Reviews with content warning for Blood - The Tusks of Extinction

clever and moving. Naylor has crafted a story of interesting, sympathetic characters that truly examines so many relevant themes. My only complaint is that the prose can be a touch pretentious.

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adhesivedolphin's review against another edition

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dark informative sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

I thought this was such an interesting concept and had to pick it up. It did a great job telling its story in a focused narrative that only took about 4 hours to get through. I particularly enjoyed the change in Damira over time, and how passionate she was about her cause. The themes of greed, power, environmentalism and memory and poignant and distressing. On the negative, I found the narrator for Vladimir very jarring. And while the narrative was rich, it was at time hard to follow. Overall, it was a solid read, unlike anything I've read before, but not a favourite.

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pvp_niki's review

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adventurous dark informative reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

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kirtreads's review

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dark emotional mysterious reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

Ray Nayler has a really unique gift of taking a fascinating science fiction premise, one that sucks you in immediately, and then posing such heavy concepts that really make you think. This book is not a fun romp through brain melding science. This is a book about the brutal impacts that the ivory trade continues to have, and the future that awaits us if we don’t take action soon. This book examines human greed, selfishness, and what drives people to extremes. It examines the human condition of empathy and guilt all while set on a backdrop of some very kick ass science fiction.

Ray is one of my favourite authors but he is really not for everyone. This one is heavy handed on the environmental themes but also captures so many deeply human moments it’s worth the western guilt.

My only critiques are, and this may be an audiobook problem, was it was hard to distinguish between characters and what time period they were in. The start was a little hard to pick up on because I was not sure if it was the human or the mammoth narrating.

That being said, it’s a great read and really packs a lot into a quick read. I really recommend it and the audiobook narrators were great!

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