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Mammoth #1
Hopeaturkki
Siperia. Nyt. Mammutteja on vielä elossa.
Vuosituhansia ne ovat eläneet rauhassa, mutta nyt ihmiset ovat löytäneet viimeiset mammutit kaukaiselta saarelta Siperiasta ja aikovat saattaa loppuun kauan sitten aloittamansa teurastuksen. Hopeaturkki joutuu kohtaamaan elämänsä suurimman haasteen.
Englantilainen Stephen Baxter on yksi maailman arvostetuimpia ja palkituimpia tieteiskirjailijoita. Mammutit-trilogiassa hän kertoo mammuttien tarinan esihistoriallisilta ajoilta tähän päivään ja tulevaisuuteen asti. Mammutit-trilogia on taidokkaasti kirjoitettu eepos elämän synnystä, rohkeudesta ja luonnon voimasta myyttisten mammuttien näkökulmasta. Mammutit on 90-luvun Ruohometsän kansa.
Vuosituhansia ne ovat eläneet rauhassa, mutta nyt ihmiset ovat löytäneet viimeiset mammutit kaukaiselta saarelta Siperiasta ja aikovat saattaa loppuun kauan sitten aloittamansa teurastuksen. Hopeaturkki joutuu kohtaamaan elämänsä suurimman haasteen.
Englantilainen Stephen Baxter on yksi maailman arvostetuimpia ja palkituimpia tieteiskirjailijoita. Mammutit-trilogiassa hän kertoo mammuttien tarinan esihistoriallisilta ajoilta tähän päivään ja tulevaisuuteen asti. Mammutit-trilogia on taidokkaasti kirjoitettu eepos elämän synnystä, rohkeudesta ja luonnon voimasta myyttisten mammuttien näkökulmasta. Mammutit on 90-luvun Ruohometsän kansa.
280 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1999
9 people are currently reading
1281 people want to read
About the author
Stephen Baxter
403 books2,601 followersStephen Baxter is a trained engineer with degrees from Cambridge (mathematics) and Southampton Universities (doctorate in aeroengineering research). Baxter is the winner of the British Science Fiction Award and the Locus Award, as well as being a nominee for an Arthur C. Clarke Award, most recently for Manifold: Time. His novel Voyage won the Sidewise Award for Best Alternate History Novel of the Year; he also won the John W. Campbell Award and the Philip K. Dick Award for his novel The Time Ships. He is currently working on his next novel, a collaboration with Sir Arthur C. Clarke. Mr. Baxter lives in Prestwood, England.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 60 reviews
February 14, 2012
Oh, how I wanted to love this book. I’ve been fascinated by prehistoric animals since I was five years old, and for many years I’ve also had a great interest in elephant intelligence and behavior. So I thought that a novel about mammoths – one which purports to portray them as having a rich oral culture, and to accurately imagine their daily lives – would be right up my alley.
Alas, for me this read was a hard slog, requiring a lot of set-aside time over a period of six months. And although I purchased the two sequels at the same time as the first one, I think it very unlikely that I will ever get around to reading them.
To his credit, Stephen Baxter’s research on both mammoths and their environment, has the air of impeccability, and evokes the far-northern climate and landscape with vividness. The only fault I can find in this aspect of the book, is the exhaustiveness with which he goes about his descriptions. A writer with a scholarly inclination to detail (he is a trained engineer), he seems unable to ever deny himself the satisfaction of including a full laundry-list of animal and plant species, glacier features, and other biologic and geographic phenomena, whenever the opportunity arises. As an example: “She munched on the bright red cranberries, yellow cloudberries, midnight blue bilberries, and inky-black crowberries.” I often felt more like I was reading a science textbook, than a fictional adventure. (“…their leaves were thick and waxy, which helped them retain their water.”)
For some readers, this evocation of the Arctic tundra environment in minute detail, will no doubt be an intellectual feast. Nor do I myself have any objection to knowing more about about an unfamiliar region. However, for my fiction-reading taste, Baxter’s digressions into descriptive natural history simply occupy too much of the text.
He approaches the biological realities of the mammoths in the same almost clinical way. (“When Lop-ear had taken a trunkful he closed the trunk by clenching its fingers, lifted the end, and curled it into his mouth. Then he tilted his head back, opened his trunk, and let the water gush into his mouth…” “And she would lift her anus flap and pass dung, briskly and efficiently, as mammoths must ten or twelve times a day. The soft brown mass settled to the ice behind her, steaming…”)
The dung-passing thing became a particularly sticky issue (as it were) for me, in working my way through the book. It just seemed to be more detailed information than I really needed, and showed up much too often (for example, twice in two paragraphs, at the start of Chapter Sixteen).
But all these are minor quibbles, compared to the biggest drawback, for me. There is an inescapable fact about stories in general – to be interesting to the human mind (therefore popular and successful), they must always somehow incorporate two key elements: sex, and death. Nearly all of us spend our lives puzzling over two great questions – one, where we come from (sex plays a big part) and two, where we go at the end of all this. So, the purpose of all stories is, essentially, an effort to come to some greater understanding (or at least, acceptance) of these mysteries. In my observation, when one of these is under-used, the other is proportionately increased. This seems to be almost instinctive for storytellers. Now, a book on mammoths has little scope for sexy situations, although the protagonist, Silverhair, does mate once, in a quite efficient, not terribly erotic fashion. (Parents, do not be alarmed. Nothing about that one-page scene contains anything that should distress anyone who has reached puberty – they certainly hear much more, and much worse, in music videos and on the playground.) My point is, that in any work of fiction in which the sex is scarce, you’ll almost certainly find plenty of killing and dying.
