Moscow has resurrected the mammoth, but someone must teach them how to be mammoths, or they are doomed to die out, again.
The late Dr. Damira Khismatullina, the world’s foremost expert in elephant behavior, is called in to help. While she was murdered a year ago, her digitized consciousness is uploaded into the brain of a mammoth.
Can she help the magnificent creatures fend off poachers long enough for their species to take hold?
And will she ever discover the real reason they were brought back?

I picked up ‘The Tusks Of Extinction’  after it won the 2025 Hugo Award for Best Novella. It was marketed as, “A tense eco-thriller from a new master of the genre.”. It has resurrected mammoths, a resurrected scientist, evil poachers and Moscow intrigue, all in a bite-size package. How could I resist that?

Yet, I set it aside at 25% which, given that the novella is only 105 pages long, is an unexpected outcome.

The premise was intriguing (and inherently depressing). The dual point of view story structure showed promise.

Unfortunately, I didn’t find the storytelling engaging. It felt flat to me, despite the emotionally-charged content of the story. 

The messaging was too heavy-handed, and the prose was too dull.. 

The audiobook provided a narrator for each point of view, but neither of them pulled me in. I don’t think that was down to the narrators. Click on the YouTube link below to hear a sample of their work.