#179 Walk like thunder: the mammoth trilogy (1999 - 2001) by Stephen Baxter

Published between 1999 and 2001, the Mammoth trilogy is a fascinating set of linked SF novels by Stephen Baxter. In reality, mammoths died out 4,000 years ago but Baxter imagines a different fate for them. Thoroughly researched and at times quite moving, these are fine examples of science fiction which does without major human characters, and has readers view the world through the eyes of a very different creature.

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Transcript

Of all the countless extinct species catalogued by science, mammuthus primigenius - the woolly mammoth - is one of those with the firmest hold on our collective imagination. Unlike the distant dinosaurs, which were destroyed tens of millions of years before humans evolved, the last mammoth is thought to have died only around 4,000 years ago. For the vast majority of human existence, for perhaps 300 millennia, mammoths walked the Earth at the same time as our ancestors. Of course, humans hunted mammoths, and played a part in the extinction of these extraordinary animals.

Originally published between 1999 and 2001, the Mammoth trilogy is a set of three science fiction novels by the British writer Stephen Baxter. Each novel features a different mammoth as its protagonist, and the books represent an extended love letter to the species. In Baxter’s depiction, mammoths have near-human intelligence and a sprawling oral history known as the Cycle. Each of Baxter’s three mammoth heroes has a critical place in this grand story, which explores evocatively the struggle for survival against a changing climate, deadly natural hazards, and the rise of homo sapiens.

The cycle as a frame narrative

Across the trilogy, the Cycle is used as a frame narrative. It is a compendium of stories, passed down through the generations by mammoths. The very earliest stories concern Kilukpuk - the legendary first mammoth, initiator of the Cycle and mother of all. Soon after the trilogy begins, it becomes clear that the protagonist of each novel is a key figure in this vast oral history. 

Silverhair (1999) establishes that a relict population of mammoths has survived into the 21st century, living on an isolated island in northern Siberia. Silverhair is a young cow - a female mammoth - who forms part of a Family struggling to survive. Separated from the others, she encounters a party of brutal humans who have become trapped on the Island themselves.

Longtusk (2000) is set 18,000 years ago in Beringia, a prehistoric region that served as a land bridge between what is now North America and Asia. As the novel begins, we know that Longtusk is a rarity - a male mammoth with a critical place in the Cycle. Separated from his Family, he encounters both Neanderthals and early humans in a rapidly changing climate.

The concluding novel Icebones (2001) is set in the year 3,000 AD and not on Earth, but on Mars. Icebones - daughter of Silverhair - wakes from suspended animation on a partially terraformed red planet which has been abandoned by human colonists. She meets a group of helpless, abandoned mammoths who are cut off from the Cycle and from the skills they will need to survive a changing Mars.

Bringing mammoths to life

The presence of mammoths is the novum of these novels, and Baxter brings them to life through his deep research and evident fondness for the animals and their living cousins, elephants. Baxter approaches mammoths with the kind of lens that SF writers tend to apply to invented alien species. In a natural, gradual way he explains the essentials of mammoth physiology and behaviour, detailing the ways the creatures travel, forage for food, seek fresh water, mate, make decisions and yes - defecate. 

Throughout the trilogy, all events are seen only through the eyes of mammoths. This is how Baxter achieves a sense of cognitive estrangement. With their poor sight and reliance on hearing and smell, for example, the mammoth perception of the world is very unlike our own. Their culture is highly group-based, a far cry from human individualism. For these characters, merely being alone without the Family unit is disorienting. To help get character relationships across, Baxter “translates” mammoth communication into English, in a move he lifted from Richard Adams’ novel Watership Down (1972).

Extinction and survival

Survival is the dominant theme in the trilogy. In their own ways, all three protagonists - Silverhair, Longtusk, and Icebones - are all locked into struggles for individual and collective survival. Baxter crafts suspenseful stories despite our knowledge that even his imagined, resurrected mammoths are surely doomed. This is part of the point. Over a long enough timescale, all species are - humans included. 

Longtusk encounters both Neanderthals (known as “Dreamers”) and later modern humans (“the Lost”). Like William Golding’s The Inheritors (1955), the middle novel of the trilogy explores the relationship between Neanderthals and humans. The former we know to be doomed, the latter on course to dominate and forever change the world. Longtusk marvels at the humans’ ability to use tools, and to produce many survival items from the bodies of the animals they trap, hunt, and kill. While Longtusk is very intelligent, he lacks the dexterity and long-term memory that humans use to compensate for their frail bodies, poorly adapted for extreme cold.

The implication, as chilling as the novels’ arctic conditions, is clear: that humans have long thrived on the destruction of other species, on an increasingly massive scale. Neanderthals, mammoths, and the mastodons that Longtusk meets are just three of humanity’s victims over our 300 millennia of rapacious expansion.

Mammoths, the world, and us

Baxter’s trilogy brings mammoths and other extinct species vividly to life. His giant, woolly characters are intensely sympathetic both as individuals, and as representatives of a long-extinct species. At the same time, these novels are as much about humans as they are about mammoths. It is human beings who place the mammoth characters into suspenseful struggles for survival. It is human beings who very nearly drive them to extinction, who play god by warping the fragile ecology of Earth and half-heartedly terraforming distant Mars. 

The beauty of these books is that they not only make us empathise with a species in reality that died out 4,000 years ago - they also invite consideration of humanity’s stewardship of our fragile Earth, and the dwindling list of species that remain.