This is where the humans come in – quintessential antagonists, and utter sadists, completely lacking a single redeeming quality. If anything could, by now, make me any sorrier to be part of the human species, it would have been this book. I found the men’s brutal slaughter of each mammoth victim, to be very hard to stomach. Known to the mammoths as “the Lost,” humans appear to find purpose only in hurting and killing.
These humans also happen to have “thunder-sticks” (a term introduced over eighty years ago by Felix Salten, author of Bambi) and also “light-birds” (helicopters), which seemed darned peculiar, in a story that I started out thinking was set in the Ice Age. Eventually, it became clear to me that Baxter has created an alternate time-line world, in which a remote population of mammoths on a far-northern island, has somehow managed to survive into the Petrochemical Age, only to fall foul of a chance encounter with a small group of stranded humans.
But it sure was confusing, since for most of the book, Baxter does not provide himself with any literary device for clarifying time, place, or human motivations. Much of the violence between humans and mammoths left me not only unhappy but also puzzled, right up until an unbelievably neat explication, delivered by a surprise character, ostensibly tying up all the loose ends (and seeming inconsistencies), in the final eight pages. However, I feel that some plot elements are a bit far-fetched; worse, the denouement resolution relies on the introduction of a too-pat deus ex machina.
In Baxter’s favor, I should say that probably when I was twelve, I would have devoured this book and cherished it. I’m sure I would have been enchanted by the idea of a novel about mammoths (not merely museum representations, but fully-realized as a band of lively, hairy, smelly, loving, loyal, quarrelsome, courageous individuals). I would have also learned a lot from the extensive detail about the tundra environment, and been the happier for my increased knowledge. And I probably would not have been disappointed by the many weak aspects of the storytelling, since young people tend to be far more forgiving than adults, when it comes to logic and plot consistency.Even the animals’ violent deaths would have bothered me far less in adolescence (I know this, because books I loved then, are often upsetting for me to read now.) So, perhaps an adolescent audience was his target all along. I do think that it’s worth trying this book out on any teenager who already has a strong interest in palaeontology. It might not be great literature, but it could inspire a career in science.
Alas, for me this read was a hard slog, requiring a lot of set-aside time over a period of six months. And although I purchased the two sequels at the same time as the first one, I think it very unlikely that I will ever get around to reading them.
To his credit, Stephen Baxter’s research on both mammoths and their environment, has the air of impeccability, and evokes the far-northern climate and landscape with vividness. The only fault I can find in this aspect of the book, is the exhaustiveness with which he goes about his descriptions. A writer with a scholarly inclination to detail (he is a trained engineer), he seems unable to ever deny himself the satisfaction of including a full laundry-list of animal and plant species, glacier features, and other biologic and geographic phenomena, whenever the opportunity arises. As an example: “She munched on the bright red cranberries, yellow cloudberries, midnight blue bilberries, and inky-black crowberries.” I often felt more like I was reading a science textbook, than a fictional adventure. (“…their leaves were thick and waxy, which helped them retain their water.”)
For some readers, this evocation of the Arctic tundra environment in minute detail, will no doubt be an intellectual feast. Nor do I myself have any objection to knowing more about about an unfamiliar region. However, for my fiction-reading taste, Baxter’s digressions into descriptive natural history simply occupy too much of the text.
He approaches the biological realities of the mammoths in the same almost clinical way. (“When Lop-ear had taken a trunkful he closed the trunk by clenching its fingers, lifted the end, and curled it into his mouth. Then he tilted his head back, opened his trunk, and let the water gush into his mouth…” “And she would lift her anus flap and pass dung, briskly and efficiently, as mammoths must ten or twelve times a day. The soft brown mass settled to the ice behind her, steaming…”)
The dung-passing thing became a particularly sticky issue (as it were) for me, in working my way through the book. It just seemed to be more detailed information than I really needed, and showed up much too often (for example, twice in two paragraphs, at the start of Chapter Sixteen).
But all these are minor quibbles, compared to the biggest drawback, for me. There is an inescapable fact about stories in general – to be interesting to the human mind (therefore popular and successful), they must always somehow incorporate two key elements: sex, and death. Nearly all of us spend our lives puzzling over two great questions – one, where we come from (sex plays a big part) and two, where we go at the end of all this. So, the purpose of all stories is, essentially, an effort to come to some greater understanding (or at least, acceptance) of these mysteries. In my observation, when one of these is under-used, the other is proportionately increased. This seems to be almost instinctive for storytellers. Now, a book on mammoths has little scope for sexy situations, although the protagonist, Silverhair, does mate once, in a quite efficient, not terribly erotic fashion. (Parents, do not be alarmed. Nothing about that one-page scene contains anything that should distress anyone who has reached puberty – they certainly hear much more, and much worse, in music videos and on the playground.) My point is, that in any work of fiction in which the sex is scarce, you’ll almost certainly find plenty of killing and dying.
