The Tusks of Extinction

Ray Nayler
Completed 6/6/2025, Reviewed 6/6/2025
5 stars

This novella blew me away.  It has all the characteristics of the last book of Naylor’s that I read, The Mountain in the Sea, but I found it worked better for me and at a much higher level.  I haven’t read much eco-sci fi, but Nayler is clearly a profound voice in the subgenre.  He has worked with the State Department and NOAA and was in the Peace Corps for many years.  He is fluent in Russian and speaks many other languages.  I hope he is still employed by the government.  He has an amazing insight into the plight of animals and their relationship with humans.  This book takes the catastrophe of the ivory trade and transports it to a future where the mammoths are brought back through cloning and the poaching they face.  There is also a great twist that lets us into the minds of the mammoths, which I’ll explain in the plot summary.  This book is now my top pick out of the 2025 Hugo Novella nominees, with one more to go.

Damina is a Russian scientist working in the present to prevent elephant extinction through poaching for the illegal ivory trade.  In the near future, mammoths are resurrected by reconstructing the DNA from specimens from the Ice Age.  The DNA gaps are completed from their nearest cousins, elephants, who now only survive in zoos.  The mammoths are set free in the Russian taiga, but are not flourishing as their instincts for survival in the wild have not been taught.  They don’t reproduce and they don’t know how to forage in the winter for food.  In a last ditch effort, scientists transplant the mind of Damina into one of the mammoths, since she had the best understanding of elephants in the wild while she was alive.  As a mammoth, she teaches the pack to survive.  But once again, the poachers are out there.

Like his Mountain in the Sea novel, there are quite a few plotlines which eventually converge.  So there are many characters.  I had a little trouble remembering who everyone was, which is typical, but it wasn’t as bad as usual.  Damina and her plight are amazing.  Part of the story is told from her perspective as she lives with the mammoths.  Intermittently, something brings back a memory of her human life, giving us a detailed characterization.  It’s masterfully done.  It evokes empathy and compassion, but then shows us her darker side as well.  And she takes all of this with her into the mind of the alpha female mammoth she becomes.

We also follow two groups of people, a band of poachers which includes a 16-year-old boy; and a scientist, a guide, a wealthy man, and his husband who are going to hunt a young mammoth bull for the Russian government as part of a deal to receive government protection of the mammoth habitat.  In the little time we have with them, almost all the characters become three dimensional, especially the boy, who eventually tries to help the mammoths.  I was amazed at the emotions their activities evoked in me, as well as those of the mammoths.  Naylor has great insight into the minds of such people, as well as the emotional lives of elephants, which he transposed onto the mammoths.

This is not a cheery tale.  The morality for all the characters is questionable, but the book is highly satisfying.  They all face tough choices, but I eventually felt the most empathy for Damina and her challenges as alpha female.  The book is prosy, with Damina and many of the other characters dealing with their decisions internally.  But it fills in all the gaps in the action to keep you on the edge of your seat.  I give this novella five stars out of five as I felt transformed in my understanding of the poaching and the internal lives of the incredible creatures that are elephants.