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35 of 36 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Entertaining Adventure in Time, June 7, 2005
I've enjoyed everything by Varley I've ever read, and I've read nearly everything he's published.
I enjoyed this, too... but it's not his best book.
Another stand-alone novel, MAMMOTH is not a pseudo-juvenile like 2003's RED THUNDER, but it's simiilar in one respect: it explores some of the implications of an "impossible" technology. In RED THUNDER it was an unlimited energy source; in MAMMOTH it's a time machine. In neither book does Varley attempt much of an explanation for how the technology works; it's just there. The stories concern themselves with what happens to his characters when they get involved with it.
Self-made technology mega-millionaire Howard Christian wants all the best toys, and has few scruples about how he gets them and what he uses them for. One thing he wants is a real, live mammoth. He figures he can grow his own if he can find viable DNA in a frozen animal, so he sends out Arctic explorers to find one. What he doesn't count on is that the frozen mammoth is accompanied by a frozen human... wearing a wristwatch.
Susan Morgan is a circus veterinarian and elephant expert, hired by Christian to oversee the process of ineminating an elephant host mother with the mammoth embryo. And Matt Wright is the mathemetician brought in to decipher the mysteries of the time machine found inside a metal briefcase next to the frozen man.
But perhaps the most important character is Fuzzy, a baby mammoth whose story connects all the other narratives. The story of his life is told in a simple children's-book style narrative that parallels the main story. Born 13,000 years ago, his life intersects Susan and Matt's when they are accidentally thrown into the past. Their adventure in prehistoric North America is one of several exciting set-pieces in the book.
MAMMOTH isn't a good novel because it's about time-travel; it's good because it focuses on three interesting characters. Susan is compassionate but not naive, and capable of taking great risks when her conscience dictates. Matt is a scientist and genius mathemetician, but recognizes that there are ways of thinking and seeing the universe that are beyond his experience; Howard is venal and petty, selfish and dishonest, but capable of growth.
At the same time, while rich in description and vividly-depicted action, the book suffers from a thin plot. Varley knows where it's going, and it's a fine twist that will delight and satisfy the reader... but between the setup and the payoff are a couple hundred pages of action that feel stretched and padded. They're very enjoyable to read, but they don't enhance the plot much.
Nevertheless, John Varley writes with clarity and humor, creates likeable characters you want to root for, and places them in a story you'll be racing to finish. It's great entertainment, even if it's not the great science fiction novel Varley is capable of.
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13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Diamond Ring in the Coal Seam, June 29, 2005
The trouble with writing a story in a well-worn science fiction trope like time travel is that you inescapably call to mind those who have travelled the subject before you. In "Mammoth," Varley follows in the footsteps of both Robert Heinlein - notably, "All You Zombies" - and Terry Pratchett's "Strata." It's still a rich field, but the footprints of your predecessors are always in sight.
Multi-billionaire Howard Christian wants to clone a mammoth. His expedition to the Canadian Arctic yields a mammoth carcass, all right, but even more surprising is the frozen man alongside, wearing a wrist watch and clutching a metal briefcase. The briefcase may or may not be a time machine. Christian, a brilliant inventor in his own right, hires young physics genius Matt Wright to create a functional time machine. Wright falls for young elephant vet and would-be mammoth trainer Susan Morgan. All of those geniuses and no one stops to wonder about who the corpsicle might be. Until it is too late.
Varley is a very good writer. He deftly changes the reader's perception of Howard Christian over the course of the novel. By the time we see Christian lurking in his armed fortress, 200 stories over the streets of Los Angeles, armed with a gigawatt laser; well, I certainly knew who might not be the good guy, benevolent billionaire after all.
My own opinion is that beginning with "Red Thunder" - or perhaps even "The Golden Globe" - Varley has consciously set up to do homages to Heinlein's juvenile science fiction novels of the 1950's. Varely's last two or three books are uncannily similar in tone, if not plot and characterization, to stories like "Red Planet" and "Rocket Ship Galileo." While Pratchett may have mercilessly parodied the "artifact from the future" - along with most other science fiction tropes - in "Strata," Varley demonstrates there are good yarns left in the themes Heinlein explored half a century or more ago.
I particularly enjoyed another Heinlein reference - "The Man Who Travelled in Elephants" - to which Varley gives the sly wink. A lot of references in "Mammoth" will Reward the Careful Reader.
This isn't the wildly imaginative John Varley of the Gaea trilogy, but read as a tribute or homage to other, earlier writers, this novel is still fun. If you haven't read the earlier writers who have explored the ideas underlying "Mammoth," this novel might be more exciting. But you'd be missing half of the pleasure.
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13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Varley is 5 Stars; Mammoth is Not, August 19, 2005
You can read the boilerplate to figure out the gist of the story, no sense in me wasting your time with a rehash.
I am astounded and in awe of John Varley's imagination.
John Varley is one of the best writers/SF writers I have ever read.
John Varley is absolutely world class. I rank him with Howard Waldrop and Ted Sturgeon, among few others.
"Mammoth" is flat and, although I loyally read through to the end, tedious. It ranks right down there with "Red Thunder." A spark of imagination, coupled with cut-out characters and a "see it coming around the bend" twist at the end do not combine to enthrall.
Do buy "The John Varley Reader." Be amazed by brilliance. Pray that John Varley has only fallen asleep, and will someday awake, and return to writing the stories that have dazzled me for the last twenty-five years.
And do buy everything else by John Varley save "Mammoth/Red Thunder." Best money you ever spent.
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