Ray Nayler came hot out of the gates with his debut novel The Mountain in the Sea and instantly won my attention for all time. Learning that he was releasing a novella in early 2024 about reviving the wooly mammoth was a cause for celebration. The Tusks of Extinction delivers on its premise but it needed more space to truly shine.
Dr. Damira Khismuatullina was one of the world’s foremost experts in elephant behavior before she was murdered by poachers. She also happened to have her consciousness digitized a year before her death so she could be part of a library of experts for the future to pull from. When scientists in Moscow decide to resurrect the mammoth, they are surprised to find out that the mammoths don’t know how to exist as mammoths. So they upload a copy of Damira’s consciousness into the brain of one of the mammoths to try to teach them how to be themselves. But even in the future, some poachers value the ivory within the mammoth’s tusks. Can Damira assume the role of matriarch and use her knowledge to teach the mammoths before they become fodder for the world’s elite?
I enjoyed The Tusks of Extinction, but it needed more room to breathe. It was a fast-paced story that explored three different characters and how their lives intersected. Damira was easily the most interesting as her perspective was a sort of fever dream. Nayler played with the concept of memory a lot, interweaving Damira’s past and present with research on elephant behavior and memory. It heightened the seamlessness of her memories and mental state, allowing the reader to slip between her past and present with ease. It also opened up avenues for Nayler to explore the ramifications of memory, culture, and inserting a human consciousness into the brain structure of another animal. While Damira’s story was the most complete, its revelations didn’t have enough time to deliver on the oomphs that The Mountain in the Sea so devastatingly uncovered. Instead of digging at the essential reality of memory and recall, the hard realizations felt like general knowledge. They weren’t disappointing, they just didn’t have the same punch.
While the other characters had even less time to develop, they were still interesting lenses to view the world around Damira. Vladimir, the husband of an ultra-rich philanthropist with a deadly penchant for hunting magnificent beasts, follows his husband on a hunting trip for the first time. His story mostly revolved around his relationship with Anthony, but there wasn’t a whole lot there beyond body language observations. I liked Vladimir’s perspective, brushing up against the rangers and highlighting how funds for the reserve are garnered. But I also felt that his story was the weakest because he didn’t do much but observe. It was a neat window, but I wanted him to have a little more character.
Svyatoslav is a sixteen-year-old poacher who watched his entire camp get demolished by Damira’s clan. He gets some interesting character moments and is there to peel back the realities of the poachers’ black market, and the people who live on the fringes who make it happen. I liked his sections just because of the pure brutality on display. The descriptions of the constant scent of blood, the nightmare the poachers were trapped in, and the banal existence of day-to-day life in the tundra were impressive. It was a space for Nayler to dive into the subjective experience without too much philosophizing, grounding the headier ideas. Given a little more time, Svyatolslav would have been a good place to explore one’s meaning within such an industry, and what might happen if it became threatened.
In the end, The Tusks of Extinction was enjoyable but it feels like it could have been longer. Nayler has good instincts and is really good at leading his readers down interesting paths that question the nature of things. It would have been easy to dive into genetics, but instead, Nayler targeted culture, and cultural knowledge and how humans mess with it, and misunderstand it. I want to see more of what Nayler can do, and if you want a good introduction before diving into his novel, The Tusks of Extinction is a nice bite-sized appetizer.
Rating: The Tusks of Extinction – Two tusks curved slightly up
-Alex
An ARC of this book was provided to me by the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The thoughts on this book are my own.