This is where the humans come in – quintessential antagonists, and utter sadists, completely lacking a single redeeming quality. If anything could, by now, make me any sorrier to be part of the human species, it would have been this book. I found the men’s brutal slaughter of each mammoth victim, to be very hard to stomach. Known to the mammoths as “the Lost,” humans appear to find purpose only in hurting and killing.
These humans also happen to have “thunder-sticks” (a term introduced over eighty years ago by Felix Salten, author of Bambi) and also “light-birds” (helicopters), which seemed darned peculiar, in a story that I started out thinking was set in the Ice Age. Eventually, it became clear to me that Baxter has created an alternate time-line world, in which a remote population of mammoths on a far-northern island, has somehow managed to survive into the Petrochemical Age, only to fall foul of a chance encounter with a small group of stranded humans.
But it sure was confusing, since for most of the book, Baxter does not provide himself with any literary device for clarifying time, place, or human motivations. Much of the violence between humans and mammoths left me not only unhappy but also puzzled, right up until an unbelievably neat explication, delivered by a surprise character, ostensibly tying up all the loose ends (and seeming inconsistencies), in the final eight pages. However, I feel that some plot elements are a bit far-fetched; worse, the denouement resolution relies on the introduction of a too-pat deus ex machina.
In Baxter’s favor, I should say that probably when I was twelve, I would have devoured this book and cherished it. I’m sure I would have been enchanted by the idea of a novel about mammoths (not merely museum representations, but fully-realized as a band of lively, hairy, smelly, loving, loyal, quarrelsome, courageous individuals). I would have also learned a lot from the extensive detail about the tundra environment, and been the happier for my increased knowledge. And I probably would not have been disappointed by the many weak aspects of the storytelling, since young people tend to be far more forgiving than adults, when it comes to logic and plot consistency.Even the animals’ violent deaths would have bothered me far less in adolescence (I know this, because books I loved then, are often upsetting for me to read now.) So, perhaps an adolescent audience was his target all along. I do think that it’s worth trying this book out on any teenager who already has a strong interest in palaeontology. It might not be great literature, but it could inspire a career in science.
November 22, 2019
Reads like the script of a kid friendly anthropomorphized nature documentary - very heavy on explaining biology, habitat, ecology, very light on plot, character development. I got about half way through and have no motivation to finish this despite how short it is. I read one review online about a surprise twist in the ending, I might skip ahead to see what it is.
December 16, 2017
This first entry into Baxter's "Mammoth" trilogy is a concise read, both well-written and well-conceived. It is also among his most harrowing works that I've read to date, ranking right up there with "Titan" on the bleakness scale. This seems fitting for a story which is chronicling the slow decline of what is quite possibly the last family of wooly mammoths on Earth. But it does not make for an easy read, and does not reflect well on humanity either. Without giving away any spoilers, the twist which serves to fit all the pieces together (hinted at early on, but revealed only quite close to the end) turns out not to be a twist at all, really, but a natural result of the fact that the mammoths in this story are unable to fully understand the human beings they share their world with. As to the mammoths themselves, Baxter takes some welcome license in allowing them a language of their own, which allows for meaningful dialogue, and an oral history which helps to clarify their collective culture. And while I won't hesitate to pursue the remaining books in this series, it will be with the trepidation of knowing that, as with this volume, they are likely to set my skin crawling more often than not. For stout hearts only.
November 9, 2011
When I first came across Mammoth, I was intrigued. A novel about mammoths. I thought I had seen it all but a /novel\ about /mammoths\? I was curious and it looked good so I got it out from the library and decided to give it a go.
From the first sentence I was drawn into this world of mammoths: and indeed, Stephen Baxter perfectly captures the personality of all the characters and writes a moving piece of Science Fiction that will grasp your attention. The ending left me with tears pricking my eyes and a resolve that I will definitely be getting the next book in the trilogy out.
Mammoth is all about Silverhair; a young mammoth, and one of the last in the world. Although she and her family don't know it yet. When The Lost (humans) suddenly appear on their isolated island, The Lost seek to finish the slaughter that had begun so long ago.
Rich, vivid, filled with research and a captivating read, Silverhair will not disappoint you. I certainly won't be forgetting this story anytime soon!
From the first sentence I was drawn into this world of mammoths: and indeed, Stephen Baxter perfectly captures the personality of all the characters and writes a moving piece of Science Fiction that will grasp your attention. The ending left me with tears pricking my eyes and a resolve that I will definitely be getting the next book in the trilogy out.
Mammoth is all about Silverhair; a young mammoth, and one of the last in the world. Although she and her family don't know it yet. When The Lost (humans) suddenly appear on their isolated island, The Lost seek to finish the slaughter that had begun so long ago.
Rich, vivid, filled with research and a captivating read, Silverhair will not disappoint you. I certainly won't be forgetting this story anytime soon!
July 29, 2023
Μακριά από το αγαπημένο του διάστημα, τις σχετικιστικές ταχύτητες και τα εσωτερικά των άστρων, ο Stephen Baxter μας δίνει μια πολύ όμορφη τριλογία... παλαιοντολογικής φαντασίας.
