more became clear. By the end, a handful of major characters became prominent and the ideas of the book were well revealed.

I believe the author is attempting to raise awareness to the fact that poaching is happening even if many of us don't know about it. We can dismiss so many things because they are not happening to us or around us. He is reminding us that humans are actively causing the extinction of elephants.

What happens when the only ones left are the ones that have only known captivity? What happens when animals that used to help maintain things like undergrowth, permafrost, food chain, etc... disappear? If we make a test tube elephant and stick him in the safari, would they know how to elephant?

As authors do, Ray Nayler wrote an interesting SF story examining this.
3.5* rounded up for GR.

I think the author spent too much time with the "boy". Too much time on his memories and how he organized them. Maps too or I should say his concept of maps. Perhaps he wanted to touch on some ideas and needed someone to share them through but I don't see how they helped with his role in the story.

Also I don't understand why the animal brought back was the woolly mammoth. If Damira was an elephant expert and the author was trying to raise awareness of poaching of elephants then why was the story about Woolly Mammoths. . ( )

I'll admit that my initial reaction to the high concept of this novella was to be a little dubious, but considering that Nayler seems to operate with a high sense of seriousness, I was going to give his story a chance. What one has in this story is a contemplation of the experience of memory on one hand, and what drives people to destructive hunting on the other. Further, I applaud Nayler for his nerve in tackling fairly near-term future scenarios, which the field has seemed to beg off on over the last decade or so. This work ought to make it on the relevant awards lists for 2024. ( )

Conceptually, this blew me away; it's a potent reminder of how, if we fuck with nature, it will fuck us back. Nayler's writing is serviceable; the pacing and structure are solid. However, I did find it odd that there's only one main character who is a woman.

Thank you to Tor Books who kindly sent me an ARC for review. ( )