Ivory, by Mike Resnick
Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2008 10:02 pm
I know that I have said it before, so pardon if this sounds repetitious, but Mike Resnick is incredible when he is writing stories set in (or about) Africa. This week's review is of his 1988 novel Ivory, which has recently been reprinted by Pyr books. Where one of his other masterpieces, Kirinyaga, is about the Kikuyu tribe from Kenya, this book concerns the Maasai. It is the story of literally the last Masaai in his search for the ivory of the Kilimanjaro Elephant which weigh over 200 pounds each and came from the greatest and most fearsome creature ever to walk the land. This book is riveting. Five out of five stars.
Ivory is told in installments that make the book feel like it is a fix-up, but I do not think that it really is. Set in the year 6,300 (about the year 9,400 by our calendar, which is no longer extant), the set up to this story makes it sound like its going to be a snooze. Of course, it is anything but. The last living Maasai, Bukoba Mandaka, has hired a Duncan Rojas of a publisher called Braxtons Records of Big Game to find for him....Please click here or on the cover above to be taken to the review.