Η Silverhair, είναι μαμούθ και μάλιστα σε μια εποχή που ένας νέος κίνδυνος έχει εμφανιστεί πάνω στη γη. Ένας κίνδυνος που βαδίζει περίεργα, πάνω σε δύο πόδια...
Η Silverhair, είναι μαμούθ και μάλιστα σε μια εποχή που ένας νέος κίνδυνος έχει εμφανιστεί πάνω στη γη. Ένας κίνδυνος που βαδίζει περίεργα, πάνω σε δύο πόδια...
August 13, 2024
The Short Version
An engaging and fun sci-fi tale following the lives of some of the last mammoths in the world. While sometimes the storytelling felt a bit simple, the book is fast paced and hard to put down.
The writing likely won't win many over that aren't already interested in the concept, but is a solid recommendation for anyone who is.
The Long Version
This was a random find at a used book store. A book where the main character is a mammoth! Perfect, it can sit on the shelf right next to my copy of Raptor Red.
The book itself was thankfully quite enjoyable. Unlike Raptor Red, we understand exactly what the mammoths are thinking and saying to each other in a much more traditional way. This is handled well and never feels out of place. The individual mammoths are all well realized and were interesting and distinctive. I found myself caring about all of them and their various plights.
In general the story was engaging as well, though it often felt a bit rushed to me. There were also a few times where things seemed to happen a little too easily, or that some storylines were never fully realized. The two that bothered me the most were
There is a sequel, but I get the feeling the sequel jumps ahead far enough that I won't expect to see these storylines dealt with in it either. Disappointing. I really would have loved to spend more time with the mammoths and their every day struggles. I found the book less engaging during their final encounter, though thanks to the strong character work I was still fully along for the ride.
Despite the books hiccups, I had trouble putting it down. It falls just shy of greatness, but if you're looking for a fun read with some prehistoric creatures, I definitely recommend giving Silverhair a try.
An engaging and fun sci-fi tale following the lives of some of the last mammoths in the world. While sometimes the storytelling felt a bit simple, the book is fast paced and hard to put down.
The writing likely won't win many over that aren't already interested in the concept, but is a solid recommendation for anyone who is.
The Long Version
This was a random find at a used book store. A book where the main character is a mammoth! Perfect, it can sit on the shelf right next to my copy of Raptor Red.
The book itself was thankfully quite enjoyable. Unlike Raptor Red, we understand exactly what the mammoths are thinking and saying to each other in a much more traditional way. This is handled well and never feels out of place. The individual mammoths are all well realized and were interesting and distinctive. I found myself caring about all of them and their various plights.
In general the story was engaging as well, though it often felt a bit rushed to me. There were also a few times where things seemed to happen a little too easily, or that some storylines were never fully realized. The two that bothered me the most were
There is a sequel, but I get the feeling the sequel jumps ahead far enough that I won't expect to see these storylines dealt with in it either. Disappointing. I really would have loved to spend more time with the mammoths and their every day struggles. I found the book less engaging during their final encounter, though thanks to the strong character work I was still fully along for the ride.
Despite the books hiccups, I had trouble putting it down. It falls just shy of greatness, but if you're looking for a fun read with some prehistoric creatures, I definitely recommend giving Silverhair a try.
October 27, 2017
"It is a frozen world. There is only the tundra: an immense undulating plain, a white monotony broken up by splinters of rock. Very little snow falls here, but unimpeded winds whip up ice crystals, giving the impression of frequent blizzards. Even the outcroppings of rock have been shattered by millennia of frost to rough, unstable scree.
It seems impossible that anything should live here. And yet there is life."
The visceral, rich story of Silverhair follows a small family group of mammoths on a remote Siberian island as the Arctic winter gives way to cruelly brief summer. "It was a furious chorus of mating and death." The mammoths are vividly painted, awash with scent and rough hairy wrestling, and sensitive touches of trunk fingers.
Baxter writes the immersive way the mammoths experience their environment and their bodies with evidence of detailed research into the physiology of lost-lost mammoths, and a sharp understanding of elephant behaviour. These intelligent, long-lived mammals have their own oral tradition and speech. "mammoth speech is based not just on the sounds a mammoth makes - from the ground-shaking stops, the low-pitched rumbles, bellows, trumpets, and growls to the high-pitched chirrups of their trunks - but also on the complex dances of their bodies, and changes in how they smell or breath or scratch, even in the deep throb of their pulses." They can communicate by contact rumbles over vast distances, and leave marks in stone achingly reminiscent of cave paintings. "These markings came from a richer time" Their story is embedded in a deep comfort with time. "There is the Great Year, the twenty-thousand-year nod of the precessing axis of the spinning planet. And mammoths know even the million-year cycle of the great ice sheets" Baxter writes with lifetimes in mind, a slurring collection of days which yield beneath the great pace of the mammoths. Every paragraph feels as if it was deliberately written outside human experience.
