ICEBONES takes the story into the far future. Transported as embryos to Mars as part of an effort to revive the species the mammoths were left behind when the Mars colony failed. With mankind gone and relying only on their story cycle for guidance in their battle to survive the mammoths must leave behind their ties to man and inherit their own world. Baxter brings the story of the mammoths to a heroic conclusion, showing the species in its most dignified light and warning US not to dismiss the lessons other inhabitants of earth can teach us. His mammoths personify the grand sweep of nature; his Mars a stunning piece of world building.
| ||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. Learn more. |
Book Description
Product details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
Discover books, learn about writers, and more.
Product Description
Amazon Review
Icebones concludes Stephen Baxter's "Mammoth" trilogy about the lives, adventures and rich mythic tradition of mammoths. Silverhair featured a mammoth family surviving in modern times; Longtusk backtracked to the Ice Age; now it's AD 3000 and mammoths roam Mars, the Sky Steppe of their ancient legends...
Icebones, daughter of the first book's Silverhair, wakes from suspended animation high up Mons Olympus, the solar system's greatest volcano. Humans ("the Lost") partly terraformed Mars and seeded it with mammoths, but for their own inscrutable reasons have gone home. Already Icebones's untutored cousins, accustomed to being fed like pets, are beginning to starve.
Our heroine's demanding duty is clear. She must make herself Matriarch of the mammoth group, show them how to forage on this alien steppe, pass on the old teaching legends and Just-So stories of mammothdom, and lead her quarrelsome family on an epic trek across the once again dying world, hoping for sanctuary in the lowest of the lowlands.
The shattered geography of Mars is only part of the challenge. Other species are battling extinction: huge predatory cats and birds, a genetically engineered breed of mammoth, and homages to HG Wells and Frank Herbert in the form of deadly red weed and sandworms. Worst of all, abandoned terraforming tools are still erratically active, triggering upheavals of earth, air, fire and water. And at journey's end, an entirely different kind of problem awaits.
With Icebones, Stephen Baxter brings the mingled history and mythology of mammothkind to a satisfying, touching conclusion. --David Langford
Book Description
Online and genre publicity reviews
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Format:Paperback
When it first came out back in 1999 I bought, read and enjoyed Mammoth a novel from Stephen Baxter. I then found out it was aimed a the 'youth' market, and because at that age these things mattered (reading SF was bad enough, reading 'youth' SF, I don't think I could have stood the shame!) I didn't return to read books two or three in the Mammoth saga.
A few weeks ago I was browsing the shelves of my local discount book shop and found Icebones (Mammoth book 3) on the shelves. I had a holiday coming up, and thought it would make a good holiday read. One holiday later, what did I make of the book?
I enjoyed it immensely. Somehow Stephen seems to make it easy to become a Mammoth. I really felt a understood how a mammoth might think, might feel, his story telling was fantastic, this wasn't a 'what happens' story, in many ways the plot is a fairly basic 'road trip' story, but the changes you see in the characters, the involvement Stephen gives us in their lives just makes this a great story. I think you should read this if only to get the question I got from my wife. "So what are you reading then?", "Oh, a book about Mammoths..." pause as she rolls her eyes. "on Mars..." It sounds like a really bad B movie. It certainly doesn't read like one.
Ian Redman
editor - Jupiter SF magazine
A few weeks ago I was browsing the shelves of my local discount book shop and found Icebones (Mammoth book 3) on the shelves. I had a holiday coming up, and thought it would make a good holiday read. One holiday later, what did I make of the book?
I enjoyed it immensely. Somehow Stephen seems to make it easy to become a Mammoth. I really felt a understood how a mammoth might think, might feel, his story telling was fantastic, this wasn't a 'what happens' story, in many ways the plot is a fairly basic 'road trip' story, but the changes you see in the characters, the involvement Stephen gives us in their lives just makes this a great story. I think you should read this if only to get the question I got from my wife. "So what are you reading then?", "Oh, a book about Mammoths..." pause as she rolls her eyes. "on Mars..." It sounds like a really bad B movie. It certainly doesn't read like one.
Ian Redman
editor - Jupiter SF magazine
By Mikko Saari
Format:Paperback
Icebones ends the Mammoth trilogy quite far from the other books. Icebones is the calf of Silverhair, the main mammoth from the first book and thus born in our time. However, when the book starts, he finds himself in Mars some thousands years from now. It's strange and doesn't get much explanations until much later.
