Mammoth (Hardcover)

~ John Varley (Author) "Once upon a time in what would one day come to be known as the month of August, many, many years ago, in a place..." (more)
Key Phrases: Big Mama, Howard Christian, Los Angeles (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. When eccentric megabillionaire Howard Christian commissions a hunt for a frozen mammoth in northern Manitoba to clone a new model in Varley's rollicking, bittersweet tale of time travel and ecology, he gets more than he bargained for: next to the 12,000-year-old beast his team unearths lies the body of a human being, wearing a wristwatch, with a metal box—a time machine?—nearby. Christian hires Matt Wright, Canada's top scientist on the physics of time, to fix the machine, and employs elephant vet Susan Morgan to oversee the cloning of a new mammoth. The machine hurls Matt and Susan back to the mammoth age, then forward again, along with a baby Columbian woolly mammoth, Fuzzy, whose engaging story cleverly alternates with Christian's indefatigable quest for personal fame. Varley's sparkling wit pulls one surprise after another out of this unconventional blend of science and social commentary with real people convincingly doing unreal things. Fuzzy, though, is the true hero, an irresistible 15-foot-tall reminder of the wonders of nature and imagination. The winner of numerous Hugo and Nebula awards, Varley (Millennium) should garner new laurels with this outstanding effort. <
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From Bookmarks Magazine

Over the past three decades, Varley has won almost every SF award. Called "The New Heinlein" and described by the San Francisco Chronicle as "a far better science fiction writer than [Michael] Crichton," Varley has written a captivating time-travel thriller. Although he delves deeply into scientific and metaphysical principles, Varley never loses sight of his characters, who, like the engaging baby mammoth Fuzzy, keep the book alive. Besides its great humor, intelligent prose, spiritual discovery, and great emotional range, critics also praised the novel’s clever structure: it begins with chapter five. "The result," writes Shaun Farrell, "is a unique piece of work: a book that makes you think critically while keeping it enjoyable and fun."

Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Ace Hardcover; First Printing edition (June 7, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0441012817
• ISBN-13: 978-0441012817
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 5.9 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (55 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #805,640 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Entertaining Adventure in Time, June 7, 2005

By	R. Clark (Ridley Park, PA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Diamond Ring in the Coal Seam, June 29, 2005

By	James D. DeWitt "Alaska Fan" (Fairbanks, AK United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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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.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars One Step Up, Two Steps Back, June 11, 2005

By	Matt Berger "ex.metropolis" (Wake Forest, NC) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I read this book--while attending to all the rest of a normal, busy weekend--in less than a day. That's "Harry Potter" speed--while there are plenty of "unputdownable" books that cross my desk in the course of a year, it's seldom that one puts all the right pieces together in all the right ways, and takes me back to the days before wife, family, etc., when there was nothing better or more pressing to do on a fine Saturday afternoon than sitting in my favorite chair with a good book.

The only reason that MAMMOTH has four stars rather than five is that there were a few hours there when I got to feeling that John Varley, one of the finest and most astute science fiction writers of his (my) generation, had decided to channel Michael Crichton; and much as I like Michael Crichton, dammit, Varley is so much better than that kind of novel that I was beginning to feel a little cheated. I should have known better. There are stretches where MAMMOTH fairly reeks of those plot twists, characters, and set-ups that would move without seam or hiccough from the page to the big screen-- but, but, I should have known better.

Anything I could possibly says about the plot of characters that Varley brings to life here would be unfair to anyone considering whether or not to read the book. I mean, the publisher has already told you that there's this 12,000-year-old frozen mammoth, and that there's a body--a human body--that they find with the mammoth . . . and the human is wearing a wristwatch. That's just too freakin' cool--and I'm not talking about the human. Or the wristwatch. Um, or the mammoth, either.

Ultimately, whether you like this book or not will depend--as it was with me--on what exactly you are hoping to get out of it. There's a lot being brought together in MAMMOTH, and some of it (see above) is not what I'd hoped for or expected. But in the end, what I got was a very good story, with characters that I liked and cared about, and a Saturday well-spent.