I largely enjoyed this novella, which appears to be set in the same world as Nayler’s The Mountain in the Sea. It covers some of the same themes as well, specifically intelligence, (cultural) memory, consciousness and identity, but here we’re dealing not with octopuses but rather with mammoths that have been made “de-extinct” after the true extinction of elephants in the wild. Much like The Mountain in the Sea, this book doesn’t paint an especially flattering picture of humanity, and it’s a somewhat tough read at times. I also never entirely bought the premise that a human consciousness uploaded into a mammoth body would work quite as well as it’s made out to do here. But the mechanics of the science aren’t the point of this novella, which is a low-key eco-thriller and indictment of humanity’s exploitation of animals, nature and other human beings.

Further reading…