Silverhair (Baxter, Stephen. Mammoth Trilogy, Bk. 1.) (Mass Market Paperback)

~ (Author), Publishing Grou The Orion (Author) "The first Cycle story of all (Silverhair told Icebones, her calf)-the very first of all-is of long, long ago, when there were no mammoths..." (more)
Key Phrases: contact rumble, wrapped her trunk, landfast ice, End of the World, Sky Steppe, Plain of Bones (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Isolated from the passage of time, a small colony of mammoths survives into the 20th century until their discovery by a group of shipwrecked sailors threatens their existence. Baxter combines well-researched details on the physical habits of prehistoric mammoths with an anthropomorphic touch to delineate the personalities of his protagonists. Fans of the prehistoric novels of Jean Auel and the animal-based fantasies of Richard Adams should enjoy this tale of triumph over adversity. For large collections.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From The Washington Post

"Stephen Baxter proves what a cosmic thinker he is, and that his mastery of technical detail is only a tool for thoughtful meditation about the nature of life itself, its origins, and where it must ultimately go, in the, grand...tradition of H. G. Wells and Olaf Stapledon." --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Eos (August 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061020206
• ISBN-13: 978-0061020209
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.3 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #300,905 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Mammoths on ice..., March 30, 2001

By	Jim Kirk (Boston MA) - See all my reviews

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.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Mammoths alive and kicking, August 6, 2007

By	Mikko Saari (Tampere, Finland) - See all my reviews

A small group of mammoths is alive and well in remote Siberia in our times. Stephen Baxter tells us how they live in a world that's changing from what they know in their sagas and legends. Their enemy is, of course, the Lost Ones, as the mammoths call us humans.

Baxter's written better books, and this is no Watership Down (or Empire of the Ants, which is my favourite animal book). It's not bad, though, and the mammoths seem pretty well researched, at least they're somewhat inhuman. They have their own culture, quite different from us humans.

Since the book was so fast and easy to read, I'm going to continue to the next part of the trilogy - after all, the book gets some pretty strange ideas in the end. In any case, I can't really recommend Silverhair unless you're really into mammoths or books starring animals in general. However, there's lots of violence and cruelty towards animals in this book, so the most sensitive animal lovers, stay away! (Review based on the Finnish translation.)

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Something different, October 5, 2001

By	"foxechick" (Melbourne, Australia) - See all my reviews

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.