Audiobook Review: The Tusks of Extinction by Ray Nayler #scifi #mammoth #elephant #poachers

When scientists in Moscow decided to resurrect the Mammoth, they soon realize they will have to teach them HOW to be mammoths. They call on Dr. Damira Khismatullina, the top expert in elephant behavior. The only problem is that she was murdered by poachers long before. But they have her consciousness in digital form. Will what remains of Dr. Khismatullina’s conscience agree to be uploaded into a mammoth?

This is a fascinating premise. The idea of putting a human conscience into a mammoth’s brain brings up so many questions and possibilities. The author does a great job of explaining the modern plight of the elephant and the ruthlessness of the poachers. The idea of a human inhabiting the body of a mammoth is so intriguing that I wish it was explored a little more. The fact that a mammoth’s senses are greater than a human’s, and how that impacts Damira, is definitely related to the reader, but Damira’s experiences of first inhabiting the mammoth and actually learning to move around, maneuver, and take leadership of a herd were not fully explored. The book is very short and should have been a lot more fleshed out. I realize it’s a novella but the topic deserves a full-length novel. This idea has movie potential, but the book is not long enough to support that.

I listened to the audiobook, and it was well narrated by Stefan Rudnicki and Gabrielle de Cuir, who handled the tough task of portraying a unique character, Damira, who is a digitized human turned mammoth. They also related the plight of animals hunted by poachers in a truthful way so the reader can realize the brutality that is going on.

Anyone interested in protecting endangered species with a little science fiction added to the story will enjoy this book.

I received a free copy of the audiobook from Spotify Audiobooks. My review is voluntary and the opinions expressed are my own.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

(Excerpt from the bio on the author’s website) Born in Quebec and raised in California, Ray Nayler lived and worked abroad for two decades in Russia, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Vietnam, and Kosovo. A Russian speaker, he has also learned Turkmen, Albanian, Azerbaijani, and Vietnamese. Ray is a Foreign Service Officer. He previously worked in international educational development, as well as serving in the Peace Corps in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan. In Vietnam he was Environment, Science, Technology, and Health Officer at the U.S. consulate in Ho Chi Minh City. Ray also served as the international advisor to the Office of National Marine Sanctuaries at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. He is currently Diplomatic Fellow and Visiting Scholar at the Institute for International Science and Technology Policy at The George Washington University. He holds an MA in Global Diplomacy from the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy at SOAS, the University of London.

Ray began publishing speculative fiction in 2015 in the pages of Asimov’s with the short story “Mutability“.  Since then, his critically acclaimed stories have seen print in Clarkesworld, Analog, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Lightspeed, Vice (Terraform),and Nightmare, as well as in several Locus Recommended Reading lists and many “Best of the Year” anthologies.
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Ray currently lives in Washington, DC with his wife Anna, their daughter Lydia, and two rescued cats – one Tajik, one American. His novella The Tusks of Extinction will be published in January 2024 by Tor. ​

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