And the mammoths' oral tradition is beautiful. They have their own awareness of evolutionary survival, passed down in myth. "Everybody is descended from someone smart enough to survive the past." The mammoth oral history is told with a beautiful lyricism reminiscent of the parables in the New Testament, the repetitive choral structure of each tale echoing enduring passages common to many human religions. "'You stole nothing from your sisters, and yet what they stole from you has made you strong. Go Probos, the Earth is yours.'" There is even reference to the Hindu elephant-headed god Ganesh, recast as a mythical or historical figure in mammoth ancestry. "'The art of travelling is to pick the least dangerous path.' that was another passage from the Cycle, from the teachings of the great Matriarch, Ganesha the Wise." Baxter has given his mammoths a truly thought-provoking and rich mental landscape, he brings their intelligence to life as if he is describing the contents of ancient city.
The mammoth characters themselves are no less vivid. Diminished to possibly that last family tribe left in the world, these great animals are characterised by their weakness, their failing genes, their imperfections in the face of a changing world. They have names like Croptail and Lop-ear, emphasising disability, and Eggtusk and Snagtooth, named for the malformation of their teeth. And yet they are incredibly noble animals. Lop-ear is logical and far-sighted, fearing the end for the mammoths even as he wishes he could stop thinking about it. Eggtusk is bold and traditional as an Arthurian knight, brave to a fault, making the moving decision to smash his own tusks to splinters when he is trapped by human hunters in order to deny them their prize. Sunfire, the albino newborn mammoth, is a ray of innocence. Most of all, I admired the old Matriarch's mother Wolf-nose, arthritic and weak when she was once the sharpest of them all. "I tell you, if it's true, and we all die here, then it all dies with us - after more generations than there are stars in the winter sky.'" And yet Wolf-nose realises that the mammoths must nurture the disturbing new thoughts of the next generation, as this is the only source of hope for their future. All the characters were deeply inspirational in their own unique ways.
"And everywhere there were straight lines: the hard signature of the Lost, the symbol of the dominance over the world around them."
As if climate change and reduced genetic diversity were not enough, the mammoths have to content with humans on their island. "she had never seen seals sitting up as these creatures did, never seen seals with fins as long and splayed as these - never heard voices, floating over the water and the shore of ice and rock, as petulant and peevish as these." The adventurous young Silverhair finds the humans not only strange and new, but somehow outside nature. Although they look like animals, their most striking characteristic is "that strange lack of any scent." Led by Silverhair, the mammoths hope to find help from the frightening intelligence of the humans. Eggtusk knows this is not to be. The humans won't see themselves as fellow animals with the mammoths. "'That is why they disturb so much of what they touch. They are trying to forget what they are.'"
Silverhair, Snagtooth, and the last great Bull Eggtooth are hunted by the sinister Skin-of-Ice, a bald human with hoarfrost clinging to his scalp who has been stranded with others on the island. Are they Soviet soldiers from the military base at the south coast of the island? Are they ordinary citizens? The humans are divided, morally weak, but the strength of Skin-of-Ice's deliberate cruelty compels them to obey him. "He knows I'm conscious, Silverhair thought. He knows I'm in here." He begins with guns, switching to bone-tipped spears in a frightening recurrence of primitive hunter man. The mammoths are afraid. Snagtooth almost believes the humans' superiority. "'They are small and weak and isolated on the island, but they are not slowly dying as we are. They are not like us. Perhaps they are better." Many of the family are lost in the heart-wrenching bloody battles which follow, ripped apart by rifle fire.
"'There is always a choice.' rumbled Silverhair."
Silverhair escapes into a cavern gouged out by mammoth tusks millennia ago to reach salty mineral. She follows her sister Foxeye and the two baby mammoths across the sea, swimming until she is submerged by exhaustion, only to be carried on the back of a fellow mammal in danger from humans. She frees her family momentarily, only to be moved back to an enclosure on the island to be studied by humans. "'How can we share a world with creatures like that?' 'Because we must.'" Is this interference by man, the promise of genetic manipulation to keep the mammoth species alive, an altruistic act? Or is this merely another device to assert control over the natural processes of animal life? I can't wait to read the next instalment in Silverhair's story.
It seems impossible that anything should live here. And yet there is life."
The visceral, rich story of Silverhair follows a small family group of mammoths on a remote Siberian island as the Arctic winter gives way to cruelly brief summer. "It was a furious chorus of mating and death." The mammoths are vividly painted, awash with scent and rough hairy wrestling, and sensitive touches of trunk fingers.
Baxter writes the immersive way the mammoths experience their environment and their bodies with evidence of detailed research into the physiology of lost-lost mammoths, and a sharp understanding of elephant behaviour. These intelligent, long-lived mammals have their own oral tradition and speech. "mammoth speech is based not just on the sounds a mammoth makes - from the ground-shaking stops, the low-pitched rumbles, bellows, trumpets, and growls to the high-pitched chirrups of their trunks - but also on the complex dances of their bodies, and changes in how they smell or breath or scratch, even in the deep throb of their pulses." They can communicate by contact rumbles over vast distances, and leave marks in stone achingly reminiscent of cave paintings. "These markings came from a richer time" Their story is embedded in a deep comfort with time. "There is the Great Year, the twenty-thousand-year nod of the precessing axis of the spinning planet. And mammoths know even the million-year cycle of the great ice sheets" Baxter writes with lifetimes in mind, a slurring collection of days which yield beneath the great pace of the mammoths. Every paragraph feels as if it was deliberately written outside human experience.