It's another survival story in changing environment, like the other books in the trilogy. This time it's Mars that's been warm and pleasant after human terraforming, but since humans are gone, it's getting colder again, too cold for mammoths. It takes a huge journey across the planet to survive and Icebones has to lead a group of mammoths who don't like it.
There's adventure, there's some quite beautiful scenery, there's strange creatures and envinronmental threats and mammoths struggling to overcome them - if you enjoyed the first two books, you'll like this as well, but skipping this is not a huge loss. Icebones makes a rather nice heroine, though. Still, Baxter has written better books than the Mammoth trilogy. (Review based on the Finnish translation.)
It's another survival story in changing environment, like the other books in the trilogy. This time it's Mars that's been warm and pleasant after human terraforming, but since humans are gone, it's getting colder again, too cold for mammoths. It takes a huge journey across the planet to survive and Icebones has to lead a group of mammoths who don't like it.
There's adventure, there's some quite beautiful scenery, there's strange creatures and envinronmental threats and mammoths struggling to overcome them - if you enjoyed the first two books, you'll like this as well, but skipping this is not a huge loss. Icebones makes a rather nice heroine, though. Still, Baxter has written better books than the Mammoth trilogy. (Review based on the Finnish translation.)
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
3.7 out of 5 stars
3 reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
strong epic morality tale
7 Jun 2002
By Harriet Klausner
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
In the year 3000 at least earth time, Icebones awakens from an extended suspended animation to realize she is not on her native planet anymore, but instead is at the top of Olympus Mons, the highest known mountain in the solar system. Even stranger is the behavior of the herd of her kin, woolly mammoths. They complain of starvation, but have no concept of feeding themselves. Instead they had been spoiled from when their former masters, the earthly humanoids, took care of them. Now the humans have deserted their pets on Mars.
Icebones realizes she is different from the other members of her species. The human scientists regenerated them all but she was born in a more natural manner enabling her to understand mammoth history, legend, tradition, and most importantly how to survive in the wild. Against some opposition, she becomes the leader and begins the journey across the planet where food and water might exist so that the species can live.
ICEBONES, the concluding novel of Stephen Baxter's imaginative personification of Woolly Mammoths, is an engaging science fiction tale that readers will enjoy. The story line requires a stretch to accept yet the audience will want to read this novel in one sitting. Fans will appreciate Icebones, a heroine who recognizes her responsibility to guide the unruly herd to the promised land and does not shirk away from doing the right thing though that would be easier on her. This is a strong epic morality tale that holds up with its two predecessors quite nicely to provide an entertaining insightful trilogy.
Harriet Klausner
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
Mammoths on Mars
8 Aug 2007
By Mikko Saari
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Mass Market Paperback
Icebones ends the Mammoth trilogy quite far from the other books. Icebones is the calf of Silverhair, the main mammoth from the first book and thus born in our time. However, when the book starts, he finds himself in Mars some thousands years from now. It's strange and doesn't get much explanations until much later.
It's another survival story in changing environment, like the other books in the trilogy. This time it's Mars that's been warm and pleasant after human terraforming, but since humans are gone, it's getting colder again, too cold for mammoths. It takes a huge journey across the planet to survive and Icebones has to lead a group of mammoths who don't like it.
There's adventure, there's some quite beautiful scenery, there's strange creatures and envinronmental threats and mammoths struggling to overcome them - if you enjoyed the first two books, you'll like this as well, but skipping this is not a huge loss. Icebones makes a rather nice heroine, though. Still, Baxter has written better books than the Mammoth trilogy. (Review based on the Finnish translation.)
It's another survival story in changing environment, like the other books in the trilogy. This time it's Mars that's been warm and pleasant after human terraforming, but since humans are gone, it's getting colder again, too cold for mammoths. It takes a huge journey across the planet to survive and Icebones has to lead a group of mammoths who don't like it.
There's adventure, there's some quite beautiful scenery, there's strange creatures and envinronmental threats and mammoths struggling to overcome them - if you enjoyed the first two books, you'll like this as well, but skipping this is not a huge loss. Icebones makes a rather nice heroine, though. Still, Baxter has written better books than the Mammoth trilogy. (Review based on the Finnish translation.)
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good
9 Jan 2013
By Thomas A. Plummer
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
The third in the Mammoth Trilogy. About as good as the second one, if not slightly better. Reading all three is still worth it if you appreciate prehistoric fiction.
›
Go to Amazon.com to see all 3 reviews
3.7 out of 5 stars
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
