Silverhair (Mammoth Trilogy)

Rating:
Summary: Great Idea, horrible execution
Review: Excited by the premise, I was very disappointed by this book. The characters seemed to behave randomly, changing from one course of action to another without reason. The antagonist's brutality and singularity of purpose is never explained or justified, and after a very short while becomes impossible to accept. The comparisons made on the book jacket to Watership Down are false advertising.

Rating:
Summary: Something different
Review: Fans of Stephen Baxter's science fiction may be surprised by this venture into unexplored territory. "Silverhair" is the first of three books in a series which promises to provide a novel and thought-provoking diversion from his previous work.

Silverhair is one of the last of her kind: a woolly mammoth. Long thought to be extinct, these relics of the ice-age have somehow survived eons of change in a remote, isolated "lost world". Legends passed down through the Great Cycle of mammoth history tell of their flight to this last sanctuary, and the great danger from which they fled: the Lost. Now the Lost have once more discovered the existence of Silverhair and her kind. Silverhair must find some way to reconcile thousands of years of mammoth existence with the advent of humanity, or face the end of the Great Cycle- the death of her species.

The theme of conflict between humankind and nature is as old as the human race; the telling of stories from the perspective of animals scarcely less so. In Baxter's expert hands, however, these elements are interwoven to produce a book that touches a rarely-explored space in the mind.

If "Silverhair" has a flaw, it must be the briefness of the story- the pace at times seems incongruously swift, jolting the reader out of the synchrony produced by Baxter's otherwise excellent characterisation. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, the book left me with a desire to re-enter the world of the mammoths and explore their culture further.

Baxter creates the legends, social structure and emotions of these majestic animals with a vividness which evokes both a deep resonance with the familiarity of their thoughts and feelings and a sense of wonder at the complete alienness of their nature. Beautiful and brutal, this book yields a glimpse into the mysteries of the long-forgotten past and speaks to the wildness buried in the human soul.

Rating:
Summary: Something different
Review: Fans of Stephen Baxter's science fiction may be surprised by this venture into unexplored territory. "Silverhair" is the first of three books in a series which promises to provide a novel and thought-provoking diversion from his previous work.

Silverhair is one of the last of her kind: a woolly mammoth. Long thought to be extinct, these relics of the ice-age have somehow survived eons of change in a remote, isolated "lost world". Legends passed down through the Great Cycle of mammoth history tell of their flight to this last sanctuary, and the great danger from which they fled: the Lost. Now the Lost have once more discovered the existence of Silverhair and her kind. Silverhair must find some way to reconcile thousands of years of mammoth existence with the advent of humanity, or face the end of the Great Cycle- the death of her species.

The theme of conflict between humankind and nature is as old as the human race; the telling of stories from the perspective of animals scarcely less so. In Baxter's expert hands, however, these elements are interwoven to produce a book that touches a rarely-explored space in the mind.

If "Silverhair" has a flaw, it must be the briefness of the story- the pace at times seems incongruously swift, jolting the reader out of the synchrony produced by Baxter's otherwise excellent characterisation. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, the book left me with a desire to re-enter the world of the mammoths and explore their culture further.

Baxter creates the legends, social structure and emotions of these majestic animals with a vividness which evokes both a deep resonance with the familiarity of their thoughts and feelings and a sense of wonder at the complete alienness of their nature. Beautiful and brutal, this book yields a glimpse into the mysteries of the long-forgotten past and speaks to the wildness buried in the human soul.

Rating:
Summary: Well I liked it, at least.
Review: Graphic violence, torure, death, hardship - well, maybe, but still well written and exciting and pacey throughout.

Rating:
Summary: disturbing
Review: I read this book in about 3 hours. It's a quick and enjoyable read. Baxter makes the Mammoths human enough that you can empathize with their plight, while still making them seem realistically alien. I would have liked a bit more on the time and place, since that's a bit fuzzy...but all in all, it gets a thumbs up. Looking forward to the next installement

Rating:
Summary: Mammoths on ice...
Review: I was really surprised by this book. I have read other works by Baxter and universally enjoyed them, but was somewhat taken aback by Silverhair. I expected a sort-of mammoth's-eye-view of the ice age, but this is hardly the case. The book follows a small family of mammoths as they have a series of adventures, many of which I found extremely difficult to swallow. At times the mammoths seem about as smart as cattle and at other times are capable of seemingly high-level thought. Honestly, it would have been okay either way, but for them to have more or less intelligence as the plot requires at a given time is silly.

The book is incredibly violent, which was also unexpected. There are several long sequences that are very upsetting to read as the animals suffer tremendously, and their suffering is detailed greatly.

Overall, it is tough to give this one a strong reccommendation. The book has a great premise and, to the best of my knowledge, has never been attempted before. Still, the authors inconsistency in portraying the mammoths combined with the often needless violence made this a sometimes unpleasant read. The book is supposedly the first in a trilogy, but I would be surprised if I read the others.

Rating:
Summary: Wooly Mammoths
Review: This is a book about a remnant population of wooly mammoths which have survived on an island well into the modern era. It is written from the mammoths' point of view, and is similar in some ways to Watership Down and The White Bone. The mammoths face the erosion of their habitat and gene pool, and encroachment by a group of brutal men.

Rating:
Summary: Okay, but sort of depressing.
Review: This was an okay book, but the whole auora of the story was a little depressing. The whole book your there watching these mammoths who are the last of there kind and don't know it. It doesn't feel good to watch almost every single charecter in the story die. There was just something wrong with this book, the fact that there is no happiness in it. But, it was interesting to see the world from the point of view of a mammoth with the IQ of a chicken. This book had something wrong with it, i dont know what but this book needs some work.