And the mammoths' oral tradition is beautiful. They have their own awareness of evolutionary survival, passed down in myth. "Everybody is descended from someone smart enough to survive the past." The mammoth oral history is told with a beautiful lyricism reminiscent of the parables in the New Testament, the repetitive choral structure of each tale echoing enduring passages common to many human religions. "'You stole nothing from your sisters, and yet what they stole from you has made you strong. Go Probos, the Earth is yours.'" There is even reference to the Hindu elephant-headed god Ganesh, recast as a mythical or historical figure in mammoth ancestry. "'The art of travelling is to pick the least dangerous path.' that was another passage from the Cycle, from the teachings of the great Matriarch, Ganesha the Wise." Baxter has given his mammoths a truly thought-provoking and rich mental landscape, he brings their intelligence to life as if he is describing the contents of ancient city.
The mammoth characters themselves are no less vivid. Diminished to possibly that last family tribe left in the world, these great animals are characterised by their weakness, their failing genes, their imperfections in the face of a changing world. They have names like Croptail and Lop-ear, emphasising disability, and Eggtusk and Snagtooth, named for the malformation of their teeth. And yet they are incredibly noble animals. Lop-ear is logical and far-sighted, fearing the end for the mammoths even as he wishes he could stop thinking about it. Eggtusk is bold and traditional as an Arthurian knight, brave to a fault, making the moving decision to smash his own tusks to splinters when he is trapped by human hunters in order to deny them their prize. Sunfire, the albino newborn mammoth, is a ray of innocence. Most of all, I admired the old Matriarch's mother Wolf-nose, arthritic and weak when she was once the sharpest of them all. "I tell you, if it's true, and we all die here, then it all dies with us - after more generations than there are stars in the winter sky.'" And yet Wolf-nose realises that the mammoths must nurture the disturbing new thoughts of the next generation, as this is the only source of hope for their future. All the characters were deeply inspirational in their own unique ways.
"And everywhere there were straight lines: the hard signature of the Lost, the symbol of the dominance over the world around them."
As if climate change and reduced genetic diversity were not enough, the mammoths have to content with humans on their island. "she had never seen seals sitting up as these creatures did, never seen seals with fins as long and splayed as these - never heard voices, floating over the water and the shore of ice and rock, as petulant and peevish as these." The adventurous young Silverhair finds the humans not only strange and new, but somehow outside nature. Although they look like animals, their most striking characteristic is "that strange lack of any scent." Led by Silverhair, the mammoths hope to find help from the frightening intelligence of the humans. Eggtusk knows this is not to be. The humans won't see themselves as fellow animals with the mammoths. "'That is why they disturb so much of what they touch. They are trying to forget what they are.'"
Silverhair, Snagtooth, and the last great Bull Eggtooth are hunted by the sinister Skin-of-Ice, a bald human with hoarfrost clinging to his scalp who has been stranded with others on the island. Are they Soviet soldiers from the military base at the south coast of the island? Are they ordinary citizens? The humans are divided, morally weak, but the strength of Skin-of-Ice's deliberate cruelty compels them to obey him. "He knows I'm conscious, Silverhair thought. He knows I'm in here." He begins with guns, switching to bone-tipped spears in a frightening recurrence of primitive hunter man. The mammoths are afraid. Snagtooth almost believes the humans' superiority. "'They are small and weak and isolated on the island, but they are not slowly dying as we are. They are not like us. Perhaps they are better." Many of the family are lost in the heart-wrenching bloody battles which follow, ripped apart by rifle fire.
"'There is always a choice.' rumbled Silverhair."
Silverhair escapes into a cavern gouged out by mammoth tusks millennia ago to reach salty mineral. She follows her sister Foxeye and the two baby mammoths across the sea, swimming until she is submerged by exhaustion, only to be carried on the back of a fellow mammal in danger from humans. She frees her family momentarily, only to be moved back to an enclosure on the island to be studied by humans. "'How can we share a world with creatures like that?' 'Because we must.'" Is this interference by man, the promise of genetic manipulation to keep the mammoth species alive, an altruistic act? Or is this merely another device to assert control over the natural processes of animal life? I can't wait to read the next instalment in Silverhair's story.
November 24, 2017
Well this was definitely No Watership down! The premise was to farfetched and spending time trying to figure out what the mammoths were describing when they talked about the "Lost" was silly and all the various descriptions of ice tedious. Not one I would recommend.
January 30, 2019
Definite points for interesting. Liked it. Worth reading if you have any interest in mammoths.
August 7, 2009
Baxter has written a "lost world" type book set in the arctic. Rather than tell the story of the team of adventurers that stumbles upon the last enclave of mammoths on an isolated arctic island, Baxter tells his tale from the point of view of Silverhair, a female member of the mammoth herd. This is in itself an interesting premise. He decides to give the mammoths language and the mammoths know, on an intellectual and rational level rather than instinctive, how to survive in their wilderness. The mammoths have come to realzie that they are the last Family on the island and then face a new threat from the Lost.
Unfortunately for me, the book was too unbelievable as an adult read. Perhpas younger readers would really like it and perhaps this is why so much type is spent on defecating and anus flaps. Even descriptions are repeated word for word in the book, which eventually became rather irratating (especially when they were on facing pages).
Would not recommend this for adults to read but might for older kids.
