Review of The Tusks of Extinction by Ray Nayler

Ernest Hemingway is considered by some a titan of early 20th century fiction. Focused on animal themes, his stories are steeped in nature, from hunting and fishing to the opera of love, loss, and mortality. Africa, Montana, the Caribbean, and other settings are presented as places of beauty, as well as places where humans test themselves in blood sport against trout, lions, sharks, and other animals. But we are now in the 21st century. Social perspective on blood sport has changed (love, loss, and mortality less so). Animals have become, at least more often in Western eyes, something to be protected and/or nurtured. It is an interesting contrast, as witnessed by Ray Nayler's 2024 The Tusks of Extinction.

The Tusks of Extinction is set in a near future in which DNA can be used to bring extinct animals back into existence. Mammoths have been recreated and raised in numbers high enough to re-populate the Russian steppe. In tow have come poachers, men who hunt the massive animals for their tusks, as well as trophy hunters, billionaires looking to take down one of the large males for a wall decoration. Angry at these killings, a group of scientists decide to input the mind of one of their own into a mammoth to give the massive beasts a chance at survival.

Apologies. I'm aware Nayler did research into elephant poaching as well as real-world efforts to recreate extinct animals via DNA. Perhaps most importantly, I'm aware Nayler's heart is in a place that has nothing but good intentions. All animals, sentient and otherwise, play a role in the web of life, and humanity should be doing its part to adapt to and maintain the rhythms of these populations. Agreed. But The Tusks of Extinction is a simple piece of fiction. It preys upon readers through a simple plot device (injecting human intelligence into an animal to generate empathy), and plays it out across an unsophisticated bit of mammoth revenge. (Woolly wish fulfillment?)

If I had to guess, I'd say Nayler wrote The Tusks of Extinction to commission. It feels like a forced idea rather than an organic idea, something that needed to be done rather than wanted to be done. Even the title is... well... <bong the gong> ...a bit over the top, yes?

I do. I get frustrated by such fiction. Don't kill the sentient animals! Ok... so, should humanity collectively become vegetarians? What to do with animal overpopulation as a result? What to do when Nayler's unchecked mammoth populations start stampeding through towns and villages? To be clear, I rarely eat meat. I dislike how the majority of animal produce is processed. But from the perspective of fiction, it's a more interesting challenge to present a scene wherein humanity is in balance with the mortal, sentient world—finding those aforementioned rhythms. That would be far more intellectually stimulating than: don't kill these big, cute animals because they think and feel. Christ, the novella feels like a pre-historic twist on Bambi—and that was made decades ago...

Looking to another Nayler publication, 2022's The Mountain and the Sea, it was an enjoyable enough spot of cyberpunk meets animal sentience. Set on a southeast Asian island, it featured a global corporation threatening the habitat of local octopi, octopi which seemed to have taken a sentient step forward. It's an entertaining bit of fiction. The follow up here with The Tusks of Extinction is less sophisticated. I can easily see the mainstream doing a rah-rah-rah, support the mammoths, in response. I'm just not convinced the story is built on a foundation that has any future beyond said pity. It's just not serious enough for the theme to be taken seriously.