Tusks of Extinction
More than a century from now, woolly mammoths have been genetically revived and released into the Siberian taiga — but de-extinction has not ended the ivory trade, only given it a new species to prey on. Dr. Damira Khismatullina, a scientist who spent her human life defending Africa's last elephants from poachers, was murdered for that work; her consciousness now lives inside one of the resurrected mammoths, guiding the herd through a wilderness that still wants them dead.
When a hunting expedition converges on the herd, Ray Nayler's novella moves between Damira's mammoth-borne perspective and the very different people drawn into the hunt — including a poacher's idealistic son and a wealthy trophy hunter's husband — building a portrait of greed, inherited memory, and the ways parents shape, or fail to shape, the children who follow them.
The Tusks of Extinction won the 2025 Hugo Award for Best Novella and was a finalist for the Nebula and Locus Awards; it was also named one of the New York Times' best books of the year.
This story shares a thematic preoccupation with the intersection of non-human consciousness and environmental collapse found in the author's debut novel, The Mountain in the Sea, though it functions as a distinct, self-contained narrative.