Ivory

In the year 6303, when earth is bare of anything larger than an insect or a mouse and most people have left for the stars, Duncan Rojas receives a most unusual visitor. His name is Bukoba Mandaka, and he is the last of the Maasai. Mandaka wants Rojas, senior researcher for Braxton's Records of Big Game, to find the tusks of the Kilimanjaro Elephant, tusks that weigh over 200 lb. each. Why? Mandaka will not say, but he will pay enormous sums for them. And Rojas cannot resist the challenge of tracing something lost for 3000 years. Back and forth through time, in card games, wars, and rivalries, Rojas searches. But as he begins to glimpse the elusive, lost power of ancient Africa, he is seduced, and before long the quest has become his own. With Ivory, Mike Resnick has created a powerful novel spanning worlds and centuries, an exploration of the nature of history and legend, and a riveting parable for our times. ** From Publishers Weekly First published in 1998, this episodic novel showcases Hugo-winner Resnick's strengths and weaknesses. Thousands of years in the future, after most wildlife on Earth is extinct and humans have spread to distant stars, the last descendent of the Maasai tribe hires a researcher to locate the massive tusks of the Kilimanjaro Elephant. The search dominates the book, showing the passionless scholar's growing identification with his employer's quest as it echoes the elephant's spiritual journey toward the sacred mountain, but most of the book consists of vignettes about the various entities who have possessed the tusks. Resnick's fluent writing and respect for African cultures and wildlife make for some smoothly ironic glimpses of people who imagined they "owned" the ivory, but several pieces are facile little gimmick stories, clever enough for fast reading but essentially just filling gaps in the tale's chronology. Overall, this is a very pleasant read that just misses being truly memorable. Copyright Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. About the Author Mike Resnick has won an impressive five Hugos and been nominated for twenty-six more. He has sold fifty-eight novels and more than two hundred short stories. He has edited fifty anthologies. His work ranges from satirical fair, such as his Lucifer Jones adventures, to weighty examinations of morality and culture, as evidenced by his brilliant tales of Kirinyaga. The series, with sixty-six major and minor awards and nominations to date, is the most honored series of stories in the history of science fiction. Visit Mike Resnick online at www.mikeresnick.com.