Unfortunately for me, the book was too unbelievable as an adult read. Perhpas younger readers would really like it and perhaps this is why so much type is spent on defecating and anus flaps. Even descriptions are repeated word for word in the book, which eventually became rather irratating (especially when they were on facing pages).
Would not recommend this for adults to read but might for older kids.
October 7, 2011
This was a relaxing and interesting book to read. I enjoyed the story and will be looking to aquire the rest of the series. Sometimes it is good to get away from the really in depth, deep and what I will call the current marketing direction of the media (i.e. vampires, which I am not in to), and just read a well written, thoughtful and light piece of work (which is not always a Stephen Baxter trait). There was enough action and the characters were well developed. Even though they were mammoths it was easy to relate to them. It will be interesting to find out how the rest of the family grows.
February 25, 2022
I was rather disappointed with this book. The plot is slow and meandering, and the writing style is more like a lecture than a story. The author has obviously done his research when it comes to mammoths, but not so much when it comes to other species (he has a wolf pack arranged like a harem, with one male mating with many females, which is not the case at all). I would have much preferred this book if it had just been about mammoths living their lives during the Ice Age, without all the human-related additions and “surprise” reveal.
June 26, 2025
mit vit
August 1, 2017
Primer xenoficción que leo y ha sido muy entretenido seguir la vida de un grupo de mamuts, en especial de una hembra joven de nombre Silverhair. Me agradó los capítulos dedicados al origen de estos animales de acuerdo a sus creencias las cuales agrupadas con cierto tipo de leyes son llamadas Ciclo, el cual tiene una que otra sugerencia que bien podría venirnos muy bien. La vida apacible de este grupo se ve alterada por dos grandes sucesos, aparentemente son los últimos de su especie y la llegada a sus tierras de unas criaturas temibles que el Ciclo denomina los Perdidos. Le doy cuatro de cinco estrellas por una pequeña razón, no entiendo la razón por la cual el autor ha dotado a estos mamuts con un conocimiento “moderno” expresado en ciertas palabras que para mi gusto no encajan; estro, ciudad, absceso, son las que recuerdo, me parecen tan fuera de lugar y de suficiente peso para quitarle una estrella.
July 5, 2022
Mammoth - Silverhair
A soulful read.
Stephen Baxter take us into an exhilarating Arctic tundra adventure in this book.
A mammoth safari in which, we readers are compelled to overcome the human perspective and subsist soulfully into the Mammoth's perspective. At some point, in the beginning, the transformation of the reader into Mammoth's mind is complete and inevitable.
Only when the Silverhair, the Mammoth, runs into a cave to save herself from the Lost, almost in the end, before crossing the channel to reach the City of the Lost, we wake from the Mammoth's perspective.
After crossing the channel, the author gets lost in the City of Lost. His talent diminishes.
Despite the end, the whole book is a wonderful journey with an original feel for the prehistoric animals in all its evolutionary glory.
A soulful read.
Stephen Baxter take us into an exhilarating Arctic tundra adventure in this book.
A mammoth safari in which, we readers are compelled to overcome the human perspective and subsist soulfully into the Mammoth's perspective. At some point, in the beginning, the transformation of the reader into Mammoth's mind is complete and inevitable.
Only when the Silverhair, the Mammoth, runs into a cave to save herself from the Lost, almost in the end, before crossing the channel to reach the City of the Lost, we wake from the Mammoth's perspective.
After crossing the channel, the author gets lost in the City of Lost. His talent diminishes.
Despite the end, the whole book is a wonderful journey with an original feel for the prehistoric animals in all its evolutionary glory.
September 3, 2025
Mammoth book one: Silverhair by Stephen Baxter
Tw: animal death and cruelty
The story follows Silverhair and her herd. Run by a strict mother named Owlheart, who wants her to be the next leader. But in her mind, Silverhair still had a lot to learn about the world and about nature with all the dangerous creatures living in there. Because great mammoths are creatures that can still prey on. And I’m going to stop right there because this story has a lot of twists and turns that are really cool and sometimes surprise me. Especially that ending, which I won’t spoil. Best you all read for yourself. Silver and a couple of the characters are well written, like Owlheart, Lopear, and Eggtusk, but I feel like Foxeye Silverhair could have been fleshed out more. The ending is also boulder line on weird, but I have to read the sequel to see how the twist works.
Overall: 8/10
Tw: animal death and cruelty
The story follows Silverhair and her herd. Run by a strict mother named Owlheart, who wants her to be the next leader. But in her mind, Silverhair still had a lot to learn about the world and about nature with all the dangerous creatures living in there. Because great mammoths are creatures that can still prey on. And I’m going to stop right there because this story has a lot of twists and turns that are really cool and sometimes surprise me. Especially that ending, which I won’t spoil. Best you all read for yourself. Silver and a couple of the characters are well written, like Owlheart, Lopear, and Eggtusk, but I feel like Foxeye Silverhair could have been fleshed out more. The ending is also boulder line on weird, but I have to read the sequel to see how the twist works.
Overall: 8/10
December 22, 2019
This reads like a Kipling "Just so" story, but without anything interesting to it. Being able to live in that setting is just barely plausible. Elephants require 200-600 lbs of food per day. So if these Mamoths are adapted like bears for hunkering down in the cold, living on their fat layers, then they would basically need to decimate the entire island each summer to make enough fat for the winter. Elephants are amazingly destructive in that they vacuum up everything in their path.
Beyond that, all of the characters were basically sketches, not actual anything and there was basically no plot other than the 'we're the last of us' theme which didn't really go anywhere.
It's too bad because this could have been interesting...
Beyond that, all of the characters were basically sketches, not actual anything and there was basically no plot other than the 'we're the last of us' theme which didn't really go anywhere.
It's too bad because this could have been interesting...
August 12, 2023
Even having read a bunch of other reviews of this book, I'm not sure how to write my own.
On one hand, even in just the 10% I read, I learned a number of things. It's so wonderful when that happens!
On the other hand... the "story" part of this book was just not good. There was a bunch of unbelievable stuff (apparently the mammoths had tales that went back to the first mammals ever, so the mammoths knew about life among the dinosaurs).
I suspect the author would have been happier writing some kind of scientific paper instead of a fiction book. It's very very clear how much research he did about mammoths and that time period, but the story end of things just didn't at all work for me.
On one hand, even in just the 10% I read, I learned a number of things. It's so wonderful when that happens!
On the other hand... the "story" part of this book was just not good. There was a bunch of unbelievable stuff (apparently the mammoths had tales that went back to the first mammals ever, so the mammoths knew about life among the dinosaurs).
I suspect the author would have been happier writing some kind of scientific paper instead of a fiction book. It's very very clear how much research he did about mammoths and that time period, but the story end of things just didn't at all work for me.
September 24, 2023
An interesting take on prehistoric fiction- with a dash of science fiction thrown in for good measure. Although I wouldn't consider this book to be as epic, I think that if you enjoyed The Clan of the Cave Bear or The First Americans series by William Sarabande, you may like this book.
September 26, 2025
Never read any Stephen Baxter before. Picked this book up because there was a heatwave and I thought reading a book set in a frozen world would distract me. Absolutely loved this book! Cannot stop thinking about it. This book made me laugh, cry(yes, I cried over a fictional mammoth- don’t judge!), and cheered on Silverhair. Such a rich booked packed with so much - history of mammoths, their hierarchy, family structure and religion. I now consider myself a Stephen Baxter fan and have several more of his books in my TBR stack.
July 24, 2023
I thought this took place some time during the Ice Age, after Longtusk (although this is book 1, so I guess Longtusk is a prequel...).
Then I thought it took place after some kind of nuclear war (the USSR sign?).
Then I really wasn't sure until the end.
And I guess this is some kind of alternate timeline. Cool! Hard to place some of the stuff according to Mammoth-description but I did enjoy the descriptions of the tundra and its cycles the most. Stephen Baxter certainly has strengths.
Then I thought it took place after some kind of nuclear war (the USSR sign?).
Then I really wasn't sure until the end.
And I guess this is some kind of alternate timeline. Cool! Hard to place some of the stuff according to Mammoth-description but I did enjoy the descriptions of the tundra and its cycles the most. Stephen Baxter certainly has strengths.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 11, 2025
This is an amazing read from start to finish, however there are some very uncomfortable scenes in this book that bring it down a star for me. MINOR SPOILERS: the mammoth mating scene was just descriptive enough to mess me up, I could not pick up the book for about a day after that. There is also extremely graphic gore in later chapters that was also a hard read. That said, I really liked how Baxter describes the communication, storytelling culture and lifestyle of the mammoths in the story.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 3, 2019
This was a very insightful tale sharing the experiences, fears and trials and tribulations of the mammoth Silverhair. Although the mammoths can talk to each other, this is no way mistaken as being a Disney. There are some brutal encounters that some could find harrowing. This was an interesting and believable account of a mammoth’s life.
February 10, 2020
It was okay, and interesting enough that I finished it, but I only read it because I'm a huge fan of Stephen Baxter's Sci Fi work. It's an excellent animal fable along the lines of Watership Down, and I'm sure fans of that genre will enjoy it. It's just not a favorite of mine.
January 14, 2022
Not sure how to rate this one. Stephen Baxter is one of my favourite authors and I have read most of his books but, for some reason, the Mammoth trilogy starting with this book slipped by me. Very different from his more straightforward SF books. Enjoyable but slow moving - like the Mammoths!
November 28, 2022
Olipa se vetävä teksti ja komea tarina. Vähän tuo mytologiapuoli liian antropomorfista, mutta jos olisin lukenut tämän 13-vuotiaana, olisi tämä ollut tajunnanräjäyttävä. Ja edelleenkin oikein oivaa luettavaa. Ja ilmeisesti ainakin julkaisuaikanaan fatkatkin pitivät paikkansa.
March 11, 2023
Baxter is such a creative dude. Not too many authors who could write so effectively from the mammoth POV. It runs out of steam a little. Perhaps constrained by the setting. But it was never a chore and a fun one to pick up at the end of the day.
May 22, 2018
Excellent story of woolly mammoths that fully captivated me.
It's right up there with Watership Down and Duncton Wood.
It's right up there with Watership Down and Duncton Wood.
August 9, 2021
not interested in the style
August 29, 2024
It was ok, had to put it down once the mammoth went into estrus and it got weirdly descriptive????
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